For over half a century, the integration of Europe’s national states has contributed to greater peace and prosperity for its peoples. This accomplishment is presently threatened by an unprecedented coincidence of multiple (‘compounded’) crises – environmental, economic, social, political, cultural, Read More …
Regions are not to be found; they have to be made – whether from the adjacent sub-units of national states or, even more ambitiously, from the combination of previously sovereign national states. The emerging European Union is no exception. Its Read More …
No one can foresee the future of the regional integration of Europe. Like all human endeavors, it will eventually suffer from entropy, decline in energy and purpose, and probably settle into some routinised and steady state of existence. The danger, Read More …
In the popular imagination, liberal democracy is closely (if not exclusively) associated with the counting of numbers, whether they are votes in elections at various levels, or decisions in a multitude of representative bodies or, thanks to the invention of Read More …
The practice of what we call democracy today has always been embedded in the shadow of the Athenian polis of long ago. Not only did these ancient Greeks invent the concept by putting dėmos (people) and krάtos (rule) together, but Read More …
The present situation would seem to be particularly favourable for instituting new (and, hopefully, more democratic) reforms in the integration process. The simultaneous or sequential crises of the environment, COVID-19, migration and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine have demonstrated Read More …
It has become virtually routine to describe the European Union as “a system of multilevel governance” (MLG). While this may be apposite as a device for capturing the core of its sui generis nature, it has been less fortunate from Read More …
Legitimacy is an intrinsically “slippery” concept, whether used politically or academically. It is usually observed and measured by a counterfactual, namely, that the citizens of a given polity – democratic or not – seem to act voluntarily and do not Read More …
In these Papers I have been following the advice that Don Fabrizio Gerbéra, principe di Salina, famously gave to his son when he learned of Garibaldi’s invasion of his beloved Sicilia: “If things are going to remain the same here, Read More …
Nothing is more deeply entrenched in the popular perception of liberal democracy than the image of competition between political parties regularly competing for the representation of territorial constituencies in “free and fair” elections. Without these organizations offering alternative conceptions of Read More …
The generic ‘liberal’ formula for democratizing a large-scale polity is well-known. Whether it will be successfully applied in the case of the European Union is anything but well-known … yet. (1) Assume that if one increases the population size and/or Read More …
There is one aspect of contemporary democracy that is rarely admitted (and never extolled) that will be of even greater significance in an eventual alter-liberal, European-scale democracy than it already is in ‘real-existing’ national democracies, namely, its dependence on the Read More …
The European Union already is a polity. It can take decisions that are binding on its member-states and their citizens … admittedly, by a very complex, multi-layered & multi-centric process that does not imitate or even closely resemble that of Read More …
The European Union does not fit easily within the confines of the orthodox neo-realist theory of international relations. Those indoctrinated by it tend to treat European integration as a somewhat more elaborate form of trans-national alliance dominated by the relative Read More …
The process of regional integration in Europe has become a victim of its own success. Its initial strategy was simple: let us remove barriers to exchange between member-states and then regulate the ensuing consequences collectively. This combination of negative and Read More …