Representative democracy remains the best available form of government – and the one preferred by most EU citizens, but satisfaction with how it plays out varies greatly across the continent. Among the perceived weaknesses are high levels of political corruption, low resilience to disinformation, and out-of-touch governing elites.Yet there is some hope that direct channels for citizens to express their concerns and preferences, fact-based deliberation in representative bodies and ro...

Following the agreement made by Prime Minister David Cameron with the EU on 18-19 February 2016, the day for the referendum for the UK to remain in or leave the EU is set for 23 June 2016. This will be the most important decision taken by the British people in half a century, and whose consequences will live on for another half century.The first edition of this book, published in March 2015, laid the foundations for any objective assessment of the workings of the EU and the UK’s pl...

The European Union has a democracy problem. The polycrisis that has plagued the EU for years has led to a cacophony of voices calling for fundamental change to the integration project. Yet despite the shock of the Brexit referendum and the electoral upsets caused by nativist parties across the continent, few of the plans for EU reform include concrete proposals to address the perennial democratic deficit.This volume looks at how the relationship between citizens, the state and EU i...

The European Union is traditionally seen as a new and partly separate legal order within the global legal system. At the same time, the EU is an important player in the global governance network. The strong and explicit link between the EU and a large number of other international organisations raises questions concerning the impact of decisions taken by those organisations and of international agreements concluded with those organisations (either by the EU itself or by its Member States) ...

Representative democracy is beset by a crisis of legitimacy across the world, but in Europe this crisis is compounded by the inadequacy of national governments to address citizens’ frustrations and to achieve transnational unity on common issues. How representative are national parliaments in their decision-making on EU matters?This volume investigates the relationship between the democratic institutions of the member states and those of the EU. With a focus on polity rather than p...

The idealism that engendered the European ??Neighbourhood Policy in 2004, later codified in the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, has since been reviewed to adapt to the turbulence that has befallen the EU and its neighbourhood.The ENP is now little more than an elegantly crafted fig leaf that purports to take a soft power approach to the EU’s outer periphery, argues the author, but in effect it inclines more towards Realpolitik.By prioritising security interests over liberal values in ...

For years the European Union has been looked on as a potential model for cosmopolitan governance, and enjoyed considerable influence on the global stage. The EU has a uniquely strong and legally binding mission statement to pursue international relations on a multilateral basis, founded on the progressive development of international law. The political vision was for the EU to export its values of the rule of law and sophisticated governance mechanisms to the international sphere. Globaliz...

By focusing on the wider process of negotiations, this novel volume presents the first systematic analysis of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The authors include outstanding scholars and relevant practitioners from across disciplines and various academic institutions around Europe and North America, but also from outside of the transatlantic basin. While presenting a thorough examination of the process of TTIP negotiations, the volume is divided into four parts w...

The European Union and Human Rights: Analysis, Cases, and Materials maps and critiques the EU's commitment to human rights in both internal and external affairs. The book covers the evolution as well as the current state of the EU's engagement with human rights, focusing, on the internal side, on the role of the EU law in the multi-faceted system of human rights protection and, on the external side, on the EU's efforts to bind its foreign policy to promoting himan rights. This boo...

The 21st century promises to be an "Age of Mobility." More people around the globe, from an ever greater variety of backgrounds, are migrating. As Europe and North America absorb larger and more diverse inflows, many policymakers, commentators, and academics are questioning whether their societies can cope with the influx. Citizenship has emerged as one of the key policy battlegrounds for such concerns. Citizenship lies at the nexus of a host of social policy issues because it provides def...

The essential Pelican introduction to the European Union - its history, its politics, and its role todayFor most of us today, 'Europe' refers to the European Union. At the centre of a seemingly never-ending crisis, the EU remains a black box, closed to public understanding. Is it a state? An empire? Is Europe ruled by Germany or by European bureaucrats? Does a single European economy exist after all these years of economic integration? And should the EU have been a...

Starting from the observation that the European Union now possesses many of the attributes of modern political systems, Hix and Høyland take an innovative approach to analysing, researching and teaching the EU. Using the general theories of political science to understand how the EU works, this text covers each of the main processes in the EU political system - executive, legislative and judicial politics, public opinion, interest groups and democracy, and regulatory, monetary and foreign ...