The Future of the European Union

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The Future of the European Union

The link between internationalization, governance and democracy is a central problem for politics as well as for political science. Even if clear evidence on the nature of this link is not yet available, the literature seems to support the view that internationalization both undermines the capacity for governance and puts into question traditional forms of democracy. Because it could be quite complicated to look at the EU model from a point of classical democratic nation-state, it seems to be reasonable to discuss this problem, not by abstract reasoning, but by focusing on a concrete case. European Union is the best case available, which in recent decades has developed into a new type of political system with enormous consequences on democracy and governance in its member states. Despite repeated attempts for major institutional reforms, this system is likely to persist in its basic structures for the future and is unlikely to develop into a federal state or to disintegrate into a classic international organization. The present state of democracy and governance in the EU is therefore worth to be analyzed, as it is not a mere transitory state. In the following, we will first present a perspective of this political system, which by its choice of concepts and theoretical tools allows for an open view on possible tendencies and problems with respect to democracy and governance in the EU. In the third part, we discuss those features of the EU's political system, which are most important for an understanding of its present state and its prospective development. The fourth part presents two highly stylized, ideal-typical system models, each of which includes differe...

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