A Democratic Audit of the European Union PDF Download

Author: Christopher Lord
Publisher: Palgrave Schol, Print UK
ISBN: 9780333992821
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This path-breaking book adapts to the case of the European Union a method of democracy assessment first used by Stuart Weir and David Beetham in their Democratic Audit of the United Kingdom. The result is to throw down a double challenge to generalizations about a democratic deficit in the European Union. On the one hand, the book shows how standards of democratic performance can vary across Union institutions and decision-making processes. On the other hand, it shows just how far in the EU arena they can vary across different dimensions of democratic governance, including citizenship, rights, participation, representation, responsiveness, transparency and accountability.

Author: C. Lord
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 140394816X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
A Democratic Audit of the European Union provides a systematic assessment of democracy in the EU against clearly defined criteria. Christopher Lord offers a double challenge to generalizations about a democratic deficit in the EU. On the one hand, it shows that standards of democratic performance in the EU may vary across Union institutions and decision-making processes. On the other hand, it shows that they can vary across key dimensions of democratic governance, including citizenship, rights, participation, representation, responsiveness, transparency and accountability.

Author: H. Wallace
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780333946305
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The One Europe or Several? series examines contemporary processes of political, security, economic, social and cultural change across the European continent, as well as issues of convergence/divergence and prospects for integration and fragmentation. Many of the books in the series offer cross-country comparisons; others evaluate the European institutions, in particular the European Union and NATO, in the context of eastern enlargement.

Author: Christopher Lord
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
There has been much talk of the democratic deficit in the European Union, but little understanding of the problems of constructing a transnational democracy. This book seeks to remedy these defects by looking at democratic authorization, and representation of Union power.

Author: Patrick Dunleavy
Publisher: LSE Press
ISBN: 1909890464
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description

Author: Liana Giorgi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113422432X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
An invaluable exploration of the concern that transfers of power to European Union institutions are producing a worrying new form of democratic deficit. While ongoing reforms of these institutions promise to render decision processes at European level more transparent and accountable, these expert authors examine whether there is a European public sphere for citizens and their representatives to discuss, deliberate and evaluate issues of public relevance. They show how the process of European integration has given rise to a new object of study – European society, and why key questions concerning identity, citizenship, democracy, government and institutions are being raised anew and are major political concerns at European and Member State level. With six case studies of EU policy-making and representative institutions, they analyze the intensity of participatory practices in four dimensions: mobilization of societal actors, public contestation and debate, openness of decision-making, and responsiveness of policy makers. This book will be of strong interest to students and researchers of the European Union, European politics, European studies as well as those concerned with more theoretical aspects of governance and the public sphere.

Author: Iain Kearton
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004503021
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
The International IDEA Handbook on Democracy Assessment is a robust and sensitive guide to assessing the quality of democracy and human rights in any country around the world. The Handbook introduces an easy-to-use and universal methodology for assessing the condition of democracy in any country, or its progress in democratisation, that has been developed in a three-year action programme at IDEA, the inter-governmental Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Sweden. The Handbook provides a means to measure systematically the full range of values, institutions and issues relating to modern democracy that is sensitive to the underlying principles and democracy and the differences between democracies themselves. It is therefore both universal in application and capable of responding to particular aspects of any one nation's democratic arrangements. The animating principle of the Handbook is that only citizens of a nation themselves are qualified to assess the quality of their own democratic arrangements. Thus, it provides a self-help guide, which gives academics, lawyers, political practitioners, journalists and interested citizens the tools to assess the state of their democracy, or any key aspects of their democracy. The Handbook is above all a practical working document that draws on the actual experience of assessing democracy in different countries, comparative knowledge and research, and democratic principles and practice. It gives a step-by-step guide to the purposes and methods of democracy assessment; who to involve; how to use the research tools; how to validate the findings; what standards of practice to adopt; and how to present and publicise a finished assessment. It contains extracts from completed assessments, guidance on the use of qualitative and quantitative data, examples of codes of democratic practice and international and regional standards, and a vast list of accessible data sources. The methodology was created by a team of political scientists assembled from all regions of the world by International IDEA and has been tried and tested in a variety of countries, including Bangladesh, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, New Zealand, Peru, South Korea and the United Kingdom. International organisations like the World Bank and UNECA are adapting it for in-country use. The four main authors and editors have been directly involved from the inception of the project - in developing and refining the methodology and participating in and advising on the nine country studies that form the essential practical core of experience on which this invaluable Handbook is based.

Author: S. Kröger
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023035582X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
What does political representation in the European Union look like? This volume argues that the transformation of representation in the EU is characterized by diversification processes, albeit with an uncertain ability to re-configure the link between representation and democracy.

Author: Erik Oddvar Eriksen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136490906
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
While the Lisbon treaty was meant to clarify the European Union’s role and political identity, it remains a challenge for politicians and decision-makers to define. Rethinking Democracy and the European Union looks at both the concept of the EU as a political system, and analyses the meaning and status of democracy in Europe today. This book draws upon leading scholars and practitioners from the RECON project (Reconstituting Democracy in Europe) to frame and analyse a range of institutional realms and policy fields, including constitutionalisation, representative developments, gender politics, civil society and public sphere, identity, and security and globalisation. Drawing together these strands, the book questions whether EU politics require a new theory of democracy, and evaluates the relationship between union and state, and the possible future of post-national democracy. Lucid and accessible, this book is at the forefront of the intellectual debate over the character of the EU, presenting research, theory and analysis on a critical political issue of our time. Rethinking Democracy and the European Union will be of interest to students and scholars of democracy, European Union politics and international relations.