The Europeanisation of Parliamentary Democracy (Library of Legislative Studies)

This groundbreaking new study shows how the process of creating an ever closer European Union affects not only the policy-making, but also the politics and polity of the Member States.

Empirical studies on the domestic impact of Europe identified different forms of Europeanization due to alternative mechanisms of internalising the new norms and rules. Although many studies have since focused on the question of how, to what degree, in what direction, at what pace, and at what point of time "Europe matters", the Europeanization of one particular structural determinant of the Member States, namely the system of parliamentary democracy, is still under-researched. This is all the more astonishing as democracy in the EU depends to a large extent on the democratic legitimacy of procedures at the national level.

This volume addresses the key issue of the Europeanisation of parliamentary systems and thus contributes to the ongoing debate on the parliamentary dimension of the European Union. It brings together theoretical concepts as well as cross-national empirical research on the Europeanization of the member states’ parliamentary systems, focussing on different elements such as structures, procedures and decision-making processes as well as on the question how parliamentarians as actors react to these changes and actively shape this Europeanization.

This book was previously published as a special issue of The Journal of Legislative Studies.

Katrin Auel is a University Lecturer in Politics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford. She received her PhD from the FernUniversität Hagen where she worked as a senior researcher. Her research interests include legislative studies and democratic theory, especially the democratic legitimacy of systems of multi-level governance such as the European Union.

Arthur Benz is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hagen. He has published extensively on federalism, governance and public policy, and recently in particular on democracy in systems of multi-level governance.