The New Democratic Federalism For Europe

Proposes an arrangement for government to fulfil the needs of its citizens, such as a model of federalism which includes governmental units established by citizens. The authors suggest that this system should be allowed to develop in Europe to safeguard diversity and encourage decentralization.

The European Union - a supranational system with its own institutional characteristics and autonomy - has a structure and functional logic which are more similar to those of the US than those of European nation states. Yet, by and large, the EU and the US tend to be analyzed more as potential geopolitical and economic rivals or allies than compared as institutional peers. By bringing together some of the most influential political scientists and historians to compare the European and American experiences of federalism, Democracy and Federalism in the European Union and the United States explores the future development, and seeks a better understanding, of a post-national European Union democracy. This book consists of three core parts: how the EU has developed and the implications of the process of European federalization the features of American federalism, tracing the intellectual debate that led to the approval of the American federal constitution in 1787 the future of European Union. This is essential reading for all students of European politics, democracy and international relations.

"Federalism, defined generally as a collection of self-governing regions under a central government, is widely viewed as a sensible choice of polity both for emerging democracies and for established states. But while federal institutions are positively correlated with valued economic, democratic, and justice outcomes, ultimately it is unclear how they are connected and which cause which. In Democratic Federalism, Robert Inman and Daniel Rubinfeld explore how federalism works and propose concrete and proven policy guidance on how federalist policies can be designed and implemented successfully. The authors define federalism according to three parameters: how much federal revenue comes through local governmental bodies, the number of local governmental bodies, and the extent to which these local bodies are represented federally. In applying these parameters to economic concepts and theory, Inman and Rubinfeld explain how federalism works in a way meant to engage scholars in political science and sociology and policymakers drafting regulation in federalist governments. The book offers applicable ideas and comparative case studies on how to assess potential policies and how to actually design federalist institutions from scratch. Both authors have real experience with both, most notably in their work advising the South African government on how to build a federalist democracy. This book will be an essential guide to understanding and applying federalist concepts and principles"--

An excellent new analysis of federalism and the EU that investigates their mutual impact. It shows how scholars of comparative politics increasingly include the EU among their cases when investigating the impact of federalism on key issues such as policy making. The last decade saw a new wave of scholarly publications hit the shores as research on federalism and on the EU came together. These emerging strands of research genuinely enrich our understanding of the EU and its politics. Despite this recent wave, the topic of federalism and the EU is still extremely fruitful. This volume contributes to the continuing debate at a moment in time when the EU is undergoing profound changes. It is structured around four interrelated dimensions: the constitutional/theoretical dimension the institutional vision the party/citizens dimension the policy dimension. This structure allows the reader to consecutively "funnel down" from the more theoretical and abstract levels to the more concrete policy oriented level.

The European Union is facing today the greatest crisis since its creation. Brexit could mean not only the reversal of its steady enlargement—from 6 to 28 member states—but also the beginning of an inexorable decline leading to its disintegration. However, few today seem to recollect that it was precisely the British who were the first to promulgate the political culture which inspired the European Union’s construction—democracy and federalism—and the first who tried to realise, in June 1940, a European federation on the basis of an Anglo-French union. This volume traces the fundamental stages of the European unification process, placing it in relation to the wider process of world economic and political integration. In particular, it analyses the historical significance of the European Revolution, which is identified in the overcoming of the nation state—namely the modern political formula which institutionalised the political division of mankind—and the birth of the first truly international state. The universal historical significance of the European Revolution lies in its exportability—as for the other great European revolutions—and, therefore, its potential as progressively extensible to all the states of the planet. Europe was indeed the first region of the world where the barriers between national states fell, and a post-national political identity emerged, complementary to national political identities. It is, in fact, in the context of the European Union that democracy beyond the borders of the nation state has first been realized, constituting a guiding principle for global governance.

In this book historians, legal scholars and political theorists consider the fate of national democracy in the age of globalization.

The hidden federal features of the European Union help explain the challenges of legitimacy, democracy and freedom that face an unfinished political community. Ideas about federalism and the reality of existing federal states cannot be sharply divided in an analysis of the EU’s multilevel political order, but so far, both scholars and major decision makers have shown interest only in the normal functioning of federal systems: ignoring the dilemma of the federation’s legitimate authority has resulted in an existential crisis for the EU which has become ever more manifest over recent years. This book employs a combination of political philosophy and political science, of federal philosophic ideas and their traces in real federal institutions, in order to achieve the task of understanding the federal features of the EU governance system. The first part of the work focuses on building an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the new meanings attached to familiar notions of democracy, legitimacy and citizenship in the context of a political community like the EU. In the second part the federal features of the EU’s political system are examined in comparison to other current and historical federal perspectives like the US, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Germany. Through an analysis of the hidden federal aspects of the EU and the links between hidden federalism and the EU’s legitimacy crisis, this book reveals the patterns that should be avoided and gives us guidelines that should be followed if the EU is to become democratic and politically united without jeopardising the state character of its members.

Weiler, J.H.H. with Ulrich Haltern and Franz Mayer : European Democracy and its critics - Five uneasy pieces. p. 5-43. Aubert, Jean-François : Commentaire. p. 45-51. Bieber, Roland : Der Beitrag des Europäischen Parlaments zur demokratischen Fundierung der Europäischen Union. p. 53-61. Emmert, Frank : Die institutionelle Reform der Europäischen Union und die künftige Rolle des Europäischen Parlaments. p. 63-74.