RECON - Reconstituting Democracy in Europe

Project: Research project

Project Details

Description (abstract)

The nation state has been the institutional mainstay of modern democracy. Today, this particular political form is challenged and may be transcended by something new. Can the state form as such be reconstituted in Europe, and if so, at what level? Are alternative forms more viable? RECON establishes three models of European democracy, and different options for democratic reconstitution in Europe are delineated and assessed:

* Reframing the EU as a functional regulatory regime and reconstituting democracy at the national level
* Establishing the EU as a multinational federal state
* Developing a post-national Union with an explicit cosmopolitan imprint

RECON assesses which approach to democratization of the multilevel constellation that makes up the EU is most viable. It does so by investigating:

* the EU’s protracted constitutionalisation process
* the institutional complex in Europe
* the role and status of gender within the enlarged Europe
* how civil society and the public sphere legitimizes/delegitimizes the European integration process
* the democratic quality and governing capacity of the Union within tax and fiscal policy and within foreign and security policy
* the enlargement process and the consolidation of democracy in the new member states
* the conditions and prospects of democratization in transnational arrangements

The aim is also to identify strategies through which democracy can be strengthened and propose measures for rectifying institutional and constitutional defects in different policy areas. RECON’s research thus brings forth knowledge of great relevance for the ongoing process of reforming European and national institutions.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date01/01/200731/12/2011

Fields of Science

  • 517 Political science
  • 513 Law