Citizen Participation in Democratic Europe


Book Description

"This book brings together academics as well as practitioners to give a forward-looking, holistic view of the realities of EU citizen participation across the spectrum of participatory opportunities"--




Citizens and Democracy in Europe


Book Description

This book provides an innovative and in-depth analysis of how attitudes towards democracy and political institutions differ across 31 countries in Europe, and how these attitudes have fluctuated over time. After addressing conceptual and measurement issues about the evaluative dimension of political support, the authors develop a unique framework assessing the role of the institutional format, the quality of the political process, macro-economic conditions and inequality to explain trends and differences in political satisfaction and trust. The book further explores how education, employment and electoral status create gaps in political support. Citizens and Democracy in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars in comparative politics, political sociology and public opinion.




Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies


Book Description

This unique study presents the results of a cross-national analysis of citizenship and participation among citizens in twelve European democracies. Research on the future and quality of contemporary democracy is usually restricted to focus either on political participation, on particular aspects of citizenship, or on social activities, exclusively. This new book offers the first empirical investigation of the relationships both between social and political involvement, and between ‘small-scale’ and ‘large-scale’ democracies. Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies offers representative samples of the populations in a selection of European countries between 2000-2002, including: Denmark, Germany (East and West), Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The leading contributors provide new theoretical insights and offer a broad conceptualization of citizenship, stimulating the ongoing discussions about the problems and challenges of democratic political systems. This book has a companion volume entitled Social Capital and Associations in European Democracies edited by William A. Maloney and Sigrid Roßteutscher (Routledge, 2006). Both volumes will be of great interest to students and researchers of European politics, comparative politics and sociology.




Citizenship, Democracy and Justice in the New Europe


Book Description

The contributors to this study address the question of how political theory is relevant to the construction of new Europe and the tie-in issues of citizenship, social justice and political legitimacy. By using techniques of contemporary political theory, the book argues that the emergence of new Europe poses fundamental questions of value and principle and challenges more established political theories in the process.




Citizens in Europe


Book Description

This interdisciplinary collection of essays by a constitutionalist and a political sociologist examines how fragmented societies can be held together by appropriate and effective constitutional arrangements providing for bonds of democratic citizenship. Exploring the political order dilemmas of capitalist democracies, the authors address moral and institutional prerequisites on which the deepening of European integration depends. The desirability of such deepening is currently contested, with the membership of some states (and their compliance with the spirit of the Union's treaties) at stake. The authors do not consider the ‘renationalisation’ of Europe to be a feasible (and even less so a desirable) way out of Europe's current malaise. Yet whatever the way out, charting it calls not just for the vision and imagination of political elites but also for the intellectual efforts of social scientists. With this book, Preuß and Offe contribute to those efforts. Key Features: • original insights on the nature of the European crisis • analysis of how fragmented societies can be held together by appropriate constitutional arrangements • how state sovereignty and federal structures can be merged • account of the moral prerequisites and resources of democratic polities • dilemmas of political order under democratic capitalism




Enraged Citizens, European Peace and Democratic Deficits


Book Description

In March 2010, Robert Menasse went to Brussels to begin researching a novel about the European Union. Instead of producing a work of fiction, however, his extended stay in Brussels resulted in The European Courier, a text in which he examines the European community from its beginnings in the transnational "Montanunion" (European Coal and Steel Community, 1951) to the current "financial crisis" of the European Union. In the course of his analysis, Menasse focuses on the institutional structures and forces that work to advance--or obstruct--the European project and its goal of a truly postnational European democracy. Given the internal tensions among the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council, Menasse argues that what is frequently misunderstood as a financial crisis is, in fact, a political one. As Menasse claims in The European Courier, "Either the Europe of nation-states will perish or the project of transcending the nation-states will."




Direct Democracy in the EU


Book Description

The European Union is grappling with a democracy problem. The succession of crises which have plagued the increasingly executive EU for years, has led to a rising cacophony of voices calling for fundamental change to the integration project. Yet despite the seismic shock of the Brexit referendum and the electoral upsets by nativist parties across the continent, few of the plans for EU reform include concrete proposals to reduce the age-old democratic deficit. This book is concerned with the two-pronged question of how the relationship between citizens, the state and EU institutions has changed, and how direct democratic participation can be improved in a multi-layered Union. As such, this edited volume focuses not on populism per se, nor does it deeply engage with policy and output legitimacy. Rather, the research is concerned with process and polity. Building on the notion of increasing social, economic and political interdependence across borders, this volume asks how a sense of solidarity and European identity can be rescued from the bottom up by politically empowering citizens to ‘take back control’ of their EU.




How Europeans View and Evaluate Democracy


Book Description

Based on a new data-set covering 29 European and neighboring countries, this volume shows how, Europeans view and evaluate democracy: what are their conceptions of democracy, how do they assess the quality of democracy in their own country, and to what extent do they consider their country's democracy as legitimate? The study shows that Europeans share a common view of liberal democracy, which is complemented by elements of social and direct democracy, which go beyond the basic liberal model. The level of their demands in terms of democracy varies, however, considerably across Europe and is related to their assessment of democracy: the worse the quality of democracy in a given country, the higher the respective demands on democracy. The analysis of the determinants of democratic views and evaluations shows that they depend on the political and economic (but less on the cultural) context conditions. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston.




Citizens and the State


Book Description

Fears that representative democracy in western Europe is in crisis are examined on the basis of trends in mass attitudes over the past two or three decades. The evidence suggests not crisis but a changing relationship between citizens and the state. This change poses a democratic transformation in the countries of Western Europe.Series DescriptionThis set of five volumes is an exhaustive study of beliefs in government in post-war Europe. Based upon an extensive collection of survey evidence, the results challenge widely argued theories of mass opinion, and much scholarly writing about citizen attitudes towards government and politics.The series arises from a research project sponsored by the European Science FoundationSeries ISBN: 0-19-961880-1




Activating the Citizen


Book Description

The decline of citizen involvement affects two key elements of democratic government: elections and political parties. Activating the Citizen examines the reasons underlying citizen withdrawal and explores and assesses innovative approaches on both sides of the Atlantic to try to counter these phenomena.