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Why have the national governments of EU member states successively endowed the European Parliament with supervisory budgetary, and legislative powers? Rittberger develops a theory of delegation to representative institutions, and demonstrates just how and why the European Parliament has become so powerful

AbstractWhile the Lisbon Treaty has been heralded as victory for the European Parliament, the crisis‐related reforms of the European Union's economic governance regime are commonly being considered to have empowered governments and supranational institutions – such as the Commission and ECB – at the expense of the EP and national parliaments. This article argues that the picture is more nuanced than suggested by the conventional wisdom: legitimacy‐seeking and interinstitutional bargaining arguments, which have been applied effectively to account for the expansion of the EP's power in the past, highlight the conditions under which the EP's struggle for more institutional power is either met with success (as in the case of the single supervisory mechanism) or faces virtually insurmountable obstacles (as in the case of the Troika and the European Stability Mechanism).

Representative democracy has been accorded constitutional status with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The European Parliament (EP) and the history of its empowerment embody this constitutional principle and its gradual institutionalization. To shed light on the EP's empowerment and the institutionalization of the principle of representative democracy in the EU, this article adopts a 'domain of application' approach. Instead of presenting rival theoretical approaches competing for explanatory superiority, the article shows that a more comprehensive picture of the EP's empowerment can be obtained by distinguishing between three types of institutional choice and associated explanations. Institutional creation, institutional change and institutional use are introduced as different types of institutional choice, and it is argued that each type gives primacy to particular explanatory mechanisms and dynamics to analyze the EP's empowerment. Adapted from the source document.