Compound democracies: why the United States and Europe are becoming similar

This is a major new comparison of the American and European political systems. By deploying a powerful new model to analyse the two systems it draws some challenging conclusions about their increasing similarity. Professor Fabbrini argues that the process of regional integration in Europe over the last 60 years, has significantly reduced the historical differences between the democracies on either side of the Atlantic. The EU and the US are now similar because they represent twodifferent species of the same political genus: the compound democracy. The defining feature of compound democracy is