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"In recent years the financial and economic crisis of 2008-9 has progressed into an equally important political and democratic crisis of the EU. These troubled times set the framework to re-assess a number of important questions in regard to representative democracy in the EU, such as the normative foundation of political representation, the institutional relationship between representatives and represented, the link between democracy and representation and new arenas and actors. This book examines the diverse avenues through which different sorts of actors express their voices during the Euro crisis and how their various interests are translated into the decision-making process. It offers a state-of-the-art assessment of what political representation means in this context as well as a contribution to the "representative turn" in democratic theory. The authors address three key themes:The main actors and channels of political representation in the EU. Interlocking levels of representation in the EU and the way in which national and supranational representation works. How the European institutional system represents EU citizens through law and administration. Focusing on the importance of representation in the legitimation of democracy, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, European studies, democratic theory, representation studies, civil society and transnational democracy"--

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have been viewed by many as a means for democratising the EU and for overcoming its widely perceived democratic deficit. At the EU-level, it is mostly European umbrella organisations of CSOs that contribute to EU policy-making. These umbrella organisations ground their legitimacy partly on the claim of being representative of large constituencies. Similarly, the European Commission hopes to increase the legitimacy of its proposals through consultations with European umbrellas and has systematically contributed financially to establishing them in the first place. However, we lack information on how well these umbrellas link to their national members and who is represented through them in EU policy-making. Arguing that active involvement by their constituencies is crucial for the legitimacy of European umbrellas, this article addresses the degree to which national organisations link to their respective European umbrellas. Three types of political representation by CSOs are identified, which are exemplified respectively by organisations active in the fields of agricultural, environmental and anti-poverty policy. The analysis explores the ways CSOs contribute to political representation across different governance levels in the EU, and the various types of representation the related practices embody. Findings show that the umbrella of agricultural groups is much more representative of its constituencies than those of environmental and anti-poverty groups, casting a doubt on the latter's capacity to forcefully contribute to the construction of a European polity. Adapted from the source document.

New modes of governance and, in particular, the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), have attracted considerable and often unduly favourable scholarly attention since 2000. Learning from best practice and increased policy effectiveness are often assumed to be the main outcome of the OMC. In contrast, this contribution seeks to assess the democratic legitimacy of the OMC by using a research design that integrates criteria both from the liberal and the deliberative theories of democracy. In analysing the OMC inclusion and its implementation in France, Germany and at the European level, it is shown that the democratic benchmarks that can be derived from either theory are not met. By way of conclusion, the potential consequences of the obvious democratic deficit of the OMC are discussed briefly. Adapted from the source document.

While the Lisbon Treaty embraces representative democracy and political equality, a clear division or hierarchy of competences is absent. The Treaty distinguishes between an electoral, a territorial, a functional and a direct channel of representation, without clarifying the relationship between them. Moreover, the current system of representation has two different normative subjects: the individual and the state. The former points towards an integrated European polity with state-like characteristics, while the latter treats the EU as an advanced intergovernmental organization. The former is primarily enacted through electoral, functional and potentially direct representation, whereas the latter is primarily enacted through territorial representation. We argue that these two kinds of subjectivity relate to political equality in different ways, and that they are mixed within the same channels of representation. The mix of these two forms of subjectivity in the different channels of representation contributes to the blurring of political equality for each of the subjectivities. We disagree with the interpretation of the EU's compound system of representation as being democratic, therefore. Different levels and channels of representation only make for democratic representation if they succeed in realizing the norms of political equality and public control. To realize these norms, however, certain minimum criteria need to be fulfilled, and these are not met in the EU. Adapted from the source document.

In everyday discourse, democracy has become associated with representation. Western-style political systems today are generally categorized as representative democracies, as is the EU. The Treaty of Lisbon declares the EU to be founded on representative democracy, with political equality as its normative foundation. However, contemporary processes of diversification, not least that of European integration, pose severe challenges to the historically contingent link between democracy and representation. Consequently, many scholars indicate a democratic deficit in the EU, which the current debt crisis has accentuated even further. This introduction takes stock of recent theoretical debates and identifies three key issues which it then links to the contributions to this collection: namely, (1) a decisive shift in the understanding of the representative relationship; (2) an increased attention to non-electoral representation, specifically civil society (organizations); and (3) the debate about whether democratic competences are best located at the supranational or the national level. We close by reflecting on potential future avenues for research. Adapted from the source document.