From the introduction
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 issue 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.
Journal of European Public Policy 20(3)
Special Issue: The representative turn in EU studies
ARENA contributons
Unequal but democratic? Equality according to Karlsruhe
Christopher Lord & Johannes Pollak
pages 190-205
DOI:10.1080/13501763.2013.746116
No representation without justification? Appraising standards of justification in European Parliament debates
Christopher Lord
pages 243-259
DOI:10.1080/13501763.2013.746123
Mediatized representative politics in the European Union: towards audience democracy?
Asimina Michailidou & Hans-Jörg Trenz
pages 260-277
DOI:10.1080/13501763.2013.746126
The rise of European administrative space: lessons learned
Jarle Trondal & B. Guy Peters
pages 295-307
DOI:10.1080/13501763.2013.746131