Attina, Fulvio. (1997) "EU democratisation: From patchy democracy to party democracy". In: UNSPECIFIED, Seattle, WA. (Unpublished)
Abstract
This paper is divided in six sections. Section one briefly reviews the debate on democratisation as the unifying issue of different sub-disciplines of political science. Section two draws attention to an explanatory scheme of the European integration as a process prompted also by democratic aims and bound to democracy. The third section is concerned with the formation of the common political identity of the Europeans as the condition for the operation of common democratic institutions and processes. In section four, the past experience, present situation and possible evolution of party politics in the European Union is examined because the paper argues that political parties are still essential actors of democracy. The fifth section examines and criticises the hypothesis of forwarding the role of the national parliaments to reduce the democratic deficit of Community decision-making. Since the paper argues that parliamentary institutions are important to democracy, the final section proposes to revitalise party politics and integration in the European Union by assigning the European Parliament and the national parliaments the fundamental power of selecting the Commission President in collaboration with the Euro and national parties and the national governments.
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