This paper argues that indicators of democratic performance should in the first instance be selected for their normative defensibility, rather than their empirical measurability. Yet democratic theory is a hard task-master in setting conditions for the normative derivation of indicators. It at...

In this paper we elaborate on the analytical framework linking the three RECON democracy models to political representation and claims-making during the European elections campaign. Relying on the models of delegated, federal and regional-cosmopolitan democracy as ideal-types we develop a...

In 2002, the European Parliament and the Council concluded an Interinstitutional Agreement (IIA) on access to sensitive documents in the area of security and defence. The agreement gives the Parliament privileged access to documents that are withheld from the public. This article suggests two...

The paper examines a key dimension of democratic control, namely parliamentary control of military missions and presents the findings of an in-depth case study on the EU’s maritime mission Atalanta that was launched to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. The case study finds that none of...

Since its early beginnings, the member states of the European Communities have tried to establish a common foreign policy and at the same time were reluctant to implement it. Only the Maastricht Treaty introduced an institutional framework. However, the emerging Common Foreign and Security...

The role and functioning of the upper chambers of Central and Eastern European (CEE) parliaments have for a long time been a minor topic on the research agenda of legislative specialists. This paper seeks to fill the gap in existing research by aiming to determine the main effects caused by the...

In this paper, we apply a revised version of the discourse quality index (DQI) developed by Steenbergen et al. on European Parliament debates in an attempt to evaluate the democratic quality of representation at the EU level. This updated measurement instrument, after the inclusion of new...

After each European election nearly half of the outgoing Members of the European Parliament re-enter the EP for an additional legislative term. Despite this being a persistent phenomenon, the reasons behind it are still unclear. In this paper I test the hypothesis that the work of an MEP in the...

This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU legitimacy contestation. Support of and opposition to European integration have so far been mainly measured through the positions of political parties or citizens’ attitudes through public opinion...