The welfare state has been developed first and in its largest extent in North-Western Europe, in Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It is also in these countries where the crisis and financial problems of the welfare state are felt first. The need for restructuring the welfare...

The European Union is a new subject for theories of legitimacy, posing fundamental questions to the established concepts and principles of democratic theory. General compliance and popular acceptance and respect for European law is at stake. The volume addresses the main challenges of the...