The scarce literature on the European Economic and Social Committee has mostly paid attention to its institutional position and any influence it may have. Contrary to such an output approach this article focuses on the input of the ESC, i.e. its representative role. It argues that the ESC was...

Normative discourses on the European institutional set-up have paid attention to both vertical and horizontal decentralism. Decentralism refers to the respect of the autonomy of lower or smaller decision-making levels, the procedures privileging these decision-making levels (subsidiarity), and...

Both the European institutional discourse and part of the literature on the Open Method of Coordination have argued that the OMC is based on a 'fully decentralised approach'. This paper analysis to what extent decentralised actors such as civil society organisations and regional and local...

Although not in the Rome Treaty, the EEC/EU has gradually developed fundamental rights narratives which constitute a political myth. They have a common basis of foundational claims, placing fundamental rights, retrospectively, as inherent to the EU and based on a common European heritage. Like...

During the last decade, and particularly in the last few years, the concepts of ‘civil dialogue’ and ‘civilsociety’ have found places in the discourses of the European institutions. The role of civil societyorganisations in ‘international governance structures’ has already been...

The EU has over decades gradually developed a material constitutional arrangement, with very limited public input. Since 2001, the Laeken constitutional process which produced the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe has become greatly politicized. This automatically directs our...

A debate has emerged between S. Hix and S. Bartolini on the plausibility and desirability of the politicization of the EU. By this it is usually meant a more important role for mass, competitive, and partisan politics both on the input- (expression of preferences) and on the output-...

This article aims to provide a better understanding as to why different institutional arrangements have the particular structural properties which they are found to have. Drawing on the system theoretical tradition in sociology and on ‘complexity theory’, this paper presents an analytical...

This paper seeks to address problems of accountability in systems of multi-level governance organized around networks, more particularly the system obtaining in the European Union. Discussion of these problems has previously focused on the ‘accountability deficit’ created when gaps are left...