This paper studies the basic characteristics of the political legitimacy of the European Parliament (EP) within the supranational political system of the European Union (EU) and argues that an increase in the political legitimacy of the EP might provide a solution to the legitimacy problem at...

This paper begins with the concept of central bank independence and focuses its argument around one of its major drawbacks the potential absence of accountability by the monetary authority. Then, beyond defining an alternative legal central bank independence index, we analyse the current...

In the second half of the nineties, a number of EU Member States went through intense public controversies over agro-food biotechnology. These controversies occurred almost synchronously, brought about parallel issue-framings and actor-constellations, led national governments to adopt...

Central to all democratic systems is the ability of citizens to choose who holds executive power. To reduce the democratic-deficit in the EU, therefore, the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties give the European Parliament (EP) a vote on the European Council nominee for Commission President. 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...

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...

The European Parliament is one of the most important institutions of the European Union. One of its main tasks is to represent the citizens of the European Union. The representation power of a state depends on its population. Unfortunately the number of inhabitants of states is distinguished by...

Trust in political institutions is one of the key elements which make representative democracies work. Trust creates a connection between citizens and representative political institutions. Democratic governments which enjoy a large degree of trust also tend to have higher degrees of legitimacy...

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...