Heralds of a Democratic Europe
Representation without Politicization in the European Community, 1948–68
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:15th Aug '24
Should be back in stock very soon
The received wisdom in European integration history is that, long before the EU was plagued by Euroscepticism and other forms of contestation, there was a "permissive consensus" between European elites and the general public, which allowed European integration to move forward. This book looks beyond this presumed consensus, to ask how the members of European institutions themselves perceived and shaped their relations with European citizens during the early years of the European Communities. It does so from the perspective of the people who were responsible for representing citizens at the European level: the members of the European Parliament (which represented European citizens) and the Economic and Social Committee (which represented European organised interests). The book follows the first generation of these European representatives in building their institutions during the 1950s and 1960s. It shows that the European representatives sought to democratise the Communities, within the constraints of the legal and institutional framework that was created with the European treaties. In doing so, the book argues, they created new path dependencies and reaffirmed existing ones, but hardly challenged the status quo – characterised later with concepts like the permissive consensus and the democratic deficit. The book shows, then, that the European representatives’ ambition to democratise the European Communities from within has shaped European integration in ways that are not fully appreciated and understood by historians and political scientists.
Koen van Zon has produced a work of lasting value for historians, political scientists, and anyone interested in the institutional and democratic development of the EC and the EU. His careful research, conceptual clarity, and narrative skill together combine to offer a compelling account of how the EC’s representative institutions were forged in an environment of uncertainty, contestation, and aspiration. Heralds of a Democratic Europe deserves to be widely read and discussed, not least as it tells us much about the roots, results, and remedies of European-level struggles for democratic representation, a topic that is as relevant today as it ever was. -- Mechthild Roos, writing in H-Diplo
Koen van Zon’s highly welcome new book uses European parliamentary history as a window into the European Community’s “in-built tension between its technocratic and representative character”... this excellent book has done much to progress our knowledge about the early European Parliament. Its creative use of repertoires to trace the balance of competing dynamics in European parliamentary history will undoubtedly do much to shape the field moving forward. -- Brian Shaev, Journal of European Integration History
This is a very welcome and highly accomplished study of two institutions neither of which has been looked at in anything like the depth that they deserve, namely the early European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee. As such it teaches much about the early evolution of today’s European Union. -- Piers Ludlow, Professor of International History, London School of Economics
ISBN: 9781788216081
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
240 pages