The Politicization of European Integration: National Parliaments and the Democratic Disconnect

Discussion of the democratic strengths or, more usually, weaknesses of the EU tends to focus on the degree of democracy that is available or possible at the EU level. Such thinking reflects a certain neo-functionalist logic that has governed much scholarly writing about the relationship between EU integration and democracy. It assumes that enhanced competences for EU institutions potentially create a democratic deficit at the European level that can only be filled by enhancing to an equal degree the democratic features of those same bodies, most especially by increasing the powers of the European Parliament (EP) (Rittberger 2005; 2014). The articles in this special issue take a different tack that challenges that assumption. They focus on what has been called the democratic disconnect between the domestic democratic institutions of the member states and the EU (Lindseth 2010: 234), rather than a democratic deficit in the operation of EU institutions. Consequently, the contributors look at how EU policy-making might be authorized by, and rendered more responsive and accountable to, the citizens of the member states through EU affairs and policy-making figuring more prominently in their domestic democratic processes, with National Parliaments (NPs) playing a key role as mechanisms of democratic reconnection.