Political Theory and the European Constitution

Political Theory and the European Constitution

Author: Lynn Dobson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-08-02

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1134297041

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In June 2003, the Convention on the Future of Europe released what may become the Constitution of the European Union. This timely volume provides one of the first critical assessments of the draft Constitution from the vantage point of political theory. The work combines detailed institutional analysis with normative political theory, bringing theoretical analysis to bear on the pressing issues of institutional design answered - or bypassed - by the draft Constitution. It addresses several themes that play out differently in federal arrangements than in unitary political orders: * European values, especially the legitimate role of alleged common values * liberty and powers - how does the draft Constitution address competing normative preferences? * the European interest: the noble words regarding common European objectives and values are often muddled or conflated, different actors intending quite different things. Several chapters contribute to clarifying the different senses of these terms.


Policy-Making Processes and the European Constitution

Policy-Making Processes and the European Constitution

Author: Thomas König

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-09-27

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1134173350

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This new volume presents a wealth of fresh data documenting and analyzing the different positions taken by governments in the development of the European Constitution. It examines how such decisions have substantial effects on the sovereignty of nation states and on the lives of citizens, independent of the ratification of a constitution. Few efforts have been made to document constitution building in a systematic and comparative manner, including the different steps and stages of this process. This book examines European Constitution-building by tracing the two-level policy formation process from the draft proposal of the European Convention until the Intergovernmental Conference, which finally adopted the document on the Constitution in June 2004. Following a tight comparative framework, it sheds light on reactions to the proposed constitution in the domestic arena of all the actors involved. It includes a chapter on each of the original ten member states and the fifteen accession states, plus key chapters on the European Commission and European Parliament. This book will be of strong interest to scholars and researchers of European Union politics, comparative politics, and policy-making.


Europe's Functional Constitution

Europe's Functional Constitution

Author: Turkuler Isiksel

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 019875907X

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Constitutionalism has become a byword for legitimate government, but is it fated to lose its relevance as constitutional states relinquish power to international institutions? This book evaluates the extent to which constitutionalism, as an empirical idea and normative ideal, can be adapted to institutions beyond the state by surveying the sophisticated legal and political system of the European Union. Having originated in a series of agreements between states, the EU has acquired important constitutional features like judicial review, protections for individual rights, and a hierarchy of norms. Nonetheless, it confounds traditional models of constitutional rule to the extent that its claim to authority rests on the promise of economic prosperity and technocratic competence rather than on the democratic will of citizens. Critically appraising the European Union and its legal system, this book proposes the idea of "functional constitutionalism" to describe this distinctive configuration of public power. Although the EU is the most advanced instance of functional constitutionalism to date, understanding this pragmatic mode of constitutional authority is essential for assessing contemporary international economic governance.


Constitutional Imaginaries

Constitutional Imaginaries

Author: Jiří Přibáň

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-09-30

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1000456099

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This book offers a social theoretical analysis of imaginaries as constituent social forces of positive law and politics. Constitutional imaginaries invite constitutional and political theorists, philosophers and sociologists to rethink the concept of constitution as the normative legal limitation and control of political power. They show that political constitutions include societal forces impossible to contain by legal norms and political institutions. The constitution of society as one polity defined by the unity of topos-ethnos-nomos, that is the unity of territory, people and their laws, informed the rise of modern nations and nationalisms as much as constitutional democratic statehood and its liberal and republican regimes. However, the imaginary of polity as one nation living on a given territory under the constitutional rule of law is challenged by the process of European integration and its imaginaries informed by transnational legal and societal pluralism, administrative governance, economic performativity and democratically mobilised polity. This book discusses the sociology of imagined communities and the philosophy of modern social imaginaries in the context of transnational European constitutionalism and its recent theories, most notably the theory of societal constitutions. It offers a new approach to the legal constitutions as societal power formations evolving at national, European and global levels. The book will be of interest to scholars and students interested in constitutional and European law theory and philosophy as much as interdisciplinary and socio-legal studies of transnational law and society.


A Republican Europe of States

A Republican Europe of States

Author: Richard Bellamy

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-01-31

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1107022282

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Examines the democratic legitimacy of international organisations from a republican perspective, diagnoses the EU as suffering from a democratic disconnect and offers 'demoicracy' as the cure.


The Constitutional Theory of the Federation and the European Union

The Constitutional Theory of the Federation and the European Union

Author: Signe Rehling Larsen

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-02-04

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0198859260

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This book departs from the 'statist' imagination by suggesting the EU is a federal union of states, or a federation. Dedicated to the constitutional theory of federalism, this book gives the strengths and weaknesses of a federation as a political form, its histories, and current perils for the EU.


Constituent Power in the European Union

Constituent Power in the European Union

Author: Markus Patberg

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-01-03

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0198845219

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This book seeks to develop a new approach to EU legitimacy by reformulating the classical notion of constituent power for the context of European integration and challenging the conventional theoretical assumptions regarding the EU's ultimate source of authority.


The Oxford Handbook of the European Union

The Oxford Handbook of the European Union

Author: Erik Jones

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-08-30

Total Pages: 924

ISBN-13: 0199546282

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The Oxford Handbook of the European Union brings together numerous acknowledged specialists in their field to provide a comprehensive and clear assessment of the nature, evolution, workings, and impact of European integration.


Crisis and Renewal in the History of European Political Thought

Crisis and Renewal in the History of European Political Thought

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-08-30

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 9004466878

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This volume advances a better, more historical and contextual, manner to consider not only the present, but also the future of ‘crisis’ and ‘renewal’ as key concepts of our political language as well as fundamental categories of interpretation.


Creating European Citizens

Creating European Citizens

Author: Willem Maas

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780742554863

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Exploring a key aspect of European integration, this clear and thoughtful book considers the remarkable experiment with common rights and citizenship in the EU. Governments around the world traditionally distinguish insiders (citizens) from outsiders (foreigners). Yet over the past half-century, an extensive set of supranational rights has been created in Europe that removes member governments' authority to privilege their own citizens, a hallmark of sovereignty. The culmination of supranational rights, European citizenship not only provides individuals with choices about where to live and work but also forces governments to respect those choices. Explaining this innovation--why states cede their sovereignty and eradicate or redefine the boundaries of the political community by including "foreigners"--Willem Maas analyzes the development of European citizenship within the larger context of the evolution of rights. Imagining more than simply a free trade market, the goal of building a "broader and deeper community among peoples" with a "destiny henceforward shared"--creating European citizens--has informed European integration since its origins. The author argues that its success or failure will not only determine the future of Europe but will also provide lessons for political integration elsewhere.