The EU: Current Issues in Political Theory

The European Union has for a long time presented political theory with a challenge: how to think about classical concepts, such as democracy, representation, obligation, justice, legitimacy and citizenship, in a political context and environment that is uncoupled from the nation-state. This challenge remains pertinent today, indeed more so as trends of fragmentation and differentiation reshape the European integration project in multiple ways. Is political theory any better at addressing questions that are outside the familiar framework of the nation-state? After a flurry of debate in the early 2000s, the pressing demands of the Eurozone crisis pushed the “democratic deficit” debate into the background. As Europe emerges from this crisis, is it time to reignite this debate? If so, what new insights might political theory bring? The EU has changed in recent years, dramatically so, but so has political theory. How might new directions in political theory help us better understand the EU? For instance, how appropriate is the concept of ‘demoi-cracy’ in grasping the multi-level nature of Europe’s political structure, as well as the possibility of democratic self-government without a homogenous ‘demos’? Are ‘epistemic’ theories of democracy of use in grasping the technocratic nature of European policymaking? Does the growing interest in political parties and ‘partisanship’ from within political theory suggest new avenues of research for looking at political party dynamics at the EU level? This section seeks papers and panel sessions for EU studies scholars deploying political theory to study any aspect of the EU, and for political theories taking the EU as their focus.