Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Direct Democracy in the EU: The Myth of a Citizens' Union

The European Union is grappling with a democracy problem. The succession of crises which have plagued the increasingly executive EU for years, has led to a rising cacophony of voices calling for fundamental change to the integration project. Yet despite the seismic shock of the Brexit referendum and the electoral upsets by nativist parties across the continent, few of the plans for EU reform include concrete proposals to reduce the age-old democratic deficit. This book is concerned with the two-pronged question of how the relationship between citizens, the state and EU institutions has changed, and how direct democratic participation can be improved in a multi-layered Union. As such, this edited volume focuses not on populism per se, nor does it deeply engage with policy and output legitimacy. Rather, the research is concerned with process and polity. Building on the notion of increasing social, economic and political interdependence across borders, this volume asks how a sense of solidarity and European identity can be rescued from the bottom up by politically empowering citizens to 'take back control' of their EU. About the Author Senior Research Fellow at the CEPS and Professor of EU External Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam Sophia Russack is a Researcher in the Institutions unit at CEPS. Besides her responsibilities at CEPS, Sophia Russack is currently conducting research for a PhD at Maastricht University. Her main research interests lay in the fields of EU institutional architecture and decision-making processes, with a particular focus on the European Commission. She publishes analytical reports and commentaries on topics such as institutional reform ideas, the European Parliament elections, the internal structure of the current Commission, as well as the concept of differentiated European integration. Together with Steven Blockmans she was co-rapporteur in the Task Force Regroup and Reform: Towards a More Responsive and Effective European Union chaired by Danuta Hübner, MEP (2017).