"This book brings together academics as well as practitioners to give a forward-looking, holistic view of the realities of EU citizen participation across the spectrum of participatory opportunities"--

Europe might appear like a continent pulling itself apart. Ten years of economic and political crises have pitted North versus South, East versus West, citizens versus institutions. And yet, these years have also shown a hidden vitality of Europeans acting across borders, with civil society and social movements showing that alternatives to the status quo already exist. This book is at once a narrative of the experience of activism and a manifesto for change. Through analysing the ways in which neoliberalism, nationalism and borders intertwine, Marsili and Milanese – co-founders of European Alternatives – argue that we are in the middle of a great global transformation, by which we have all become citizens of nowhere. Ultimately, they argue that only by organising in a new transnational political party will the citizens of nowhere be able to struggle effectively for the utopian agency to transform the world.

The contributors to this study address the question of how political theory is relevant to the construction of new Europe and the tie-in issues of citizenship, social justice and political legitimacy. By using techniques of contemporary political theory, the book argues that the emergence of new Europe poses fundamental questions of value and principle and challenges more established political theories in the process.

This unique study presents the results of a cross-national analysis of citizenship and participation among citizens in twelve European democracies. Research on the future and quality of contemporary democracy is usually restricted to focus either on political participation, on particular aspects of citizenship, or on social activities, exclusively. This new book offers the first empirical investigation of the relationships both between social and political involvement, and between ‘small-scale’ and ‘large-scale’ democracies. Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies offers representative samples of the populations in a selection of European countries between 2000-2002, including: Denmark, Germany (East and West), Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The leading contributors provide new theoretical insights and offer a broad conceptualization of citizenship, stimulating the ongoing discussions about the problems and challenges of democratic political systems. This book has a companion volume entitled Social Capital and Associations in European Democracies edited by William A. Maloney and Sigrid Roßteutscher (Routledge, 2006). Both volumes will be of great interest to students and researchers of European politics, comparative politics and sociology.

Based on a new data-set covering 29 European and neighboring countries, this volume shows how, Europeans view and evaluate democracy: what are their conceptions of democracy, how do they assess the quality of democracy in their own country, and to what extent do they consider their country's democracy as legitimate? The study shows that Europeans share a common view of liberal democracy, which is complemented by elements of social and direct democracy, which go beyond the basic liberal model. The level of their demands in terms of democracy varies, however, considerably across Europe and is related to their assessment of democracy: the worse the quality of democracy in a given country, the higher the respective demands on democracy. The analysis of the determinants of democratic views and evaluations shows that they depend on the political and economic (but less on the cultural) context conditions. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Universite libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston.

This book provides an innovative and in-depth analysis of how attitudes towards democracy and political institutions differ across 31 countries in Europe, and how these attitudes have fluctuated over time. After addressing conceptual and measurement issues about the evaluative dimension of political support, the authors develop a unique framework assessing the role of the institutional format, the quality of the political process, macro-economic conditions and inequality to explain trends and differences in political satisfaction and trust. The book further explores how education, employment and electoral status create gaps in political support. Citizens and Democracy in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars in comparative politics, political sociology and public opinion.

In March 2010, Robert Menasse went to Brussels to begin researching a novel about the European Union. Instead of producing a work of fiction, however, his extended stay in Brussels resulted in The European Courier, a text in which he examines the European community from its beginnings in the transnational "Montanunion" (European Coal and Steel Community, 1951) to the current "financial crisis" of the European Union. In the course of his analysis, Menasse focuses on the institutional structures and forces that work to advance--or obstruct--the European project and its goal of a truly postnational European democracy. Given the internal tensions among the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council, Menasse argues that what is frequently misunderstood as a financial crisis is, in fact, a political one. As Menasse claims in The European Courier, "Either the Europe of nation-states will perish or the project of transcending the nation-states will."

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.

The decline of citizen involvement affects two key elements of democratic government: elections and political parties. Activating the Citizen examines the reasons underlying citizen withdrawal and explores and assesses innovative approaches on both sides of the Atlantic to try to counter these phenomena.

As the European Union undergoes a major, self-proclaimed democratic exercise the Conference on the Future of Europe and approaches Treaty change, this volume offers a new model of citizen participation to address Europe's long-standing democracy challenge, and respond to the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Proposed are a set of democratic innovations, ranging from citizens assemblies to regulatory gaming to citizens initiatives and lobbying, which are complementary, not antagonistic, to existing representative democracy across the European continent. These innovations are emerging bottom-up across the continent and getting traction at local, national and EU level in a new era powered by technology. This book brings together academics as well as practitioners to give a forward-looking, holistic view of the realities of EU citizen participation across the spectrum of participatory opportunities. They all converge in arguing that, after many years of proven experimentation, the EU must institutionalize supranational, participative and deliberative, democratic channels to complement representative democracy and each other, and ultimately improve the effectiveness of EU citizen participation. While this institutional approach will not magically treat the EU democratic malaise, it should make the system more intelligible, accessible, and ultimately responsive to citizen demand without necessarily undertaking Treaty reform. The attempt to harness citizen participation to help address the current EU crisis needs the type of multi-faceted approach presented in this book. One that recognises the potential of existing and new democratic mechanisms, and also, importantly, the links between different instruments of citizen participation to improve the overall quality of EU's democratic system.