European Union -- Europe - Politics and government

Indeks : p.167-179 ; This book deals with two core areas central for the development of the liberal-democratic constitutional state: the extension of the powers of representative assemblies and the institutionalization of human rights. The European Union has made remarkable progress in these two areas over the past half century. It present a theory of constitutionalization as well as comparative analyses and case studies to underscore the claim that the European integration process itself engenders a democratic self-healing mechanism. Whenever a planned step of European integration through transfers of sovereignty threatens to undermine domestic standards of parliamentary control and human rights standards, political elities in the member states regularly moblize to counteract these developments. The proponents of the Union's constitutionalization regularly invoke democratic and human rights norms shared by all members of the European Union to successfully exercise moral pressure on the skeptics of further constitutionalization.