Elections to the European Parliament as a challenge for democracy

Abstract

The main motivation for this book came from a long-term debate – yet recently spirited, due to the forthcoming 2014 elections – on the place of the European Parliament in the democratic life of the European Union. […] The 18 chapters of this volume analyse a wide range of challenges for democracy posed by the EP elections. If we were to make a „word cloud”, it would be dominated by keywords such as democratic deficit, legitimacy crisis, low turnout, second-order elections, alternative voting methods, lack of European public space, non-existence of European parties as well as the need for a uniform electoral procedure.