Democracy in Europe: The Impact of European Integration

Abstract

Europeanization has brought radical change to the governance practices of all European Union (EU) member states, and these practices have clashed with traditional ideas about democracy. The degree to which EU member states have been affected is largely a matter of institutional fit. The EU, as a compound supranational polity in which governing activity is highly diffused through multiple authorities, has been more disruptive to simple national polities such as Britain and France, in which governing has traditionally been channeled through a single authority, than to compound national polities such as Germany and Italy, in which it has traditionally also been diffused through multiple authorities.The main problem for EU member states, however, is that national leaders have generally failed to develop new ideas and discourses to reflect Europeanized realities. But here too institutional differences matter. Simple polities are better positioned to address changes because their concentration of authority ensures them a more elaborate communicative discourse with the general public, in which they are able to speak with one voice, than are compound national polities, let alone the EU, given the number of potentially authoritative voices with differing messages.Vivien A. Schmidt is Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration at Boston University (vschmidt@bu.edu). Her recent books include Policy Change and Discourse in Europe, coedited with C. Radaelli (2005), and The Futures of European Capitalism (2002). Her forthcoming book Democracy in Europe: The EU and National Polities (2006) explores the impact of the European integration on national democracies. This article is a revision of a paper prepared for presentation to the American Political Science Association National Meetings in Chicago, September 1–5, 2004.

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