Vol. 19 · No. 3 · Issue 60 · Fall 2001 · pp. 103-112 (9)

Craig Parsons

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Abstract

Erik Oddvar Eriksen and John Erik Fossum, eds., Democracy in the European Union (New York: Routledge, 2000)

Dusan Sidjanski, The Federal Future of Europe: From the European Community to the European Union (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2000)

These two volumes by European scholars bravely attempt to combine normative discussions of European integration and democracy with social-scientific analysis. Democracy in the European Union argues that the development of "deliberative supranationalism" may lessen the EU's much-maligned "democratic deficit" more than would a more formal parliamentarization of EU institutions. The Federal Future of Europe suggests that federalist ideas have inspired much of the development of the EU, and that stronger federalism promises a still better Europe. I am sympathetic to the normative positions and most basic analytic claims of both books. I also salute the goal of normative-analytic synthesis, though I share the typical American wariness of its potential pitfalls. Unfortunately, both books do more to showcase these pitfalls than anything else.