The unfinished democratization of Europe

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Giuliano Amato, Jacques Ziller

"This book offers a selection of materials that enable a better understanding of some of the most important changes that would be introduced by the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe in the EU legal and political system. It also helps to assess the need for the reforms embedded in the Constitutional Treaty as well as the quality of the formulations agreed upon by the signatory Member States." "The book includes excerpts of the European Convention's work, selected statutory and constitutional provisions of the Member States, and also related passages from pertinent court decisions - from both European courts as well as Member States' constitutional courts. Institutional and doctrinal analyses and relevant excerpts from the Constitutional Treaty itself are also included. Many of these documents directly relate to the provisions of the Constitutional Treaty, while the others, although not directly related, are nevertheless relevant to the debate surrounding it." "The European Constitution will be of great interest to researchers and teachers in the fields of European Law and European politics, and also to policy makers in European affairs."--Jacket.

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Michael Newman

"The Maastricht Treaty reactivated a long-term debate about the future of the European Union. Does it still make sense to talk of the 'sovereign state', or is power now moving upwards in the direction of a political union and downwards to a regional level? What are the implications of such trends for democracy? Controversy over what is happening and what should happen has engulfed the whole European Union. Yet the arguments are often conducted polemically, and both information and concepts are distorted."--BOOK JACKET. "This book counters misrepresentation by both 'Eurosceptics' and 'Euro-enthusiasts' by examining the issues involved in the sovereignty debates. Written in an accessible style, it examines key questions in democracy, drawing on both traditional concepts of political thought and empirical evidence to elucidate the current situation. It offers critical insights into the EU, and some of the arguments frequently used in its defence. But it rejects the nationalist opposition, and presents a case for a democratic EU which would be worthy of support."--BOOK JACKET. "Specialists, students and all those interested in the future of the European Union will find this a challenging critique of conventional analysis, which provides sufficient information for readers to form their own conclusions."--BOOK JACKET.

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Charlotte Bretherton and Michael Mannin

"This book presents a comparative perspective to the study of European politics, focusing on the unique and transformative effect of European Union on the politics of its member states - in effect, the Europeanization of European politics. For no other world region is there a similar intensity of Treaty and other obligations on a set of neighboring states, nor a comparable depth of of supranational governance. The concept of Europeanism as an evaluative theme is used to explore this unique, sui generis, region, its states, and its political transformation in the 21st century."--Publisher's website.

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James Barber

Includes brief biographical and historical information about all the American presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush.