Book Discussion of Democracy in Europe: The EU and National Polities online

In a recent discussion on my book, Democracy in Europe: The EU and National Polities, I offered an explanation of the European Union's oft-cited "democratic deficit." In establishing a conceptual framework for her analysis, I distinguished between two types of governance in European states: simple and compound polities. In simple polities, governing authority is channeled through a single authority while in compound polities it is diffused through multiple authorities. France and the United Kingdom, for example, are simple polities while Germany and Italy are compound. The EU is a compound polity because it has a composite (national and European) identity and only possesses state-like sovereignty in some policy areas. Trade policy, for example, is an area where shared sovereignty is accepted. When it comes to the Common Foreign and Security Policy, however, this is not the case.

View the discussion on the Woodrow Wilson Center's YouTube channel.