Comparative Federalism meets the European Union

Tanja A. Boerzel and Madeleine O. Hosli

The Constitutionalism Web-Papers from University of Hamburg, Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science

Abstract: In the current debate on the future European order, the European Union is often described as an emerging federation. The paper claims that federalism is not only useful in deliberating about the future of the European Union. It provides a better understanding of the current structure and functioning of the European system of multilevel governance than most theories of European integration. We combine political and economic perspectives of federalism to analyze the balancing act between effective political representation and efficient policy-making in the European Union. Drawing on the examples of Germany and Switzerland in particular, we argue that the increasing delegation of powers to the central EU level needs to be paralleled by either strengthened patterns of fiscal federalism or an empowered representation of functional interests at the European level. Without such "re-balancing", the current legitimacy problems of EU are likely to get worse.

Keywords: federalism; multilevel governance; multilevel governance; political representation; interest representation; democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-05-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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