The Responsive Union National Elections and European Governance

The EU faces a serious crisis of democratic legitimacy. Citizens believe that the EU is run by distant and non-responsive political elites. The EU's perceived lack of responsiveness to ordinary citizens poses a threat to its very survival. This timely book presents a comprehensive account of how EU governments signal responsiveness to the interests of their citizens over European policies. Schneider develops and tests a theoretical framework of the intergovernmental dimension of responsive governance in the European Union, using evidence amassed over nearly ten years of multi-method research. The findings show that European cooperation in the Council of the European Union takes place in the shadow of national elections. Governments signal responsiveness to their publics by taking positions that are in the interests of politically relevant voters at the national level, defending these positions throughout negotiations in the Council, and seeking appropriate policy outcomes at the EU level.

1. Responsive governance in the European Union; 2. The politicization of European cooperation; 3. Signals of responsiveness – a theory; 4. The EU-aware voter; 5. The EU budget: financially trivial, politically substantial; 6. Triumph and agony in the 2007–13 MFF negotiations; 7. The legislative leviathan marionette; 8. The waiting game: aprés les élections, le déluge; 9. When the music stops: the German politics of the Greek; 10. The European republic; References; Index.

Christina J. Schneider is Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair of the EU at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Schneider previously published Conflict, Negotiation and European Union Enlargement (Cambridge, 2009). Her articles appear in the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, International Organization, and International Studies Quarterly, among others.