Theories of federalism can provide a set of assumptions, concepts, and arguments that shed light on many aspects of European integration. Applying the federalism perspective opens up EU scholars to a range of relevant comparative cases that provide analytic leverage and insight on the EU. This perspective also enables EU scholars to draw on and contribute to a well-established literature in comparative politics, thus connecting their findings about the EU to broader academic debates. EU scholars have applied theories of federalism to help explain a wide range of questions about European integration, from general questions about why and how the EU came together as a political system to narrow questions about very specific policy areas, to the causes and consequences of the EU’s recent crises. This chapter discusses the main assumptions, concepts, and methodologies in federalism theories of the EU, and explores how this perspective can shed light on the eurozone crisis and the crisis of democratic backsliding among EU member states.
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2. Federalism and European Integration
R. Daniel Kelemen
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14. Political Parties
Leonardo Morlino
This chapter examines the role of political parties in the processes of democratization, that is, during transition, installation, and consolidation, and the possible phases of democratic crisis. It first considers the definition of a political party within the processes of democratization before discussing how parties can be indispensable for the actual working of democracy. It then explores the actual role of political parties during transitions to democracy and during democratic consolidation, and in different types of crises. It also describes basic patterns of transition to democracy as well as key elements of democratic consolidation, including electoral stabilization and emergence of recurring patterns of party competition. The chapter shows that parties are dominant in the process of transition, even if not always hegemonic.
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18. Populism and Its Challenges to Democracy
Paolo Graziano
Populism has been one of the most researched topics of the past decade. At the end of 2010 a Google Scholar search with the keyword ‘populism’ would register about 100,000 entries. In 2023 the same search would yield over 500,000 results, of which 400,000 would mention Europe. This chapter starts by introducing the concept of populism, presenting and discussing its various definitions. It maps the populist parties active in European countries, illustrates the reasons of their success, examines populist parties in government, and looks in more detail at the cases of Hungary and Poland, where populist parties in power are posing serious threats to democratic rule. The chapter concludes with some remarks on the future of populism and populist parties in European countries
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3. Liberalism and Liberal Internationalism
Patrick Morgan and Alan Collins
This chapter presents the liberalism approach to the theory and practice of international politics. As one of the two classic conceptions, along with realism, of international politics, its chief characteristics are identified and the major liberalist schools of thought are described and briefly examined, particularly with reference to how they overlap with, yet depart in significant ways from, the realist perspective. The concluding sections explore how contemporary liberal internationalism has lost significant power and appeal because the major Western states of the world system are experiencing serious international and domestic difficulties. It closes by indicating that the Western liberal internationalist order will likely lose a sizeable portion of its long-standing international dominance, resulting in a more widely spread global security management arrangement among a larger number of major states.
