The European parliament : in need of a theory

Abstract

The legislative organization of the European Parliament (EP) has far-reaching implications for its ability to solve the democratic deficit problem of the European Union (EU). Recognizing that, this article reviews the literature on the EP organization with a view to consolidating existing knowledge and identifying outstanding research gaps. It calls for a new generation of research to go beyond the congressional theoretical literature and develop theoretical accounts of the EP's internal organizational adaptation in response to its rising legislative powers and the development of true EU bicameralism. Generalizing such accounts can add to broader theories of legislative organization, which have hitherto failed to explicitly incorporate the effect of external (institutional) developments in their predictions.