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dc.contributor.authorLACEY, Joseph
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-02T15:51:03Z
dc.date.available2017-05-02T15:51:03Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.identifier.citationOxford : Oxford University Press, 2017en
dc.identifier.isbn9780198796886
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/46230
dc.description.abstractCentripetal democracy is the idea that legitimate democratic institutions set in motion forms of citizen practice and representative behaviour that serve as powerful drivers of political identity formation. Partisan modes of political representation in the context of multifaceted electoral and direct democratic voting opportunities are emphasised on this model. There is, however, a strain of thought predominant in political theory that doubts the democratic capacities of political systems constituted by multiple public spheres. This view is referred to as the lingua franca thesis on sustainable democratic systems (LFT). Inadequate democratic institutions and acute demands to divide the political system (through devolution or secession), are predicted by this thesis.By combining an original normative democratic theory with a comparative analysis of how Belgium and Switzerland have variously managed to sustain themselves as multilingual democracies, this book identifies the main institutional features of a democratically legitimate European Union and the conditions required to bring it about. Part One presents a novel theory of democratic legitimacy and political identity formation on which subsequent analyses are based. Part Two defines the EU as a demoi-cracy and provides a thorough democratic assessment of this political system. Part Three explains why Belgium has largely succumbed to the centrifugal logic predicted by the LFT, while Switzerland apparently defies this logic. Part Four presents a model of centripetal democracy for the EU, one that would greatly reduce its democratic deficit and ensure that this political system does not succumb to the centrifugal forces expected by the LFT.en
dc.description.tableofcontents-- Part One: Democratic legitimacy and political identity; -- Part Two: Democratic legitimacy and political identity in the EU; -- Part Three: Testing the Lingua Franca thesis - Belgium and Switzerland compared; -- Part Four: Implications for democratic legitimacy and political identity in the EUen
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherOxford University Pressen
dc.relation.isversionofhttp://hdl.handle.net/1814/36377en
dc.titleCentripetal democracy : democratic legitimacy and political identity in Belgium, Switzerland, and the European Unionen
dc.typeBooken
eui.subscribe.skiptrue
dc.description.versionPublished version of EUI PhD thesis, 2015en


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