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How to Democratize Europe by Stéphanie Hennette et al.

by
December 2019, no. 417

How to Democratize Europe by Stéphanie Hennette et al.

Harvard University Press (Footprint), $49.99 pb, 224 pp, 9780674988088

How to Democratize Europe by Stéphanie Hennette et al.

by
December 2019, no. 417

The import of this book is best summed up by pinching one of its section headings: ‘another Europe is possible’. In this other Europe, this better one, the ‘democratic deficit’ that has bedevilled the European project from the outset has finally found a satisfactory resolution. A dream? Not at all. For the authors of this book, it is a ‘realistic utopia’, fully achievable if the right measures are taken. All that is needed is an agreement on a treaty and the dismantling of a Trojan Horse. The proposed Treaty on the Democratization of the Governance of the Euro Area (‘T-Dem’ for short) is the centrepiece of this book and provides the common reference point for its various contributors. In Parts One and Two, the four editors – Stéphanie Hennette, Thomas Piketty, Guillaume Sacriste, and Antoine Vauchez – make their case for the treaty proposal and outline its particulars; in Part Three, a range of responses is given; in Part Four, the editors offer their rejoinders. This turns the book into a deliberative forum whose points of agreement and disagreement on the possibility of democratising Europe repay attention. But first a word about that Trojan Horse.

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