How to Democratize Europe
Harvard University Press (Footprint), $49.99 pb, 224 pp, 9780674988088
How to Democratize Europe by Stéphanie Hennette et al.
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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