Abstract
Transnational partisan networks and constituent power in the EU
Highlights
The constitutional politics of the EU have been intensely debated in recent times
Patberg (2017, p. 210) interprets Habermas’s model as inviting reflection on how the pouvoir constituant mixte can be “brought into the world via a conscious decision taken by the demoi of the member states.”. This shift of emphasis from the counterfactual to the phenomenological is helpful for normative theorizing on the politicization of EU constitutional politics, as it alerts us to the importance of thinking about how normatively desirable forms of constituent power could look in reality
Recent times have seen a spirited debate on constitutional politics in the EU, with many scholars and activists suggesting that the constitutional order of Europe is insufficiently politicized
Summary
The constitutional politics of the EU have been intensely debated in recent times. One widespread perception animating the debate is that the constitutionalization of the EU polity has taken place in a largely apolitical fashion, in a process driven by decisions of courts, notably the Court of Justice of the EU, which are made in isolation from political contestation and popular participation (e.g. Glencross, 2014; Grimm, 2015; Scharpf, 2017). Drawing on the case of Christian Democratic transnationalism, I discuss how partisan networks honed by elected representatives from different European states have provided the backbone for the Christian Democrats’ successful exercise of supra-state constituent power This distinctive mode of cross-border organization and coordination helps us to imagine how today’s citizens can engage as agents of EU constitutional politics. The article’s argument is that there is much to learn from Christian Democratic transnationalism when it comes to the exercise of constituent power in the EU Does it offer a promising general model for organizing and coordinating constitutional agency; as the final sections of the article will show, reflecting on its less attractive features permits us to see what mistakes are to be avoided in future efforts to politicize the EU constitutional order
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