TY - BOOK ID - 5325016 TI - Democratic deficit ? : institutions and regulation in the European Union, Switzerland and the United States PY - 2002 SN - 0739104519 0739108123 9780739108123 9780739104514 PB - Lanham: Lexington books, DB - UniCat KW - Democracy KW - Démocratie KW - European Union KW - Democracy. KW - Démocratie KW - European Union. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:5325016 AB - Is the European Union democratic? Much has been written claiming that the EU's institutions and policymaking processes are insufficiently accountable to, and representative of, the European electorate. In Democratic Deficit?, Thomas D. Zweifel offers a provocative new treatment of the concept of democracy in the EU. The work provides a rigorous, comparative examination of the European Union and the federal democracies of Switzerland and the United States. Drawing upon established, quantifiable scales of democracy, the study demonstrates that the EU's decision-making and regulatory processes do not show a democratic deficit greater than that of the bureaucracies of most liberal democracies and finds that in certain policy areas liberal democracies may even benefit from adopting EU practices. Supported by two case studies comparing regulatory policymaking in action across the three polities, Zweifel's work will prove to be a valuable and thought-provoking addition to the debate about European governance and the increasingly important role of transnational and supranational organizations ER -