Abstract
The notion of political representation lies at the heart of liberal-democratic thinking.1 Scholars use the term “representation” in a range of ways, but few would disagree that democracy requires the existence of a causal link between the preferences of those who govern and the preferences of those who are governed — that is, what is commonly known as political responsiveness (Achen 1978; Przeworski et al. 1999). The great challenge of democratic engineering, of course, is to design political institutions in such a way as to induce the desired degree of political responsiveness. EU is no exception in this regard.
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© 2011 Karl-Oskar Lindgren and Thomas Persson
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Lindgren, KO., Persson, T. (2011). The Structure of Political Contestation. In: Participatory Governance in the EU. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347793_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230347793_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-31746-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-34779-3
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