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Visions of Europe: emerging challenges for the European project in the aftermath of the 2014 European Parliament elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2016

Arianna Giovannini ,
Laura Polverari  and
Antonella Seddone
Arianna Giovannini
Affiliation:
Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Laura Polverari*
Affiliation:
School of Government and Public Policy, European Policies Research Centre, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Antonella Seddone
Affiliation:
European School of Political and Social Sciences (ESPOL), Université Catholique de Lille, Lille, France Department of Cultures Politics and Society (DCPS), University of Turin, Turin, Italy
*
*E-mail: laura.polverari@strath.ac.uk
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Abstract

The European Union (EU) is facing a profound political crisis of leadership, legitimacy, and purpose. This article provides an analysis of these key dimensions of crisis. It does so by examining the way in which they intersect and their impact on the EU’s institutional architecture, on the politicization of the European public sphere, on the wider dynamics of representation that underpin these processes, and on the political systems and polities of the member states. Drawing on such analysis, we assess the 2014 European Parliament election with reference to the findings of the six articles included in this collection. We conclude with a critical reflection on the competing and often piecemeal ‘visions of Europe’ that emerge from the studies in this volume and the challenges they pose to the EU project.

Keywords

electionsEuropean Unionpolitical partiesvoting behaviourrepresentation
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 46 , Special Issue 2: The 2014 European Parliament Elections: Representation, Euroscepticism, Populism and the Economic Crisis , July 2016 , pp. 115 - 130
Copyright
© Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2016 

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