How have EU-level actors responded to the increase in salience and contestation across the member states? This volume explores and explains the actors’ strategic responses and emphasises that domestic pressure has triggered both depoliticisation and politicisation. Long gone are the times when EU decisions left citizens indifferent, and when the supranational was largely irrelevant for public opinion and electoral politics across the member states. Instead, a string of existential crises has struck and unsettled the Union over more than a decade. These crises have politicised Europe, tested the endurance of the supranational system to its core, and put EU-level actors under unprecedented pressure. This volume explores how and why EU-level actors respond to the various, sometimes competing, ‘bottom-up’ demands, and challenges the view that domestic contestation necessarily limits EU-level room for manoeuvre. Instead, contributions show that domestic pressure can be perceived as either constraining or enabling, with responses, therefore, ranging from the restrained to the assertive. Driven by the survival of the Union, by the preservation of their own powers, and by different perceptions of domestic demands, actors will choose to politicise or depoliticise decision-making, behaviour, and policy outcomes at the supranational level. The volume concludes that whilst domestic pressure triggers supranational responses, such responses should not be assumed to be restraining; they may equally be empowering including for European integration itself. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

This book examines the seismic impact of Brexit on the British political system, assessing its likely long-term effect in terms of a significantly changed political and constitutional landscape. Starting with the 2015 general election and covering key developments up to "Brexit Day", it shows how Brexit "transformed" British politics. The unprecedented turmoil - two snap elections, three Prime Ministers, the biggest ever defeat for the Government in Parliament, an impressive number of rebellions and reshuffles in Cabinet and repeated requests for a second independence referendum in Scotland - as a result of leaving the EU, calls into question what sort of political system the post-Brexit UK will become. Taking Lijphart's "Westminster model" as its reference, the book assesses the impact of Brexit along three dimensions: elections and parties; executive-legislative relationships; and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Based on a wealth of empirical material, including original interviews with key policymakers and civil servants, it focuses on the "big picture" and analytically maps the direction of travel for the UK political system. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Brexit, British politics, constitutional, political, and contemporary history, elections and political parties, executive politics, and territorial politics as well as more broadly related practitioners and journalists. Chapters one and two of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by the University of Trento and the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

This book examines the seismic impact of Brexit on the British political system, assessing its likely long-term effect in terms of a significantly changed political and constitutional landscape. Starting with the 2015 general election and covering key developments up to "Brexit Day", it shows how Brexit "transformed" British politics. The unprecedented turmoil - two snap elections, three Prime Ministers, the biggest ever defeat for the Government in Parliament, an impressive number of rebellions and reshuffles in Cabinet and repeated requests for a second independence referendum in Scotland - as a result of leaving the EU, calls into question what sort of political system the post-Brexit UK will become. Taking Lijphart's "Westminster model" as its reference, the book assesses the impact of Brexit along three dimensions: elections and parties; executive-legislative relationships; and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Based on a wealth of empirical material, including original interviews with key policymakers and civil servants, it focuses on the "big picture" and analytically maps the direction of travel for the UK political system. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Brexit, British politics, constitutional, political, and contemporary history, elections and political parties, executive politics, and territorial politics as well as more broadly related practitioners and journalists. Chapters one and two of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by the University of Trento and the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

The European Parliament in the Contested Union provides a systematic assessment of the real influence of the European Parliament (EP) in policy-making. Ten years after the coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, which significantly empowered Europe's only directly elected institution, the contributions collected in this volume analyse whether, and under what conditions, the EP has been able to use its new powers and shape decisions. Going beyond formal or normative descriptions of the EP's powers, this book provides an up-to-date and timely empirical assessment of the role of the EP in the European Union, focusing on key cases such as the reforms of the EU's economic governance and asylum policy, the Brexit negotiations and the budget. The book challenges and qualifies the conventional view that the EP has become more influential after Lisbon. It shows that the influence of the EP is conditional on the salience of the negotiated policy for the Member States. When EU legislation touches upon 'core state powers', as well as when national financial resources are at stake, the role of the EP - notwithstanding its formal powers - is more constrained and its influence more limited. This book provides fresh light on the impact of the EP and its role in a more contested and politicised European Union. Bringing together an international team of top scholars in the field and analysing a wealth of new evidence, The European Parliament in the Contested Union challenges conventional explanations on the role of the EP, tracking down empirically its impact on key policies and processes. It will be of great interest to scholars of the European Union, European politics and policy-making. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Integration.