The Illusion of Accountability in the European Union [Hardcover]

This book examines accountability in the EU from different perspectives and considers whether EU citizens have real opportunities for holding decision-makers accountable. This book critically analyses five arguments which claim there are sufficient means for holding decision-makers to account in the Union.

The main conclusion is that the current institutional set-up and practice of decision-making in the EU is one that merely creates an illusion of accountability.

Using a strict framework focusing on the difference between formal mechanisms and actual opportunities for accountability, this highly coherent volume will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, especially those interested in the democratic foundations of the European political system.

Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9780415480994_oachapter1.pdf

1: Examining the illusion of accountability - Sverker Gustavsson, Christer Karlsson and Thomas Persson  2: Accountability in world politics - Robert O. Keohane  3: Accountability and democracy - Heidrun Abromeit  4: Putting limits on accountability avoidance - Sverker Gustavsson  5: Irretrievable powers and democratic accountability - Hans Agn?  6: EU treaty reform and accountability - Christer Karlsson  7: Delegation to the permanent representation and mechanisms of accountability - Thomas Larue  8: European intelligence cooperation and accountability - Thorsten Wetzling  9: Executive power and accountability in the European Union - Jonas Tallberg  10: The European Central Bl#.