UC Berkeley

From the Treaty on European Union (1992) to the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), democracy became a central element in the constitutionalization of the European Union. Over these twenty-five years, democracy was embedded in the institutions and practices of the European Union in two primary respects. First, following the controversial the ratification of the TEU, a series of treaty reforms were introduced to address the EU’s “democratic deficit.” These reforms culminated in the Lisbon Treaty. Second, in response to the political revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe the European Union made the transfer of democratic forms of rule to non-member states a key component of its membership policy. It is now the case that only democratic countries can be members in the democratic Union. This dissertation investigates the origins of some of the key ideas that led to these transformations.