Prilog raspravi o prirodi političkog sistema EU: Evropska unija kao konsenzus demokratija
Contribution to the debate on the nature of the EU political system: the European Union as a consensus democracy

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the nature of the European Union as a consensus-based political system using Arend Lijphart’s theoretical model. The author claims that on Lijphart’s scale between majority and consensus democracy, the European Union is closer to the latter. As a complex, hybrid, unfinished political community, the European Union has been studied within different disciplines (international relations, law and studies of international organizations, political science, sociology...) and different theoretical approaches (rationalist, constructivist, realist, (neo)functionalist...). They explained its nature in different ways and described different aspects of its action. Once it got rid of the insufficient framework of an international entity/organization, and when it became clear that the EU could be seen as a political system, the question of democracy within it was also opened. The proposals for solving the observed democratic deficit were different but mostly based on the nation-state experiences of democracy, including the majority/Westminster democracies. In contrast and taking into account all the specificities of the European Union, the author first analyses in detail and applies all the elements of Lijphart’s model of consensus democracy to the EU. The text explains why this understanding of the EU is superior to competing approaches, not only for assessing the real size of the democratic deficit but also for possible recipes for overcoming it.

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