The dilemma of democratic representation in a differentiated European Union

Up until the mid-1990s, domestic political constellations were overwhelmingly conducive to closer political integration. As numerous observers have noted, this ‘permissive consensus’, has meanwhile collapsed. European integration has become salient and contested in public opinion and party competition, and public opinion has turned more Eurosceptic. These days, therefore, integration-friendly political elites regularly face a ‘constraining dissensus’ (Hooghe and Marks 2008) in regard to the integration process and EU policies. This circumstance arguably challenges the traditional theories of integration which have neglected public support for the EU, Euroscepticism or the democratic deficit of the EU as a relevant explanatory factor of the integration process. In this context, we first clarify whether there are some forms of differentiated integration which are more legitimate than others to then discuss whether differentiated integration exacerbates, or makes harder to address, the EU’s democratic deficit. To do so, we will look at different forms of integration and what their implications are for democratic representation in the EU.