Challenges to Representation and Democracy in a Transnational Space

Over the past decades, the study of democracy and representation has moved beyond the confines of national politics. As decision-making and political mobilization increasingly transcend borders, the European political space in particular has become a key laboratory for understanding the reconfiguration of democratic representation under conditions of interdependence. Yet, the development of these transnational political spaces has given rise to new tensions and asymmetries: while authority is dispersed across multiple levels, mechanisms of representation and accountability remain uneven, fragmented, and contested. Research on these issues has developed along three main lines, focusing on supranational, national, and transnational dimensions. At the supranational level, scholars have investigated European political parties, the European Parliament, and other EU institutions as representative actors, assessing whether and how they contribute to a European democracy. At the national level, studies have examined how domestic political actors, institutions, and publics engage with European integration, how national democracies adapt to Europeanized contexts, and how citizens relate to the EU in their political judgements and preferences. Finally, explicitly transnational approaches have highlighted cross-level linkages and cross-border activities of political, civil society, and socio-economic actors, asking whether such practices foster or hinder the emergence of a European democratic public sphere. These strands of research have largely evolved in parallel. The resulting fragmentation hampers a comprehensive understanding of how representation and democracy are reshaped in Europe’s transnational space. Bringing these perspectives into dialogue is therefore crucial for advancing both theoretical and empirical accounts of contemporary European democracies. Against this background, this section seeks to explore the multiple challenges to representation and democracy in a transnational space, with a focus on Europe as a site of experimentation, contestation, and transformation. We welcome theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions employing quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods that address, among others: • how political representation operates and is contested across national, supranational, and transnational arenas, and what this means for the legitimacy of democratic governance. • how European and national political parties, parliaments, and elites mediate representation in a multi-level political system. • how citizens’ preferences, attitudes, and identities shape and are shaped by transnational modes of representation. • how citizens experience and contest representation beyond the state. • how cross-border networks of political, civic, or socio-economic actors influence party competition, agenda-setting, and accountability. • how transnational cleavages and conflicts, for example between cosmopolitan and nationalist orientations, affect the functioning of representative democracy. • how transnational populism and cross-border alliances among populist actors shape democratic contestation, and how democratic backsliding can be understood from a transnational perspective, including how citizens, governments, and institutions across member states perceive and respond to democratic erosion elsewhere. • how institutional designs and communication logics contribute to or constrain the development of a transnational democratic sphere, and • how comparative and multi-method research can uncover patterns of representation, responsiveness, and democratic legitimacy across contexts and levels. By bringing together scholars working on the supranational, national, and transnational dimensions of representation and democracy, the section aims to promote cross-fertilization between subfields that have often remained separate. It encourages dialogue between institutional, behavioral, and discursive approaches; between normative theory and empirical analysis; and between quantitative and qualitative research traditions in the study of European democracy. This section is organized under the umbrella of the Research Network Democracy and Representation in a Transnational Space (DARTS), which brings together scholars interested in exploring how Europe’s evolving transnational political space challenges and transforms the practices, institutions, and ideals of democratic representation.