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Parliament as an Arena for Opposition in EU Politics: Wasteland or Conflict Zone?

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The EU between Federal Union and Flexible Integration

Abstract

This chapter analyses the standing of democracy in the EU and, in particular, the extent to which parliaments (national and European) function as arenas for political opposition in European affairs. It identifies two opposed views in previous research. According to the one, political opposition is essentially absent from EU politics. According to the contrary view, lines of conflict between government and opposition are becoming clearer in the politics of the Union. In a systematic examination of plenary debates in five national parliaments and in the EP, the authors test the viability of these hypotheses. They find that vigorous opposition prevails in the parliaments examined, and that EU politics is marked far more by conflict than by consensus. The problem, from a democratic perspective, lies not in any lack of opposition, but rather in the fact that the opposition conducted in the parliaments only reaches the voters to a limited extent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Christer Karlsson, Moa Mårtensson & Thomas Persson

Authors
  1. Christer Karlsson
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  2. Moa Mårtensson
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  3. Thomas Persson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Moa Mårtensson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Law, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Antonina Bakardjieva Engelbrekt

  2. Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Per Ekman

  3. Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Anna Michalski

  4. Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm, Sweden

    Lars Oxelheim

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Karlsson, C., Mårtensson, M., Persson, T. (2023). Parliament as an Arena for Opposition in EU Politics: Wasteland or Conflict Zone?. In: Engelbrekt, A.B., Ekman, P., Michalski, A., Oxelheim, L. (eds) The EU between Federal Union and Flexible Integration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22397-6_4

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