Political linkage in the European Union

Abstract

The subject of the present paper is the state of linkage between society and politics in the European Union (EU). In this field, political science is a science of democracy: the democratization of the EU is a ubiquitous issue. We therefore begin with a clarification of the notion of a ”democratic deficit” in the European Union. In the second and third parts, we address questions of interest intermediation and opinion formation. In doing so, we try to substantiate the view that the democratic deficit of the EU is caused by a defective process of opinion formation much more than by problems of interest intermediation. We end with a proposal for EU constitutional reform that suggests itself as an appropriate means to more effectively shape the process of opinion formation.