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This book addresses one of the most relevant challenges to the sustainability of the European Union (EU) as a political project: the deficit of citizens´ support. It identifies missing elements of popular legitimacy and makes proposals for their formal inclusion in a future Treaty reform, while assessing the contribution that the EU may make to global governance by expanding a credible democratic model to other international actors. The contributors offer perspectives from law, political science, and sociology, and the 15 case studies of different aspects of the incipient European demos provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of these pertinent questions. The edited volume provides a truly interdisciplinary study of the citizens´ role in the European political landscape that can serve as a basis for further analyses of the EU´s democratic legitimacy. It will be of use to legal scholars and political scientists interested in the EU´s democratic system, institutional setup and external relations.

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Introduction; Beatriz Pérez de las Heras.- PART I. Institutional mechanisms for citizen involvement and innovative instruments of participatory democracy: an attempt to promote an active citizenship and improve the legislative legitimacy of the EU.- Chapter 1. Institutional instruments for citizen involvement and participation: their impact on the EU´s political processes and institutional legitimacy; Markus Thiel and Oana Petrescu.- Chapter 2. The European citizens´ initiative as democratic legitimacy enhancing tool: towards a broader conceptualization; Karolina Boronska-Hryniewiecka and Elizabeth Monaghan.- Chapter 3. From legislative controllers to policy proponents: the evolving role of national parliaments in the EU multi-level governance; Karolina Boronska-Hryniewiecka.- Chapter 4. European civil society and ´participatory´ governance tools: the impact of the EU fundamental rights agency & platform; Markus Thiel.- PART II. Legal formalization of fundamental rights in the EU: towards a more inclusive and politically responsible Europe?.- Chapter 5. The charter of fundamental rights as a new element of European identity and beyond; Beatriz Pérez de las Heras.- Chapter 6. The accession to the European convention on human rights: the EU integration in a legal and judicial system reserved to states; Oana Petrescu.- Chapter 7. Democratic legitimacy and the court of justice of the European union; Peter Gj›rtler.- PART III. Supranational options to reinforce the political legitimacy of the EU; Chapter 8. The role of culture in the construction of European identity; M¦ Luz Suárez.- Chapter 9. New European economic governance versus European economic government: from market constitutionalism towards a more redistributive constitutionalism; Ainhoa Lasa.- Chapter 10. The transcendental construction of the social dimension of the European union: the challenges of the EU social model through and post crisis; Ainhoa Lasa and Jone Itxaro Elizondo.- Chapter 11. Constructing the European demos through external action? The case of consular assistance to EU citizens; Steffen Bay Rasmussen.- PART IV. Extending the European democratic model to other global and international actors: the EU as an embryo of cosmopolitan polity?.- Chapter 12. European neighbourhood policy: new models of external governance; Aurelia Dercaci.- Chapter 13. The EU as an international actor of peace and security; Antonio Manrique de Luna Barrios.- Chapter 14. The European asylum law, as a model for a more cosmopolitan international asylum law?; Pablo Antonio Fernández.- Chapter 15. Democratizing international trade and investment agreements in the EU; Katerina Yiannibas.- Conclusions

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