Politics academic wins PADEMIA award for outstanding research on parliamentary democracy in Europe

Dr Sandra Kröger and her co-author Professor Richard Bellamy have been awarded the PADEMIA (the Erasmus Academic Network on Parliamentary Democracy in Europe, 57 participating institutions) 2016 Research award for Outstanding Research on Parliamentary Democracy in Europe in the category journal article. The award goes to research that has contributed substantially to the state of the art of research on Parliamentary Democracy in Europe, and/or has influenced academic and political debates on the topic.

The prize was awarded to an article titled "Beyond a constraining dissensus: The role of national parliaments in domesticating and normalising the politicisation of European integration", Read the article here. In the article, Kröger and Bellamy dispute the thesis that the politicization of EU affairs need be linked to an inexorable tension between European integration and communal self-rule. Instead, they argue that re-connecting the integration process to the domestic processes of normal party competition can bridge that tension. They propose the introduction of parliamentary legislative initiatives (PLIs), for national parliaments. Through PLIs, the non-Eurosceptic parties, especially those in opposition, would be encouraged to promote a distinctive package of EU policies without fearing they would merely advantage Eurosceptic parties and that reflect their core ideological perspectives and so are more congruent with their voters and liable to promote normal party polarization through being distinct from those of the government. As a result, EU integration could be reconnected in a positive way to domestic democratic processes.