Europe's Autumn? Popular Sovereignty and Economic Crisis in the European Union

This article will be divided into two sections. The first section will give a brief description of the role (or lack thereof) of popular sovereignty in the construction of the European Union. It argues that the basic premise of European integration—that it slowly marches forward, driven by elite consensus and not popular will —became an obstacle rather than a resource in addressing some of the major problems in the EU. The second part of the article examines the recent economic crisis and how the difficult relationship between European integration and popular sovereignty contained both the seeds and the constraints for a resolution.