What is it about?
In the 2000s, the European Union became the first international organization to consider establishing a supranational electoral management body. The idea of the European electoral authority has remained only a draft thus far, but its appearance can be appreciated as a new stage in the development of electoral governance.
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Why is it important?
The establishment of a EU electoral authority would be a very rare historic example of a case when the idea of an electoral institution preceded its appearance in practice. Most of the existing electoral institutions arose organically and as if spontaneously, without preliminary expert work and a meaningful plan implemented by any electoral engineers. Since the idea of the EU electoral authority still exists only in the form of an outline sketch, its actual implementation involves many variations and alternative solutions. The inattention of the expert community to this topic may lead to the fact the implementation of idea is implemented, the choice of the specific design of the new governing body will not be determined by a comprehensive objective analysis, but by random circumstances or the political orientations of its developers.
Perspectives
However, the end result is still not certain, and is largely dependent on both dynamics factors and countervailing forces. The existence of strong countervailing forces has meant that the process of EU electoral authority creation is already the long and tough.
Nikolai Grishin
Saint Petersburg State University
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This page is a summary of: Towards the first ever supranational election commission? A neofunctionalist analysis of the making of the EU electoral authority, European Politics and Society, December 2020, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/23745118.2020.1857642.
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