This excellent volume edited by Niklas Bremberg and Ludvig Norman seeks to foster debate about the trade-offs and dilemmas policymakers face in trying to build a democratic European Union (EU) and the challenges that scholars face in trying to assess the EU's democratic credentials. The contributors examine a number of key dilemmas of European democracy – including legitimate representation in the absence of a shared identity (Lord), the potential for citizen participation and deliberative democracy in the EU (Cengiz), the importance of enhancing contestation over EU policies (Lacey), the tensions between market logics and democracy (McNamara), the challenges of sustaining democracy as the territorial scale at which collective action is needed shifts (Keating) and the content of democratic citizenship (Seubert). The erudite contributions deliver on the editors’ aim, which was not to provide a conclusive set of answers to Europe's democratic dilemmas but rather to offer ‘fresh insights into EU democracy [and highlight] new ways to understand the tensions and trade-offs inherent in the application of democratic concepts to the European political order’.

In offering my reflections, I will explore some cross cutting issues concerning the democratic dimensions of Europe's political order that have implications for themes that come up across the contributions to the volume. My modus operandi is, following McNamara's advice in her chapter, to ‘[situate] the EU case within the broader history of comparative political development’ – specifically through comparisons with the development and functioning of democratic polities. Debates over the democratic dilemmas of European Union politics have long suffered from a lack of comparative and historical perspective. The EU is often judged against a kind of platonic ideal of democracy and found wanting. But the EU might be assessed much more sympathetically if compared to the flawed democratic federations of the real world. Likewise, the development of EU democracy is often treated ahistorically and atemporally, without appreciating what a new polity the EU is and how long it took many real, existing democracies to develop crucial democratic institutions. This lack of perspective has led many analysts to misjudge EU democracy – to convict it of crimes it did not commit, while ignoring those of which it is actually guilty.