Overcoming Membership Fatalism - A Conversation with Tom Theuns on Democratic Theory and His Immanent Critique of the EU

In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, Tom Theuns – author of Protecting Democracy in Europe: Pluralism, Autocracy and the Future of the EU – reflects on EU institutions’ rather narrow conception of democracy and their complicity in democratic backsliding in EU member states; considers how a more coherent and effective response to the latter processes could be designed; critiques the EU’s ‘membership fatalism’ and explains why he has proposed an expulsion mechanism; and positions his approach within political theory and discusses the reception of his ideas also beyond that field.

Tom Theuns is a Senior Assistant Professor of Political Theory and European Politics at the Institute of Political Science, Leiden University.

Protecting Democracy in Europe: Pluralism, Autocracy and the Future of the EU has been published by Hurst Publishers and Oxford University Press (US).