Towards the first ever supranational election commission? A neofunctionalist analysis of the making of the EU electoral authority

ABSTRACT

This article examines perspectives on the creation of the first supranational electoral management body. Initiatives to establish the EU Electoral Authority directly derive from the proposal of introducing transnational lists for the European Parliament elections. In the academic literature, there is a tendency to overlook what the proposed electoral reform entails for EU policy in the area of electoral governance. To address this issue, neofunctionalism is applied as a means to provide a systemic interpretation of the process of creating the EU Electoral Authority. Insights into the dynamics and countervailing forces driving the establishment of EU electoral governance considerably deepen our understanding of how electoral regulations develop at the level of the EU.

KEYWORDS:

• Electoral management bodies
• electoral authority
• electoral governance
• neofunctionalism
• EU integration

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by RFBR according to the research project No. 19-011-00484.