On Wednesday October 15th 2025, the library - together with IDEAs (Inter-Departmental European Advanced Studies) – will organize their third book presentation during lunch break of the new academic year. Professor Wolfram Kaiser will present ...
- Kaiser, W. (2025). Histories of the European Parliament during the Cold War: Transnational Democracy in the Making?, Journal of Modern European History, 23(3), 286-304
Read the article here: Histories of the European Parliament during the Cold War: Transnational Democracy in the Making? - Wolfram Kaiser, 2025
This article introduces and discusses the incipient historiography of the European Parliament. It argues that more systematic research in this direction has strong potential to overcome limitations of research both on European integration and the member states. It can encourage and support those working on national history, or histories, to leave their intellectual ghettos and explore both vertical and horizontal connections in contemporary European history. Researching and writing about the history of the European Parliament can also contribute to a broader interdisciplinary debate about transnational democracy beyond the state, in what is now the highly institutionalized and legally integrated European Union. Focusing on the period of the Cold War, the article sets out a research agenda for addressing the internal politics of the European Parliament, its role in post-war European democracy and polity-building; and its underrated contribution to the Europeanization of policymaking. What could result is, befitting for a pluralistic democratic institution, not one, but several histories of the European Parliament and transnational democracy.
- European Parliament: Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services, Corbett, R., Kaiser, W., Schirmann, S., Warlouzet, L., & Wassenberg, B. (2024). Shaping European integration: the directly elected European Parliament, 1979-1989, Publications Office of the European Union
Read the publication here: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/f24a60af-973b-11ef-a130-01aa75ed71a1
It is now possible, with four decades of hindsight, to look with a degree of historical perspective on the remarkable impact of the European Parliament in the years immediately after the first European elections. Having an elected Parliament among the institutions of the European Community was a step into the unknown. It was also a unique experiment: never had a transnational parliament been directly elected by citizens anywhere in the world. This volume brings together three studies that examine the dynamic of having full-time elected representatives, interacting and networking with the other institutions, governments, national parliaments, sectoral interests and political parties in the Member States, and how that helped create the dynamic for the transformation of the European Communities into the European Union as we now know it. This book, commissioned by the European Parliamentary Research Service, adds considerably to the literature and knowledge of the processes and dynamics that led to the European Parliament becoming such an important part of the European Union, and how it stimulated the development of the latter. It contains an introduction by former MEP Richard Corbett, who was the European Parliament’s co-rapporteur on the Constitutional and Lisbon Treaties, and three substantial studies by: Professor Wolfram Kaiser, on how the EP shaped institutional reform; Professor Laurent Warlouzet, on how it influenced the creation of the single market; Professors Birte Wassenberg and Sylvain Schirmann, on how it developed its own political culture.
The discourse will be followed by a short Q&A-session with the students.
To take part in the book presentation, please register: https://forms.office.com/e/qLHLbxZ93s
Should you have any questions, please contact Carole Kerduel: carole.kerduel@coleurope.eu