All [European] Politics Is Local: Aggregating and Promoting Sub-National Interests through the European Union’s Committee of the Regions

The complexity of EU governance, combined with a series of economic, membership, and refugee crises had intensified concerns about the Union’s future. Especially strong are calls to bring the Union closer to its citizens and few EU institutions are better suited for this than the Committee of the Regions (CoR). The Committee, through its activities becomes a critical institution for promoting from bellow democracy within the EU, and thus enhancing the Union’s legitimacy. The work of the CoR members at the EU level also has implications for local democratic processes, by affecting the political autonomy and efficacy of local officials. In other words, by linking the sub-national with the supra-national, the CoR is well positioned to fill in the cracks in democracy that emerged due to shifting national authority to the EU level, and the members of the Committee are critical components of this process. This project addresses the role of CoR in aggregating sub-national interests to the EU level, by asking the following questions. Where does the ‘voice’ of the CoR come from? How well does the CoR channel the preferences of its constituent parties (and by extension their voters)? Are some political groups more successful than others in articulating the sub-national preferences and interests of their constituents through the CoR’s opinions? The project utilizes (1) content analysis of the manifestos of transnational political groups; (2) surveys voters; and (3) original surveys of CoR members and sub-national officials.