ABSTRACT
The general purpose of this chapter is to inquire as to what help might be expected from the normative theory of constitutional democracy in the design of political institutions for an integrated Europe. Since this general problem is an impossibly large one for a single paper, I shall narrow down the range of inquiry by considering one particular element in the theory of constitutional democracy, namely, the principle of majority rule, and I shall consider how respect for the principle of majority rule might adequately be reflected in a European constitutional and political order. Indeed, I shall narrow the range of inquiry even further by considering one aspect of this question. I shall focus upon the issue of whether national political identity is so strong as to suggest that the future of Europe ought to be conceived in terms of political cooperation between independent nation-states, for which the idea of popular majoritarianism is an irrelevance, rather than a European union with an identity of its own for which the principle of majority rule would be an essential legitimating element.
