Unpacking the epistemic and democratic consequences of designing the EU as a functionalist entity of economic integration, the proposed book contends that democratisation of the EU has not met with success because we have failed to understand how the original EU institutional design may hinder this process. It explores the processes and mechanisms of the reification of political action in the EU in general and European private law in particular, locating them in the operation of the EU's representative and participatory democratic institutions and considering the mechanisms through which political action and debate in the EU, as well as the democratisation efforts, are undercut.

Author Biography

Marija Bartl is Assistant Professor at the Centre for the Study of European Contract Law at the University of Amsterdam.