How trickle-down democracy won the debate and why it didn’t have to

In the face of increased Euroscepticism, pro-European political leaders pursue a strategy of further democratization of EU governance, through initiatives such as Spitzenkandidaten and transnational lists. Doing so, they follow a logic of what we call ‘trickle-down democracy’, which entails the belief that the creation of a traditional representative democratic infrastructure at the European level will trickle down to citizens, increasing both turnout in EU elections and popular support for European integration. However, despite extensive increases in power and authority for the EP, the rise of Euroscepticism has not abated and there is general sense of democratic malaise in the EU. Why then do many EU leaders seem wedded to this ‘trickle-down’ logic of EU democratisation despite these strong counterindications? We hope to convincingly demonstrate that the dominance of the logic of trickle-down democracy is rooted in European integration history. Particularly in the 1970s, when in anticipation of the first direct EP elections the blueprint of European democracy was debated, choices were made which set Europe on the path of trickle-down democracy. At each consecutive juncture that choice was reinstated. Yet, there is no logical reason why this should be the dominant position, nor has it always been so. Rather, it is the result of the self-reinforcing trickle-down logic: failure invites more of the same, rather than a divergence from the chosen path. In this paper, we develop a historical perspective on the present: a genealogy. The idea of trickle-down democracy is tracked in European parliamentary debates. In line with the genealogical method, we focus on key moments in the development of this idea: (i) the "19792" watershed elections and their fallout, (ii) "1992" debate on the Maastricht Treaty, (iii) the "2004" failure of the ‘constitutional treaty’, and (iv) the "2017" debate on the Future of the EU.