So Special, so Normal: An Analysis of the Voting Dynamics in the EP and their Macro-Level implications on the Democratic Nature of the EU

The key part of my research activity at ARENA (from September 2011 to July 2012) will be devoted to the investigation of the role of the national party delegations (NPDs) in the European Parliament vis-à-vis the respective parliamentary groups and to a th eoretical discussion of the macro-level implications in terms of structuration of a multi-level party system and its compatibility with the idea of supranational democracy. My analysis will move from the macro-level results of my doctoral dissertation and will imply the inclusion of new analytical dimensions and explanatory factors related to it. Following a process of empirical analysis, I will then address a number of macro-level theoretical questions related to the compatibility (and sustainability) of a supranational democratic process with the parliamentary primacy of the national party delegations. Given the evident lack of studies addressing these specific aspects, the idea is that analytical shortcomings in the study of the EP and of the actors wh ich operate in it, might determine conceptual misreading of the dynamics at systemic level, in terms of structuration of the EP party system and of the EU's democratic process.