Symposium: The EU Constitution: RIP?

On May 29, 2005, French voters went to the polls and drove the penultimate nail into the EU Constitution's coffin. Just three days later, on June 1, 2005, Dutch voters finished the job, killing the EU Constitution and its promises of greater integration and expansion once and for all. Or did they? Has the popular defeat of the EU Constitution so fundamentally changed the political context that policymaking and the trajectory of further integration will be irrevocably affected? Or, rather, will this popular defeat simply encourage political elites to continue integration by circumventing public engagement in the EU policymaking process? Is this death really but the death of the public referenda in EU governance?

Our cadre of international scholars dissect the political, social, and economic forces that swung majority public opinion against the Constitution in both France and the Netherlands, and analyze what the "non" and the "nay" votes mean for their respective countries and for the European Union in PS's April Symposium: The EU Constitution: RIP?

Introduction--The EU and Its "Constitution": Public Opinion, Political Elites, and Their International Context  
Alberta Sbragia

Understanding the Dutch "No": The Euro, the East, and the Elite
Kees Aarts and Henk van der Kolk

Europe's Blues: Theoretical Soul-Searching after the Rejection of the European Constitution
Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks

The "No" Vote in the French and Dutch Referenda on the EU Constitution: A Spillover of Consequences for the Wider Europe
Boyka Stefanova

"YES to the Europe I want; NO to this one." Some Reflections on France's Rejection of the EU Constitution
Henry Milner

The French Referendum: The Not So Simple Act of Saying Nay
Sylvain Brouard and Vincent Tiberj

Appropriating the "No": The French National Front, the Vote on the Constitution, and the "New" April 21
Mabel Berezin

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