Defining Democracy in the European Union Assessing the procedure and the substance

The aim of my essay is to look at the organization of democracy at an international level, here within the European Union. By looking at the democratic organisation of the European Constitutional draft and the relation between procedural and substantive directives of democracy therein I am able to see what political behaviour the Constitution expresses in turns of creating a "government for the people" or a "government by the people". By using historical, empirical and international institutionalism as a theoretical framework I also set out to analyse the impact democratic conditions have had on the relation between substantive and procedural directives in the European Constitutional draft. My findings where that the procedural directives are flexible and the substantive directives not specified but left for interpretation and adjustments to conditions and traditions in the member states. I also found that the constitution set out to meet sereral democratic problems described within contemporary democratic thinking i.e. "the power to act". In order to salve contemporary democratic problems there is a need to look at the relation between substantive and procedural approaches to democracy