The European Union as a model for the development of Mercosur? Transnational orders between economic efficiency and political legitimacy

"It is rarely questioned that the European Union can be considered as a model for other world regions. Comparable initiatives elsewhere are m less integrated, and up until now less successful, even if like Mercosur they are based an the European model. Although elements of the democratic rule of law in the EU are more developed than in all comparable projects and organisations, the model character of the EU is highly questionable in terms of democratic theory, and we should ask what scholars concerned with the European Union learn from similar . r experiments in other world regions. Perhaps experience from the Marcos countries with deliberative citizen democracy at e local level, the . double perspective of the still ongoing transition from a 'communalistic' to a 'normative' constitutional regime within nation states, and the simultaneous continental networking of law, economics, and policy could also be instructive for the current EU with its new problems in the realm of democracy and rights. Transcontinental social capital can only build p if the learning processes are opened in both directions." (author's abstract). Contents: Marcos Aurelio Guedes de Oliveira: Political development and comparative issues with EU (9-18); Christian Joerges: What is left of the European Economic Constitution? (19-52); Hauke Brunkhorst: European Democratic Legitimation after the failure of the constitution (53-62); Guilherme Leite Goncalves: "People's" position in regional integration: an alternative to the theory of consensus (63-76); Michelle Ratton Sanchez: Civil society participation in Mercosur: some critical points (77-112); Wenzel Matiaske: The European Union's social capital (113-126); Gerd Grözinger: Between non-regulation and harmonisation: tax policy in the European Union (127-134); Arne Heise: Governance in the European Union: possibilities and problems of supranational policy coordination (135-148); Rainer Nickel: Governance, democracy, and judicial control in the EU - the European Court of Justice and the EU Committees (149-170); Rüdiger Voigt: From the 'Nomos der Erde' to a unified European defense system (171-184); Agustin Gordillo: The future of Latin America: can the EU help? (185-200)