HOME	CV		Academic Publications	Commentaries	Teaching
	Welcome This homepage presents my work as a political theorist based at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. My work focuses on the application of classical insights and conceptions from political theory to contemporary political challenges. In particular, I examine how the internationalization of politics, and European integration in particular, challenges established political theoretical insights. Thus, key themes in my research are the rise and fall of the Constitutional Treaty for the European Union, the EU democratic deficit, inter-parliamentary coordination in international affairs and transnational social justice. I publish on these issues in academic articles as well as in policy reports and commentary pieces. From 2007 onwards much of my research has taken place in the context of RECON – Reconstituting Democracy in Europe – an Integrated Project supported by the European Commission's 6^th Framework Programme for Research. Earlier I worked at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels, the University of Twente and Research voor Beleid in Leiden, a firm for policy-oriented research and consultancy.
Ben Crum Department of Political Science Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1081 1081 HV  Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel +31 20 5986821 Fax +31 20 5986821 B.J.J.Crum@vu.nl www.bencrum.nl
	My book Learning from the EU Constitutional Treaty was recently published by Routledge. This research monograph provides a comprehensive analysis of the making of the Constitutional Treaty and the subsequent Treaty of Lisbon. It uses this analysis to develop an original political theory of democratic constitutionalization beyond the nation-state, which maintains that international organizations can be put on democratic foundations, but only by properly engaging national political structures. For a summary of the main argument, see my post for The EUDO Café.
	Recent Academic Publications
	*	‘The European Parliament as a Driving Force in Informal Institution-Building: The Hard Case of the EP’s Relation with the High Representative for the CFSP’, In Th. Christiansen and C. Neuhold (eds) International Handbook on Informal Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 354-73.
	*	with John E. Fossum, ‘A Democratic Backbone for International Organisations: The Multilevel Parliamentary Field’. In T. Evas, U. Liebert & C. Lord (eds), Multilayered Representation in the European Union, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, pp. 91-105.
	*	‘What Do We Owe the Poles (or the Greeks)? Three Emerging Duties of Transnational Social Justice in the European Union’, RECON Online Working Paper 2011/35.
	*	with Eric Miklin (2011), ‘Inter-Parliamentary Contacts of Members of the European Parliament. Report of a Survey’, RECON Online Working Paper 2011/08.
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	Recent Commentaries and Reviews
	*	‘The EU’s new economic governance lacks democratic legitimacy. The rise and fall of the EU Constitutional Treaty can teach policy-makers how to solve this problem’, LSE-EUROPP-Blog http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/ (1 May 2012).
	*	‘Learning from the EU Constitutional Treaty’, The EUDO Café, debate.eudo.eu (7 March 2012).
	*	‘Een Sociaal en Democratisch Europa’, Contribution to the PvdA/WBS debate Met het gezicht naar de wereld (1 Dec. 2011).
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