Representation utan rötter

Sammanfattning: The transnational parties in Europe, the Europarties, have often been criticized for their lack of capability to represent the people of Europe. This essay takes its starting point from this criticism and examines to what extent the Europarties carry out the demands of political representation theories. The research presents seven different representation theories and analysis the Europarties from each and every one of the theories. My conclusion is that Europarties do not live up to the demands of one single representation theory, but that they can live up to the demands of a mix of theories. The reasons for my conclusion is both that it is almost impossible for an organization to perfectly carry out the demands of just one theory and also that theories of representation are suited to the national level whereas the Europarties are transnational organizations. These reasons actually weaken the criticism toward Europarties, therefore I suggest that new research is made in the field of representation on a transnational level, because without theories that are suited to a transnational level it becomes hard to carry on the discussion of how Europarties can represent the people of Europe.