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This chapter addresses the question of what kind of a political agent could bring about a supranational separation of constituent and constituted powers in the EU. Given that an endogenous process of change seems unlikely, it asks which exogenous forces could trigger the establishment of a higher-level constituent power. In particular, the chapter engages with the idea that transnational partisanship could function as a vehicle for constituent power in the EU. It argues that the model of networked constituent power, according to which cross-border deliberation between members of like-minded parties should initiate and guide intergovernmental treaty making at the EU level, is unconvincing because it relies on establishes parties, which must be regarded as quasi-constituted powers. By means of a rational reconstruction of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, the chapter then develops an alternative model of extraordinary partisanship. An extraordinary partisan association ‘co-opts’ regular parliamentary elections to acquire a mandate for a project of constitutional change. Such an organization could enable citizens from various member states to promote an opening up of the EU polity for the exercise of constituent power.

Controls on emergency rule are often sought in legal constraints upheld by courts, or strategies of institutional design that make exceptionalism less appealing. As this chapter argues, what tends to be missing is an account of the political will that could support such initiatives. Challenging the transnational politics of emergency depends, it argues, on strengthened ties of partisanship, both as these may constrain directly the discretion of representatives holding executive authority, and especially as they may influence it indirectly from a position of opposition. The chapter draws and develops on debates concerning the possibility of transnational partisanship, and connects them to a discussion of the structural preconditions of political opposition, examining in particular its temporal aspects.

One legacy of yesterday’s politics of emergency is that the contestation of policy in today’s EU may depend on a willingness to break rules. The concept of disobedience provides both an interpretative frame for analysing such actions and the basis for their evaluation. As a contribution to theories of civil disobedience, the chapter reflects on the kinds of political agent that can lead such actions, showing how one of the distinctive features of the transnational realm is to make possible a form of disobedience waged through institutions by collectives such as parties. The chapter goes on to develop criteria by which to distinguish principled disobedience from illegitimate forms of extra-legality, connecting them to developments on the ground. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the normativity of exceptionalism more generally.

These pages lay out the central argument of the book: that to grasp the workings of the present-day EU, one must examine a mode of rule centred on the logic of emergency. The idea of extreme circumstances that need to be overcome, and that give licence for unconventional governing measures, shapes both contemporary decision-making and the public responses that emerge in parallel. The Introduction outlines the book’s structure, which starts with an exposition of transnational emergency rule as a practice, moves to consider its historical emergence in the EU, goes on to consider its implications for governing authority, and then looks at the critical responses it generates and the normative questions they raise.