Democratic Deficits in Comparison: Best (and Worst) Practices in European, US and Swiss Merger Regulation

Abstract Policy‐makers and scholars continue to express concerns that the EU suffers from a ‘democratic deficit’. But most democratic deficit arguments are not based on recent empirical research; and seeing the EU as sui generis, they fail to compare the EU to other polities. This article compares the European ‘regulatory state’ with two federal democracies, the United States and Switzerland, in recent merger regulation. Its main finding is that European merger regulation is less democratic than American, but more democratic than Swiss regulation. If the EU suffers from a democratic deficit, it is hardly alone.