The Struggle for EU Legitimacy

This award-winning book answers some of the big questions on the legitimacy of the European Union. Specifically, it looks at what it would mean for the EU to be considered a legitimate body and where our ideas on this question come from. The Struggle for EU Legitimacy traces the history of constructions and contestations of the EU's legitimacy, in discourses of the European institutions and in public debate. Through an interpretive, non-quantitative textual analysis of an eclectic range of sources, it examines both long-term patterns in EU-official discourses and their reception in member-state public spheres, specifically in the German and French debates on the Maastricht and Constitutional Draft Treaties. The story told portrays the history of legitimating the EU as a continuous contest over the ends and goals of integration, as well as a balancing act-which was inescapable given the nature of the integration project-between 'bringing the people in' and 'keeping them out'. In addition, it was a balancing act between actively politicizing and deliberately de-politicizing the stakes of EU politics.

 

This book differs from other existing academic monographs and edited volumes in thecrowded field of European Studies in two ways: firstly, by virtue of my focus on thespace in between existing normative (e.g. Kohler-Koch and Rittberger 2007) andexisting empirical accounts of legitimacy (see McLaren 2006). Secondly, thisdiscourse-historical study contributes to an emerging body of empirical studies of therelationship between the EU and its citizen that use diverse methods fromanthropology, intellectual history, discourse analysis, sociology etc. (e.g. White 2011Risse 2010, Fligstein 2008, Foret 2008, Favell 2008, Guiraudon and Favell 2011Checkel and Katzenstein 2009, Delanty and Rumford 2005). The distinguishing ideabehind this book, however, is to break the ground beyond that already ploughed byexisting quantitative content or frame analyses (Medrano 2003) as well as by studiesthat combine quantitative with interpretative approaches (Schneider et al. 2010). Ihope to do so through my method of interpreting dynamics of narrative andargumentative construction (see also Della Sala 2010, Lacroix and Nicolaïdis 2010Lucarelli et al. 2010, Howarth and Torfing 2005), which in my case is essentially theclose reading of texts that represent key discursive patterns. My analysis is inspired bystudies of political ideology or intellectual history (Clark 2007, Barker 2001, Lacroix2008), as well as by accounts of different modes of legitimation and rationalities atplay in the legitimation of the EU (Münch 2010, Lindseth 2010, Tsakatika 2005Walters and Haahr 2005b)-with the difference that I seek to take the governmentalityapproach further to include not only at top-down discourses and practices but also attheir reception and contestation among their addressees. Unlike constructivist accountsof European integration (e.g. Rittberger 2005, Parsons 2003), finally, I study socialconstruction not in the light of how it shaped political outcomes, but with a view tohow it shaped the possibility of claiming legitimacy for the EU and Europeanintegration.Barker, R. (2001) Legitimating Identities: The Self-Preservations of Rulers andSubjects, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Checkel, J. T. and Katzenstein, P. J. (2009) European Identity, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press.Clark, I. (2007) Legitimacy in International Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Conway, M. (2004) 'Theme issue: Political Legitimacy in Mid-twentieth CenturyEurope', Contemporary European History, 13(4).Delanty, G. and Rumford, C. (2005) Rethinking Europe. Social Theory and theImplications of Europeanization, London and New York, Routledge.Della Sala, V., guest editor (2010) 'Special Issue: Political Myth, Mythology and theEuropean Union', Journal of Common Market Studies, 48(1), 1-190.Favell, A. (2008) Eurostars and Eurocities: Free Movement and Mobility in anIntegrating Europe, Malden, MA, Oxford, Blackwell.Fligstein, N. (2008) Euroclash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of EuropeOxford, Oxford University Press.Foret, F. (2008) Légitimer l'Europe. Pouvoir et symbolique à l'ère de la gouvernanceParis, Presses de Sciences Po.Freeden, M. (2005) Liberal languages: Ideological Imaginations and TwentiethCentury Progressive Thought, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.Guiraudon, V. and Favell, A. (2011) Sociology of the European Union, HoundmillsBasingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York, Palgrave Macmillan.Howarth, D. and Torfing, J. (2005) Discourse Theory in European Politics: IdentityPolicy, Governance, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.Kohler-Koch, B. and Rittberger, B. (2007) Debating the Democratic Legitimacy of theEuropean Union, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield.Lacroix, J. (2008) La pensée française à l'épreuve de l'Europe, Paris, Grasset.Lacroix, J. and Nicolaïdis, K. (2010) European Stories: Intellectual Debates onEurope in National Contexts, Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press.Lindseth, P. L. (2010) Power and Legitimacy: Reconciling Europe and the NationState, Oxford University Press.Lucarelli, S., Cerutti, F. and Schmidt, V. A. (2010) Debating Political Identity andLegitimacy in the European Union: Interdisciplinary Views, LondonRoutledge.McLaren, L. M. (2006) Identity, Interests, and Attitudes to European integrationBasingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.Medrano, J. D. (2003) Framing Europe: Attitudes to European Integration inGermany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, Princeton, Princeton UniversityPress.Münch, R. (2010) European Governmentality. The Liberal Drift of MultilevelGovernance, London, Routledge.Nicolaïdis, K. and Howse, R. (eds) (2001) The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levelsof Governance in the United States and the European Union, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press.Parsons, C. (2003) A Certain Idea of Europe, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.Risse, T. (2010) A Community of Europeans? Transnational Identities and PublicSpheres, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.Rittberger, B. (2005) Building Europe's Parliament: Democractic RepresentationBeyond the Nation State, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Schneider, S., Hurrelmann, A., Krell-Laluhova, Z. and Nullmeier, F. (2010)Democracy's Deep Roots. Why the Nation State Remains LegitimateBasingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.Walters, W. and Haahr, J. H. (2005) Governing Europe. 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Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: Approaching Legitimacy through Discursive Meanings Plan of the Book PART I: PEACE, PROSPERITY, AND PROGRESS: EARLY LEGITIMATING NARRATIVES, 1950s-1970s 1. Indispensability 2. The European Common Good 3. Enlightened Social Engineering 4. Legality 5. Conclusion PART II: DEMOCRACY AND OTHER CHALLENGES: EARLY COUNTER-DISCOURSES, 1950s-1970s 6. Democracy 7. Intergovernmentalism 8. Challenges to Functional Problem-Solving 9. Conclusion PART III: A EUROPE CLOSER TO THE CITIZENS: THE PEOPLE'S EUROPE PROJECT OF THE 1980s 10. Citizen Expectations and the Will of the People 11. Communicating with the People and Quantifying Promises 12. Forging Europeans 13. Subjects into Citizens 14. Conclusion PART IV: MAASTRICHT IN THE FRENCH AND GERMAN DEBATES: CRUMBLING PROMISES AND THE QUESTION OF WHO MIGHT RULE 15. EMU and the Crumbling Promise of Prosperity and Peace 16. Whose Rule? Citizens, the Body Politic, and Democracy 17. Conclusion PART V: DISCURSIVE CRISIS MANAGEMENT: STRESSING AND STRETCHING 'DEMOCRACY', 1990s-2000s 18. Democracy as Transparency 19. Subsidiarity as Closeness to the Citizens 20. Governance and Participation 21. Identity- and Demos-Building 22. Conclusion PART VI: A CONSTITUTIONAL MOMENT? THE CONSTITUTION IN THE FRENCH AND GERMAN DEBATES 23. What Kind of Europe Do We Want? The French Debate 24. What is Wrong With the French? The German Debate 25. Comparisons and Conclusions PART VII: THE STORY AND THE LITERATURE: DEMOCRACY, EFFICIENCY, AND THE CONTESTED GAME OF EU POLITICS 26. The Story Assembled 27. Government By and For the People 28. Politicization Versus De-Politicization: EU Politics as a Contested Game Conclusion Conclusion: EU Legitimacy as a Sisyphean Aspiration? References Index