ABSTRACT
Legitimacy for public institutions is here defined as occurring when the institution's values and actions are corresponding to the expectations of the society it operates within. However, it should be noted that for the states under the Nordic welfare model, it is argued that governmental institutions also attain their legitimacy through a social contract. Legitimacy is achieved through majority decisions in representative assemblies. Legitimacy for European institutions is also an issue being debated, as noted by Schlesinger: The European Union is at the center of current processes of Europeanization, being a contemporary attempt to move from an integrated market to a political formation, potentially, a supranational form of state. The European Economic and Social Committee, while seeing Internet safety as a consumer issue, expressed concern over the efficiency of self-regulation and recommended that the self-regulation be supported by a background of legislation, thus advocating co-regulation rather than self-regulation.
