ABSTRACT
This book examines and investigates the legitimacy of the European Union by acknowledging the importance of variation across actors, institutions, audiences, and context.
Case studies reveal how different actors have contributed to the politics of (re)legitimating the European Union in response to multiple recent problems in European integration. The case studies look specifically at stakeholder interests, social groups, officials, judges, the media and other actors external to the Union. With this, the book develops a better understanding of how the politics of legitimating the Union are actor-dependent, context-dependent and problem-dependent.
This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European integration, as well as those interested in legitimacy and democracy beyond the state from a point of view of political science, political sociology and the social sciences more broadly.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|38 pages
Theoretical Framework: The Politics of Legitimation
chapter 2|22 pages
Conflating Policy, Democracy and Legitimacy
part 2|88 pages
Legitimation by Individual Citizens and Officials
chapter 3|20 pages
‘Winning Minds, not Hearts’?
chapter 4|29 pages
Trust Lost, Trust Regained?
chapter 5|21 pages
The Public and EU Legitimacy
part 3|64 pages
Legitimation by Media and Parliaments
chapter 7|23 pages
Whose Voice Is Louder?
chapter 9|20 pages
Toothless Observers or Comprehensive Players?
part 4|71 pages
Legitimation by Governments, Courts and External Actors
chapter 10|27 pages
A Two-Way Street
chapter 11|18 pages
Post-Crisis Legitimacy in the EU's Economic and Monetary Union
chapter 12|24 pages
Legitimacy, Conditionality, and Norm Compliance
part 5|41 pages
Theoretical Conclusions on Legitimation and Legitimacy