Europe in Search of its Legitimacy - Assessing Strategies of Legitimation (original) (raw)

Europe in Search of Legitimacy: Strategies of Legitimation Assessed

International Political Science Review, 2004

In this article, we assess three explicit strategies (based on three logics of political integration) as possible solutions to the European Union's legitimacy problems. The first strategy amounts to a scaling down of the ambitions of the polity-makers in the European Union (EU). The second strategy emphasizes the need to deepen the collective self-understanding of Europeans. These two modes of legitimation figure strongly in the debate on aspects of the EU, but both have become problematic. The third strategy concentrates on the need to readjust and heighten the ambitions of the polity-makers so as to make the EU into a federal multicultural union founded on basic rights and democratic decision-making procedures. Taking stock of the ongoing constitution-making process, the authors ask how robust such an alternative is and how salient it is, as opposed to the other two strategies.

Europe in Search of Legitimacy: Strategies of Legitimation

2004

In this article, we assess three explicit strategies (based on three logics of political integration) as possible solutions to the European Union's legitimacy problems. The first strategy amounts to a scaling down of the ambitions of the polity-makers in the European Union (EU). The second strategy emphasizes the need to deepen the collective self-understanding of Europeans. These two modes of legitimation figure strongly in the debate on aspects of the EU, but both have become problematic. The third strategy concentrates on the need to readjust and heighten the ambitions of the polity-makers so as to make the EU into a federal multicultural union founded on basic rights and democratic decision-making procedures. Taking stock of the ongoing constitution-making process, the authors ask how robust such an alternative is and how salient it is, as opposed to the other two strategies.

The EU and External Legitimacy: The Strategic Illusion of Others

Much scholarly and public commentary has bemoaned the lack of a 'strategic' approach on the part of the EU. This commentary has suggested, for example, that the Russian government's geopolitical moves have revealed a weak European response and the absence of effective strategic thinking. This has been mirrored in wider critiques of the Union’s neighbourhood policy in both North Africa and Eastern Europe. This paper proposes a deconstruction of this external argument which appears to link the Union's external legitimacy with its capacity to pursue a state-centric, state-realist conception of action. Reducing our conceptualization of the Union in this way, effectively to that of the EU as a weak or incompetent state, fails to capture the potential of the Union's ontology and its added value as an international actor. In a state-centric, state-realist conception of 'strategic culture' and 'strategic action' the Union is inevitably a loser. The paper will conclude with a call for a more open and adroit conception of strategy through which the Union can be seen by third countries as contributing on the basis of its own comparative strengths and capacity.

What kind of deficit?: Problems of legitimacy in the European Union

European Journal of Social Theory, 2014

We are still unable to correctly identify the true crisis in Europe: whether it is a question of a lack of demos or cratos; whether it is the democracy, legitimacy, or justice that is inadequate; whether we are facing a problem of intelligibility or of too little politicization. I begin my analysis with three hypotheses: 1) None of the attempts to explain the crisis that focus on a single deficit or weakness seems satisfactory, so the discussion should focus on the way these types of deficiencies are expressed and the extent to which each one of them is involved. For this very reason, it makes no sense to entrust the entire solution to the strengthening of one single criterion (participation, effectiveness, or communication, for example). 2) Polarizing the legitimacy framework around two possibilities (input and output) seems to be a simplification that does not do justice to the intricate way in which the results and the procedures, effectiveness and consent are related in a democracy. 3) The resulting description cannot be less complex than that which it is attempting to describe, so the task of repairing EU legitimacy should be carried out through a sophisticated division of labor (between institutions, criteria, and values). The process of European integration may be one of the most interesting manifestations of a general problem in today's societies: how to reconstruct political authority to confront the new challenges of communal life.

“Is This Really What I Voted For?” – On The Legitimacy Of European Integration

Baltic Journal of Law & Politics, 2013

This paper discusses the problems and dangers of proceeding with European integration without facing a transparent constitutional debate. The crucial issue demanding clarity is whether the current integration in the form of the EU shall be seen within the Unauthenticated Download Date | 4/24/17 3:49 PM BALTIC JOURNAL OF LAW & POLITICS ISSN 2029-0454 VOLUME 6, NUMBER 1 2013 46

Conclusion: EU Legitimacy as a Sisyphean Aspiration?

2013

What can the history I have discussed teach us about the status quo and the future of EU legitimacy? The EU’s legitimacy problem remains unresolved and is likely to stay so. The key lesson perhaps from my historical narrative of EU legitimation is that the problem of political legitimacy never can be resolved permanently. This is, in part, because the real world keeps producing intractable problems that undermine claims to legitimacy. Political authority has to be re-legitimated continuously, and legitimacy claims are continuously re-contested and have to be adapted. The good news is that this is not specific to the EU, but a general feature of political life (see conclusion to Chapter 6). In addition, legitimacy never can be achieved conclusively in that it keeps changing in accordance with what particular actors claim and believe about it, and with their relative power over people’s minds. This book is an experiment in studying EU legitimacy in ways that can accommodate and illumi...

The Quest for Legitimacy in the European Union

The Modern Law Review, 1996

I would like to thank Rachel Craufurd-Smith, Murray Hunt, Gillian More, Jo Shaw and the Modern Low Review readers for their comments and help. 1 2 Jachtenfuchs, 'Theoretical Perspectives on European Governance' (1995) I EW 115, 126. See Weiler, who distinguishes also between 'formal' and 'social' legitimacy, in 'After Maastricht: Community Legitimacy in Post-I992 Europe' in Adam (ed), Singular Europe: Economy and Polity ofrhe European Community afer I992 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992) p 1 I. The most important official reports are: (1) Report of the Council on the Functioning of the Treaty on European Union ('Council Report'), Brussels, 1995; (2) Commission Report on the Operation of the Treaty on European Union ('Commission Report'), SEC(95) 73 1 final; (3) European Parliament Resolution on the Function of the Treaty on European Union with a view to the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference-Implementation and Development of the Union ('Parliament Resolution'), A4-01OU95; (4) Report of the