Short description:

This book examines and investigates the legitimacy of the European Union by acknowledging the importance of variation across actors, institutions, audiences, and context.

Long description:

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: Theoretical framework: The politics of legitimation  1. Introduction  2. Conflating policy, democracy and legitimacy: The case of stakeholder involvement  Part 2: Legitimation by individual citizens and officials  3. Winning minds not hearts? Citizens emotions and European integration  4. Trust lost, trust regained? Trust, legitimacy and multi-level governance  5. Beyond support: Public opinion and EU legitimacy  6. Dublin is dead: A study in delegitimation  Part 3: Legitimation by media and parliaments  7. Whose voice is louder? Politicisation and legitimation in state aid policy  8. Legitimation strategies and national parliaments: The case of anti-corruption  9. Toothless observers or comprehensive players? National parliaments and the European Semester  Part 4: Legitimation by governments, courts and external actors  10. A Two-Way Street: Flexible and Rigid Legitimation across Actors and Policies in the EU  11. Post-Crisis Legitimacy in the EU?s Economic and Monetary Union: The Cases of European Fiscal Policy Coordination and Banking Supervision  12. Normative power Europe? Lessons in legitimacy, conditionality and compliance  Part 5: Theoretical conclusions on legitimation and legitimacy  13. Polycrisis and Resilience in the EU: Covid-19 and avenues for future studies  14. The many actors of direct and indirect legitimacy  15. Concluding Implications for EU Policy, Law and Institutions