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No ode to joy? Reflections on the European Union's legitimacy

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Abstract

This article analyses the European Union's (EU) lack of legitimacy for European citizens. It examines the expanding credibility gap of the EU since the Treaty of Lisbon Irish referendums in 2008 and 2009. Although there are various reasons for the EU's lack of legitimacy, this article proposes the failure of the EU to penetrate the domestic public or social spheres and the dearth of opportunities for citizen participation in EU governance as primary factors. The article then considers risks associated with the current euro crisis, drawing lessons from the largely ignored sociological and political factors that impact on its resolution.

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Notes

  1. ‘Integration’ is used to mean the political objective of increased interstate cooperation with a view to achieving commonly agreed objectives and outcomes, involving some handover of competences by the Member States.

  2. Flash Eurobarometer No. 245, Post-referendum survey in Ireland – Preliminary results, 18 June 2008, European Commission, Q9, p. 8.

  3. Millward Brown IMS, Post Lisbon Treaty Referendum Research Findings September 2008, p. 12.

  4. There is a vast literature on the issue of legitimacy, including Banchoff and Smith (1999), Moravcsik (2002), Lord and Magnette (2004) and Schmitter (2001).

  5. Of itself a difficult concept, by virtue of its shifting and contested nature, the difficulty has been compounded by lack of agreement as to the EU's legitimate objects and widely differing narratives within national political discourses. Suffice it to say for present purposes that legitimacy is a multi-dimensional, highly complex concept that demands to be understood in all its permutations, contextualised, constantly assessed and justified.

  6. Indirect – EU legitimacy depends on the legitimacy of the Union's component states. This mode of legitimacy rests on the principal-agent models articulated by neorationalists such as Pollock and Moravcsik. Pursuant to this approach, the delegation of power to the supranational institutions in itself legitimises the Union (Lord and Magnette, 2004, p. 189). Parliamentary – ‘Policies and institutions are best legitimated by a combination of elected parliamentary bodies and Member States’ with a view to ‘achieving popular sovereignty in a political system that has both a people … and a series of peoples’ (ibid, 185–186). Technocratic – This mode focuses on the technical ability of the institutions ‘to improve the welfare of the overwhelming majority of citizens. It presupposes that a regime capable of meeting the citizens’ needs ‘is grounds for political obligation to it’ (ibid, 186). Procedural – ‘Legitimacy may be positively related to the observance of certain procedures such as transparency, balance of interests, proportionality, legal certainty and consultation of stakeholders’ and results in the expansion of citizen rights and participation (ibid, 187).

  7. The case of Crotty v. An Taoiseach [1987] IR 713 had the effect of ensuring that any major European Treaty involving any appreciable transfer of sovereignty or the creation of new competence for the EU would be sent to referendum rather than being decided upon by parliamentary action.

  8. Flash Eurobarometer No. 245, Post-referendum survey in Ireland – Preliminary results, 18 June 2008, European Commission.

  9. Flash Eurobarometer No. 245, Post-referendum survey in Ireland – Preliminary results, 18 June 2008, European Commission, p. 10.

  10. Eurobarometer 69.2, Spring 2008, National Report Ireland, European Commission. The fieldwork for this survey was conducted between 28 March and 30 April 2008. Reports in this series may be found at http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm.

  11. Millward Brown IMS, Post Lisbon Treaty Referendum Research Findings September 2008, p. 19.

  12. Eurobarometer 69.2, Spring 2008, National Report Ireland, European Commission, p. 12. The 2004 evidence was sourced from Eurobarometer 62 in response to Q15: ‘If you were told tomorrow that the European Union had been scrapped, would you be very sorry about it, indifferent or very relieved?’

  13. Eurobarometer 69.2, Spring 2008, National Report Ireland, European Commission, p. 12; Millward Brown IMS, Post Lisbon Treaty Referendum Research Findings September 2008, p. 4.

  14. Millward Brown IMS, Post Lisbon Treaty Referendum Research Findings September 2008. This research consisted of a national opinion poll of 2101 adults aged 18 years and over conducted between 24 and 31 July 2008 and focus groups held between 28 July and 6 August 2008.

  15. This point may be seen as consistent with claims that the EU is an ‘output democracy’ ‘in which more weight is placed on the persuasive power of results than legitimization through “input” from democratic opinion-shaping processes within the population’ (Darnstädt, 2009).

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Correspondence to Philomena Murray.

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Longo, M., Murray, P. No ode to joy? Reflections on the European Union's legitimacy. Int Polit 48, 667–690 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2011.29

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