This award-winning book answers some of the big questions on the legitimacy of the European Union. Specifically, it looks at what it would mean for the EU to be considered a legitimate body and where our ideas on this question come from. The Struggle for EU Legitimacy traces the history of constructions and contestations of the EU’s legitimacy, in discourses of the European institutions and in public debate. Through an interpretive, non-quantitative textual analysis of an eclectic range of sources, it examines both long-term patterns in EU-official discourses and their reception in member-state public spheres, specifically in the German and French debates on the Maastricht and Constitutional Draft Treaties. The story told portrays the history of legitimating the EU as a continuous contest over the ends and goals of integration, as well as a balancing act—which was inescapable given the nature of the integration project—between ‘bringing the people in’ and ‘keeping them out’. In addition, it was a balancing act between actively politicizing and deliberately de-politicizing the stakes of EU politics.
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Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: Approaching Legitimacy through Discursive Meanings Plan of the Book PART I: PEACE, PROSPERITY, AND PROGRESS: EARLY LEGITIMATING NARRATIVES, 1950s-1970s 1. Indispensability 2. The European Common Good 3. Enlightened Social Engineering 4. Legality 5. Conclusion PART II: DEMOCRACY AND OTHER CHALLENGES: EARLY COUNTER-DISCOURSES, 1950s-1970s 6. Democracy 7. Intergovernmentalism 8. Challenges to Functional Problem-Solving 9. Conclusion PART III: A EUROPE CLOSER TO THE CITIZENS: THE PEOPLE’S EUROPE PROJECT OF THE 1980s 10. Citizen Expectations and the Will of the People 11. Communicating with the People and Quantifying Promises 12. Forging Europeans 13. Subjects into Citizens 14. Conclusion PART IV: MAASTRICHT IN THE FRENCH AND GERMAN DEBATES: CRUMBLING PROMISES AND THE QUESTION OF WHO MIGHT RULE 15. EMU and the Crumbling Promise of Prosperity and Peace 16. Whose Rule? Citizens, the Body Politic, and Democracy 17. Conclusion PART V: DISCURSIVE CRISIS MANAGEMENT: STRESSING AND STRETCHING ‘DEMOCRACY’, 1990s-2000s 18. Democracy as Transparency 19. Subsidiarity as Closeness to the Citizens 20. Governance and Participation 21. Identity- and Demos-Building 22. Conclusion PART VI: A CONSTITUTIONAL MOMENT? THE CONSTITUTION IN THE FRENCH AND GERMAN DEBATES 23. What Kind of Europe Do We Want? The French Debate 24. What is Wrong With the French? The German Debate 25. Comparisons and Conclusions PART VII: THE STORY AND THE LITERATURE: DEMOCRACY, EFFICIENCY, AND THE CONTESTED GAME OF EU POLITICS 26. The Story Assembled 27. Government By and For the People 28. Politicization Versus De-Politicization: EU Politics as a Contested Game Conclusion Conclusion: EU Legitimacy as a Sisyphean Aspiration? References Index
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Claudia Sternberg is Senior Research Associate at the European Institute, University College London, UK. She holds a Ph D from Cambridge and an MA from Yale, and taught and researched at Oxford for six years before joining University College.
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