Political representation and legitimacy in the European Union

Book abstract:

Despite a voluminous theoretical literature dealing with the question of a 'democratic deficit' in the European Union, there has been hardly any systematic empirical investigation of the effectiveness of the system of political representation in the EU, and of the legitimacy beliefs of EU citizens that spring from it. This volume elaborates a conceptual framework for the empirical analysis of the alleged democratic deficit. Four dimensions of legitimacy beliefs are identified and analysed: the European political community; the scope of EU government; the institutions and processes of EU government; and EU policies. Based upon large-scale representative surveys among the mass publics, and different strata of the political elite of the EU and its member-states, the book examines the conditions of political representation in the EU. The results demonstrate, by and large, that legitimacy beliefs of EU citizens are more positive, the less specific the object of identification and evaluation is, and that the process of political representation works fairly well as long as issues other than European Union issues are concerned. These findings are finally discussed in view of familiar strategies for institutional reform of the European Union.

Political Representation and Legitimacy in the European Union is one of two companion volumes that report on the results of the European Representation Study. The other volume is The European Parliament, the National Parliaments, and European Integration, edited by Richard S. Katz and Bernhard Wessels, also published by Oxford University Press.

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