Struggle for EU Legitimacy

Claudia Sternberg is Senior Research Associate at the European Institute, University College London, UK. She holds a PhD from Cambridge and an MA from Yale, and taught and researched at Oxford for six years before joining University College.

'To the much studied and contested subject of EU legitimacy this book brings a rare historical depth and a rich analysis of the shifting discursive strategies used by the different political actors to legitimate the EU's existence and institutions, or to challenge them in turn. It helps put the current crisis of EU legitimacy into a much broader perspective.' David Beetham, Professor Emeritus, University of Leeds, UK and Honorary Fellow, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, UK. With the Eurocrisis and its aftermath, the struggle for legitimacy in EU politics has never been so acute. In this pathbreaking book, Claudia Schrag Sternberg takes us back through 50 years of competing narratives aimed at justifying the European project. By bringing together normative theory and empirical data in novel ways, the book sheds new light on the various ways in which the standards of legitimate political order for the EU have been re-imagined over time and continue to be today. A must read for anyone interested in EU affairs. - Kalypso Nicolaidis, Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford 'There is no shortage of scholarly works on the legitimacy of European institutions. But this book is unlike any other: it does not try to offer one more normative approach, or to review shifts in public perceptions of the EU. Rather, it offers a fine-grained analysis of the legitimation strategies pursued by European institutions and political leaders, and the debates they have given rise to in France and Germany. Because of the new light it sheds, this much-needed contribution will enable readers to get a clearer perspective on an issue that remains central for the future of Europe.' - Renaud Dehousse, Director, Centre d'etudes europeennes [OR: European Studies Centre], Sciences Po, Paris 'The Struggle for EU Legitimacy offers a highly illuminating analysis of the production and reception of political ideas. Through the close empirical study of contested claims to legitimacy, Schrag Sternberg reveals not just the evolution of a core political concept, but the shape, the richness, and also the brittleness, of the intellectual foundations of today's EU. A very accomplished work.' - Jonathan White, Reader in European Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science

• 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