The Legitimacy of the European Union After

In 2004 the European Union was enlarged with ten new member states, eight of them previously communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. This enlargement was without precedent in the history of the Union and its predecessors. It is still to be seen how well the institutions as well as the citizens of the Union are able to cope with the consequences of this operation. The authors of this volume evaluate the effect of that enlargement on its legitimacy. They do so by assessing the effects of enlargement on the functioning of the process of political representation in the European Union and on the feelings of the European people towards the Union. This study is mainly based on data from the European Election Study 2004. This study made it for the first time possible to compare the attitudes and behaviour of citizens in the enlargement countries, in particular in Central and Eastern Europe, with their counterparts in the older member states. Some of the findings of this study are counterintuitive. In many respects the effects of enlargements are much smaller than often argued. The party systems of the new member states and the attitudes and behaviour of the voters of individual parties are very compatible with their counterparts in the older member states, making further European integration relatively easy. The same can be said about members of the European Parliament. On the other hand the mutual trust of the people in the older and new member states is extremely low and undermines the legitimacy of the enlarged Union.

Professor Jacques Thomassen is distinguished professor of political science at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He published widely on the political representation, political behaviour and European Union politics. He was a visiting professor at the universities of Michigan, Harvard, Mannheim and the European University Institute.

List of Figures	p. ix
List of Tables	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Contributors	p. xv
Abbreviations	p. xx
The Legitimacy of the European Union after Enlargement	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
The legitimacy of the European Union: A Union of, by, and for the people?	p. 4
Political representation in the European Union	p. 9
The legitimacy of the European Union: The support of the people	p. 17
The European Election Studies project	p. 19
Political Representation in the European Union	p. 21
The European Party System after Enlargement	p. 23
Introduction	p. 23
The development of the EU party system	p. 25
The party systems of Central and Eastern Europe: Do they fit in?	p. 27
Dimensions of party competition in the European Union before enlargement	p. 29
Dimensions of party competition in the European Union after enlargement	p. 33
The competitiveness and cohesion of the European party system after enlargement	p. 35
Conclusion	p. 39
Appendix	p. 42
Light at the End of the Tunnel: Towards a European Public Sphere?	p. 44
Introduction	p. 44
A European public sphere?	p. 45
European elections: The emergence of Europeanized national public spheres?	p. 50
Data: The 2004 European election media study	p. 53
Results	p. 54
Conclusions	p. 62
Towards a European Electorate: One Electorate or Many?	p. 65
Introduction	p. 65
Theoretical expectations	p. 66
Differences in value orientations	p. 69
Determinants of party choice	p. 78
Conclusion: One electorate or many?	p. 86
Appendix	p. 89
Enlargement and the 'Normal' European Parliament	p. 93
Introduction	p. 93
The effects of enlargement on politics in the European Parliament	p. 95
Partisan and national divisions in the European Parliament	p. 99
Ideological structures	p. 103
Conclusion	p. 110
Appendix	p. 112
Political Support for the European Union	p. 115
The Level of Decision Making: The Preferences of the Citizens after Enlargement	p. 117
Introduction	p. 117
The debate on the level of decision making in the EU	p. 118
Citizens' level of governance preferences over time, policy sector, and space	p. 122
Hypotheses on citizens' preferences for level of government	p. 131
The level of decision making: Explaining the preferences of citizens	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 137
Policy Performance and Support for European Integration	p. 142
Introduction	p. 142
Previous research	p. 143
Public perceptions of benefits	p. 146
Explaining diversity and change	p. 153
Analysis	p. 154
Conclusions	p. 158
Appendix 1	p. 161
Appendix 2	p. 162
Trust in Political Institutions	p. 165
Introduction	p. 165
Trust in institutions: Concept, hypotheses, and prior research findings	p. 167
The development of trust in national and European political institutions	p. 169
Trust in national and European political institutions after Eastern enlargement	p. 175
Discussion	p. 182
European Citizenship and Identity after Enlargement	p. 184
Introduction	p. 184
European identity and European citizenship	p. 185
Conceptualizations, operationalizations, and methods	p. 187
An empirical analysis of citizenship and trust	p. 191
In conclusion	p. 203
Legitimacy and Electoral Abstention in European Parliament Elections	p. 208
Introduction	p. 208
Previous research	p. 209
Abstentions and orientations to the EU: A first look	p. 213
EU legitimacy beliefs amidst other factors	p. 216
If not legitimacy beliefs, what then causes low turnout in EP elections?	p. 219
Conclusions and reflections	p. 220
In Conclusion: The Legitimacy of the European Union after Enlargement	p. 225
Introduction	p. 225
The European Union and representative democracy	p. 226
The legitimacy of the European Union: The support of the people	p. 229
The effects of enlargement on the legitimacy of the European Union	p. 232
The quality of political representation in the European Union	p. 234
Party government as a cure for the democratic deficit of the EU?	p. 236
In conclusion	p. 241
References	p. 245
Index	p. 263
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The Legitimacy of the European Union After Enlargement

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