The Struggle for EU Legitimacy Public Contestation, 1950-2005

What would it mean for the EU to be a legitimate body, and where do our ideas on this question come from? In this award winning book, Claudia Schrag Sternberg explores some of the most significant questions surrounding the legitimacy of the European Union. Specifically, 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 never-ending 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', and between actively politicising and deliberately de-politicising the stakes of EU politics. Schrag Sternberg suggests that continuous contestation is not only a defining feature of this history, but a source of legitimacy in its own right.

Claudia Schrag Sternberg is Career Development Fellow in Politics at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, UK. She holds a PhD from Cambridge and an MA from Yale.

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