10 October, 2024 | Andreas Grimmel, Stefan Wallaschek, Susanne My Giang, Monika Eigmüller and Markus Kotzur

How citizens perceive the legitimacy of the EU and its member states in times of crisis

The EU has experienced several crises in the past two decades. Much has been analysed and criticised, but what do citizens actually think about the EU and its legitimacy vis-à-vis crisis politics?

In order to understand the perception of legitimacy of the EU and its member states in times of crisis, in the REGROUP research paper “Perceptions of EU and member state legitimacy in times of crisis: a citizens’ perspective” we analysed letters to the editor on two major crises, namely the Eurozone crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study addresses the following double research question: (a) How do citizens perceive the legitimacy of national executives and EU institutions’ actions in times of crisis; and (b) how far do legitimacy perspectives differ in ordinary times and times of crisis?

To answer these questions, the paper examines letters to the editor published by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), between 2010 and 2021. In particular, we evaluate the general tone (positive/negative) of the letters, and whether they contain a focus on the political or policy dimension.

Mechanisms of political legitimacy

We focus on two central conceptualisations of legitimacy: bottom-up legitimacy and output legitimacy. Bottom-up legitimacy is understood in our study generally as the possibilities of civic participation in and approval of political decision-making processes and as an expression of the “principle of popular sovereignty, and its assumption that the only valid source of political authority lies with the people” (Beetham and Lord 2013, p. 6).

In contrast, the concept of output legitimacy focuses on the possibilities of legitimisation through effective and problem-appropriate policy solutions by decisions of politically legitimized actors aiming at “effectively promot(ing) the common welfare of the constituency in question” (Scharpf 2002, p. 6; Strebel 2019, p. 489; Schmidt 2020).

We assume that both legitimacy mechanisms are capable of creating trust because political actors empowered by the people through their participative input will become particularly credible if they are aware of and respond to the people’s ideas, needs, concerns, anxieties, expectations, hopes and fears.

Perceptions of legitimacy in times of crisis

A first key finding of the study is that the perception of either EU or member state legitimacy differs significantly in the two crisis situations examined (Eurozone and Covid-19).

Futhermore, in some cases, the perception was limited to policy decisions (policy dimension), while in others, responses even questioned or supported the social and political order (polity dimension) at the national or EU level. Although policy questions dominated the discourse in the letters, the polity dimension is also often highlighted by citizens. Crises often lead citizens to reflect on the polity dimension, including questions of legitimacy, the quality of the political system and how it should address challenges.

A key difference between the pandemic and Eurozone crisis lies in responsibility attribution: during the pandemic, responsibility is primarily seen at the national level, while in the Eurozone crisis, it extends to the EU political system.

While both crises are shaped by a negative tone in the letters, a closer comparison of the two crises shows that the tone is more negative in the Eurozone crisis than it is in the pandemic.

The study also indicates that crises act as magnifying lenses for pre-existing problems such as mistrust in political institutions and criticism of existing policies. However, they might also lead to utterances of approval and trust in politics, science and other such institutions.

Finally, a clear focus was on the national (in this case, mainly German) executive during the pandemic, which is rather unsurprising since the EU and its institutions played a relatively minor role in the early time of crisis resolution.

A legitimacy dilemma

As a conclusive general rule, if the corresponding attribution of responsibility and the respective perception is missing, the actual output of the actor, in our case the EU, will remain neutral concerning legitimisation and it cannot – for this reason alone – have either a legitimising or a delegitimising effect. This outcome may give rise to a double dilemma about the question of the legitimacy of EU action. Insofar as (a) the EU is not perceived as an actor, bottom-up legitimacy is irrelevant in the eyes of the citizens. Insofar as (b) the output success or failure of the EU is not attributed to it, it cannot have any positive or negative effects on future legitimacy achievements either.

References

Beetham, D., and Lord, C. 2013. Legitimacy and the EU. 2nd ed. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.

Scharpf, F. W. 2002. Governing in Europe: Effective and Democratic? Oxford: Oxford University Press

Schmidt, V. A. 2020. Conceptualizing Legitimacy. In Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy, edited by V. A. Schmidt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 25–55.

Strebel, M. A., Kübler, D. and Marcinkowski, F. 2019. ‘The Importance of Input and Output Legitimacy in Democratic Governance’. European Journal of Political Research (58): 488.

This text summarizes some of the findings in the REGROUP paper “Perceptions of EU and Member State Legitimacy in Times of Crisis: A Citizens’ Perspective”.