Acknowledgements 4
Executive Summary 5
Table of Contents 7
List of Figures and Tables 8
Figures 8
Tables 8
Chapter 1 – The EU’s Democratic Deficit? 9
1.1 – Is the Problem really Democratic? 10
1.2 – Aiming to Understand in order to Overcome 11
1.3 – The Central Research Question 12
1.4 – What is the Research’s Significance? 13
1.5 – Plan de Campagne 14
Chapter 2 – A Historical Perspective on Modern Legitimacy 16
2.1 – Legitimacy is in the Eye of the Beholders 16
2.2 – The Nation-State’s Legitimacy: A Tale of Two Republicanisms 17
2.2.1 – Hont’s Account of a Divided Mankind 17
2.2.2 – Universalist and Nationalist Republicanism 19
2.3 – Mongrel Concepts in Modern Discourse 20
2.3.1 – The Nation-State... 20
2.3.2 – and (National/Popular) Sovereignty... 21
2.3.3 – in Modern Discourse 22
Chapter 3 – On Legitimacy, Democracy and Governance 23
3.1 – Public Administration on Legitimacy 23
3.2 – Legitimacy and Representative Democracy: Components 24
3.2.1 – Scharpf’s and Bernard’s Components of Legitimacy 24
3.2.2 – Combining the Accounts into a Framework 26
3.3 – Legitimacy and Multi-level Governance: Models 27
3.4 – Toward a Multi-faceted Understanding of Legitimacy 28
Chapter 4 – Mass Mediated Legitimacy 30
4.1 – Mass Mediated Public Discourses 30
4.2 – Is there a European Public Discourse? 31
4.3 – The Mass Media: A Positive or Negative Influence on Legitimacy? 32
Chapter 5 – Methodology: From Strategy to Hypotheses 33
5.1 – The Research Strategy 33
5.2 – The Methods of Inquiry 33
5.3 – Any Limitations? On Reliability and Validity 35
5.4 – The Operationalisation 36
5.4.1 – The Analytical Framework 36
5.4.2 – Hypothetically Speaking 38
Chapter 6 – The Dutch Discourse 40
6.1 – General Findings 40
6.2 – Facets and Judgements of Legitimacy 40
6.2.1 – Dimensions and Judgements of Legitimacy 40
6.2.2 – Components and Judgements of Legitimacy 41
6.2.3 – Models and Judgements of Legitimacy 42
6.2.4 – Conclusions on Facets and Judgements of Legitimacy 43
6.3 – Multi-level Governance 43
6.4 – Overview of the Legitimacy Discourse 43
Chapter 7 – The British Discourse 46
7.1 – General Findings 46
7.2 – Facets and Judgements of Legitimacy 46
7.2.1 – Dimensions and Judgements of Legitimacy 46
7.2.2 – Components and Judgements of Legitimacy 47
7.2.3 – Models and Judgements of Legitimacy 48
7.2.4 – Conclusions on Facets and Judgements of Legitimacy 48
7.3 – Multi-level Governance 48
7.4 – Overview of the Legitimacy Discourse 49
Chapter 8 – The French Discourse 51
8.1 – General Findings 51
8.2 – Facets and Judgements of Legitimacy 51
8.2.1 – Dimensions and Judgements of Legitimacy 51
8.2.2 – Components and Judgements of Legitimacy 52
8.2.3 – Models and Judgements of Legitimacy 53
8.2.4 – Conclusions on Facets and Judgements of Legitimacy 53
8.3 – Multi-level Governance 54
8.4 – Overview of the Legitimacy Discourse 54
Chapter 9 – From Numbers to Narratives 57
9.1 – Numbers 57
9.1.1 – General Findings 57
9.1.2 – Facets and Judgements of Legitimacy 57
9.1.3 – Multi-level Governance 58
9.1.4 – The Overall Legitimacy Discourses 58
9.1.5 – The Grouping of the Numbers 59
9.2 – Similar Narratives or Not? 59
9.2.1 – General Support and a Legitimacy Deficit 60
9.2.2 – The Diversity of the Democratic Deficit 60
9.2.3 – The Tension between Nationalist Government and Multi-level Governance 61
9.3 – The Three Discourses as Narratives 63
9.3.1 – The Dutch Debate: Infighting Federalists 63
9.3.2 – The British Struggle: Europhobes versus Gaullists 64
9.3.3 – The French Dilemma: Gaullists versus Federalists 65
9.4 – Speaking Hypothetically Again 67
9.4.1 – The Democratic Problem of Nationalist Identification 67
9.4.2 – Government or Regime, but not Governance 69
9.4.3 – The Mass Media’s Shortcomings: Apparent and Acknowledged 70
Chapter 10 – The Reasons: The Denial of Identity and Reality 72
10.1 – Determining the Reasons for the Deficit 72
10.1.1 – The Diverse Deficits 72
10.1.2 – Identity, Reality and the Mass Media 73
10.1.3 – Not a Democratic Deficit, but a Nationalist and Reality Deficit 75
10.2 – Dealing with the Deficit 76
10.2.1 – Lost in Translation? Or the Facelessness of the EU 76
10.2.2 – How to Legitimise a Political Order of Multi-level Governance? 77
Propositions 78
Literature 79
Appendix A – Codification Format Articles 83
Appendix B – Codification Format Arguments 84
Appendix C – Keyword Search Results 85
Appendix D – Dutch Articles 86
Appendix E – The Dutch Frequency Tables 92
Appendix F – British Articles 96
Appendix G – The British Frequency Tables 102
Appendix H – French Articles 105
Appendix I – The French Frequency Tables 111
