The eu’s Legitimacy in the Eye of the Beholders

1.5 – Plan de Campagne

The plan de campagne is as follows: The next three chapters – 2, 3 and 4 – form the theoretical framework of the research. In the subsequent chapter a definition of legitimacy and Hont’s analysis of the nation-state’s legitimacy are introduced. In chapter three, two important concepts are ‘unpacked’ – democracy and multi-level governance – and related to legitimacy. This will lead to a multi-faceted understanding of the legitimacy of a (democratic) political order and how it is, often implicitly, conceptualised. Chapter four discusses the ideal and actual role of the mass media within modern society in relation to public discourse and legitimacy. The fifth chapter tackles methodological issues and the analytical framework and hypotheses are introduced.

Then we will arrive at the empirical part of the research. In chapters six, seven and eight, the empirical findings of respectively the Dutch, British and French discourse are presented and analysed. How many observations are positive? What role do the different facets play? And is the reality of multi-level governance taken into account? The ninth chapter is a discussion of these findings. The discussion is roughly divided into three parts: a quantitative part, a qualitative part and the testing of the hypotheses. The final chapter presents the conclusion followed by recommendations for policy initiatives and further research.

Chapter 2 – A Historical Perspective on Modern Legitimacy

Legitimacy is in some sense the political scientist's equivalent of the economist’s invisible hand: we know it exists as a force that holds societies together, but we cannot give very satisfactory explanations of how to create it or why it is sometimes very strong and sometimes seems to disappear.

Deborah Stone¹⁵
[L]egitimacy can be achieved only when there exists a prevalent belief as to what provides a rightful title to rule.

Carl J. Friedrich¹⁶

In this chapter, a historical approach to legitimacy is presented. First, a definition of legitimacy is given. Then we will look at Istvan Hont’s analysis of the nation-state’s legitimacy. From his analysis two versions of republicanism are distilled. Finally, we will see how these republicanisms still inhabit two modern concepts – the nation-state and sovereignty –, which legitimize the current democratic political order.

2.1 – Legitimacy is in the Eye of the Beholders

Legitimacy is a notion applied to relationships of command and obedience. In these relationships there are a power-holder(s) and power-subjects. Historically, legitimacy was seen by power-holders as a cost-effective alternative to coercive or reward-based authority. It is a reasoned elaboration of why the command and obedience relationship is rightful. Reasoned elaborations (legitimatisations) constitute types of explanations or understandings of authority.¹⁷ They have the dual function of both explaining and justifying the social order and its moral basis (Matheson 1987: 199-200).¹⁸

But for reasoned elaborations to be an effective alternative there has to be a consensus on what makes a power-holder’s authority legitimate. The ancient Greeks connected the right to rule to the general question of what is right, but in medieval times this link was severed. There was a general consensus on the divine rule of kings, probably most systematically put forward by Sir Robert Filmer in Patriarchia or the Natural Power of Kings (1680; McClelland 1996: 231), but no consensus on what was right or more specifically which Christianity was the true gospel. The two questions – what is right and what makes rule rightful – are connected, but they do have to be distinguished (Friedrich 1974: 111-112). In short, if there is no consensus on what constitutes rightful rule then legitimacy cannot be established.

For the authority of the power-holder(s) to be perceived as legitimate there has to be a consensus on what makes it so. This draws attention to a very important element of legitimacy: It is ultimately in the eye of the beholder or in this case beholders. Legitimacy is a social artefact, which means it is the product of social beings or their behaviour (Babbie 2001: G10). Legitimacy is socially constructed¹⁹: the power-subjects, but also power-holders, in their interactions (hope to) establish a consensus on what gives the power-holder the right to rule. In the case of highly symbolic social-construct, such as legitimacy, discourse and thus rhetoric play an important role.²⁰

So where does this leave us? Legitimacy is a reasoned elaboration on why a relationship of command and obedience is rightful. Further, there has to be consensus on what establishes this rightfulness. This implies that legitimacy is ultimately in the eye of the beholders. Friedrich gives us the following definition, which includes these three elements:

[Legitimacy refers to] a very particular kind of consensus which concerns the question of the right or title to rule or to govern (1974: 112).
The one important addition made in this definition is that it focuses on the right ‘to rule and to govern’. This makes it a definition of political or state legitimacy, rather than just any command-obedience relationship. The legitimacy of an emerging political order is the subject of this research and therefore this definition is fitting.²¹

2.2 – The Nation-State’s Legitimacy: A Tale of Two Republicanisms

The EU’s legitimacy deficit might be the result of a flawed understanding of the current consensus on the legitimacy of our political order: the nation-state. Let us therefore investigate the origins of this consensus in more detail in order to understand how the EU’s (policy) focus on democratic legitimacy might (further) obscure an already often salient component of state legitimacy.

For a historical account of the nation-state’s legitimacy we will turn to Istvan Hont. In ‘The Permanent Crisis of a Divided Mankind: “Nation State” and “Nationalism” in Historical Perspective’, which is chapter seven of his Jealousy of Trade, Hont analysis the origins of the legitimacy of the nation-state. The title of the book refers to David Hume’s essay “Of the Jealousy of Trade” (1758). “Hume’s idea reflects the moment [that inaugurates] ‘global market competition as a primary state activity’” (Blaazer 2007: 507), because the “acquisition of external economic resources was deemed essential for both self-preservation and grandezza”(Saksena 2008: 189). This jealousy of trade might still play an important, although nowadays often salient, role in the legitimacy of the modern democratic nation-state.

2.2.1 – Hont’s Account of a Divided Mankind

The nation-state’s legitimacy is the result of a process in which both circumstances and ideas, of which the latter were corrupted and adapted, play a role. This process resulted in a consensus founded on a mixed heritage of nationalist and universalist republicanism. What follows is a summarised version of Hont’s account of this process.

States by definition claim territory, and the nation-state is no different. What is different is that the nation-state makes a collectivity into the self-governing owner of that territory, making rule a matter of property right. Earlier political theorists argued that the globe belong to the whole of humankind, thus no one or group in particular. The possession of land by the nation had to be ‘legitimised through a quasi-historical explanation’ (Hont 2005: 452), such as first occupation – ‘a leap from fact to right’ (Ibid.). The state became the defender of private property, but how the nation fundamentally got its hands on national (communal) property remains unclear.²²

This idea of the nation having the right to self-government within their territory is in current discourse often related to nationalism, but this is not the original use of the term. Nationalism used to refer to the system of absolutist monarchs pursuing their own ‘national’ interests. It describes the state-building efforts of these absolute monarchs, who through ‘complex unification processes welded together previously separate territorial entities’ (Ibid., 457). An important part of these state-building processes was the creation of fiscal-military institutions, which lead to further homogenisation of the populations. These institutions made it possible for these monarchs to claim ‘the’ loyalty of ‘their’ subjects instead of having to persuade feudal aristocracy, as they had done before. Central to the monarch’s ‘claim to loyalty’ of the population is the idea of the nation. In order to understand its persuasiveness we have to go to the French Revolution.

The French Revolution was a revolution against what the Revolutionaries saw as an ‘entire system of corrupt interstate power relations’ (Ibid., 509). The Revolution pursued universal, humanist goals and criticised

... the entire history of separation of peoples, and in particular to the rise of modern European states after the medieval period. More specifically, ‘nationalism’ as a term was deployed to criticize modern sovereignty and reason of state [raison d’État] (Ibid.).
This is the permanent crisis of a divided mankind, but it was ironically during the Revolution that the idea of the nation was given its current shape. The Jacobins confusingly referred to the people/civitas – a political notion – as the nation – a cultural notion. The nation comes out of the Revolution as an economic association of man (Sieyès), which has one common will (Hobbes, Sieyès), is its own sovereign (the Jacobins), owner of its national territory (philosophers of right), but also is a cultural unity (Herder) in a Hobbesian ‘state of nature’ (Hobbes, Sieyès, philosophers of right); all this effectively places economics, politics and (ethnic-)culture into a single concept.²³

Another important ‘confusing’ idea introduced in the Revolution was the idea of republican patriotism. In its traditional form it emphasises military virtues. The combination of this form of patriotism and the idea of the nation made it possible for the Revolutionaries to raise support for their cause and inspire their ‘conscript’ armies. In the aftermath of the revolution, this interpretation of patriotism was utilised by the ‘nationalising’ monarchs, who raised support and created legitimacy for their rule.²⁴

But this was not the Jacobins’ original version of patriotism. That version was inspired by universalist republicanism. One was a patriot out of love for humanity and the principles were enshrined in the democratic institutions of one’s republic. In this version of republicanism humanistic ideals have to be forwarded by democratic governments in accordance with the rule of law in order for these institutions to be legitimate and deserve support. Legitimacy (support) is thus conditional, but humanist patriotism was corrupted into unconditional support for a nation’s monarch. The monarch became the representative of the will of the nation and in this role gained the support of the (cultural) nation, which people could identify with. Monarchs used this support in the pursuit of power politics and furthering trade interests in other words the raison d’État or at this time still the raison de roy.

One of the most important features of Hont’s account is that it explains that apparently democratic terms, which are used in discourse today as self explanatory, in origin embrace both these republican heritages and both still influence the terms today. The nation-state is a child of complex ideological struggles between nationalism and universalism.²⁵ This struggle is enshrined in ‘mongrel concepts’ (Blaazer 2007, p. 509), such as popular sovereignty and nation-state. Choices by modern democratic nation-states still have to balance the demands of democracy and the raison d’État in order to survive. This tension is thus the result of the incongruent concepts on which their legitimacy is founded.

2.2.2 – Universalist and Nationalist Republicanism

The legitimacy of the nation-state is built upon two versions of republicanism: nationalist and universalist. The features of the two republicanisms are going to be presented in their ideal form. The distinction between them will lead to clarity, which was lost in the process of state formation and is still lost in today’s discourse. This clarity is important to understand the mongrel concepts and actual discourse for in both cases the republicanisms are meshed together without further thought, but not without consequence.

Universalist republicanism is humanist, democratic and normative in nature. Its modern roots lie in the Jacobins’ ideals. The first feature is that, as the name suggests, it is universalistic. The aim of the French Revolution was humanistic and not nationalist. The Jacobins ultimately wanted to create an international – in modern terms: global – peaceful community of people ridden from the tyrannical and divisive rule of the monarchs – in the French case l’Ancient Regime. Institutions that promote the universalist goal deserve the loyalty of the people. The virtuous face of patriotism supports humane republican institutions as the only legitimate institutions. The second aspect is that universalist republicanism is de-territorialised. The goal of the institutions is universal, which means that territory essentially does not matter. The institutions rule over a certain area formed on contingent historical basis, but these territorial units are not allowed to interfere with and are completely inferior to the universalist goal. This brings us to the third aspect: universalist republicanism was anti-state and for ‘the people’. The nation has different interest than the state – l’Ancient Regime: monarchs and aristocrats. The fourth element is the democratic nature of universalist republicanism. The republican institutions have to represent the sovereign people, which thus should rule themselves instead of rule by any specific class. The fifth element is the rule of law. In humanist republics the right to be free of domination is the highest political value. In order to accomplish this all men must be treated as equals under the same law: the rule of law (Viroli 2002).²⁶

Nationalist republicanism combines two elements: raison d’État and nationalism. The distinction is artificial, but analytically useful. Nationalism is the ‘reasoned elaboration’ to legitimize the rule of the centralist monarchs, in which the people are imagined as a homogeneous nation often culturally defined.²⁷ The idea of the nation became a corruption of the people – at least from the Jacobins’ perspective. It made the people perceive state-interests inspired by the raison d’État as their interests. States could legitimatize and even mobilize people in pursuit of their own interests by presenting themselves as representatives of the nation. Their interests became the people’s ‘national’ interests. The first feature of nationalist republicanism is that states are nationalist in scope. Secondly, it is territorial, because the main goal of (nation-)states is to own territory. The state used to be the centralised monarch, as Louis XIV put it: “L‘État, C’est moi.”, but nowadays it is replaced by a self-governing nation. Thirdly, it is lead by the raison d’État, which central aim is its own state interests rather than peace on earth. Fourthly, its main goals are preservation of the state (powers) and grandezza – wealth and bragging rights. In order to accomplish both, the state has to compete in trade. Commercial interests are thus the fourth feature of this type of republicanism. Finally, trade wars or threat thereof are sometimes necessary. This makes military interests vital to this version of republicanism. Here the Spartan idea of patriotism fighting out of love for one’s country (and its interests) comes in useful to create a relatively cheap, but possibly fiercely loyal and committed army. This analysis of the features of republicanism leads to the following scheme:

Universalist Republicanism	Nationalist Republicanism
Humanist	Nationalist
De-Territorial	Territorial
People	Raison d’État
Democratic Institutions	Commercial Interests
Rule of Law	Militaristic

Figure 2.1: The Features of the Two Republicanisms