Getting Cozy, or How the European Commission Produces Legitimacy in the EU

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12758131
AutoresStephan Hensell (0000-0003-1087-7300, University of Bremen, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen23
Número2
Páginas151-168
Fecha de publicación2021-07-31
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Studies Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1528-3577 • E-ISSN: 1528-3585
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/isp/ekab011
OpenAlexW4237925227
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas21

International organizations increasingly resort to strategies of legitimation in order to justify their authority and policies. This article explores one such strategy of the European Commission that targets organized interest groups with the aim to build a legitimating constituency. The members of this constituency not only contribute expertise to a policy, but also benefit from that policy and, therefore, participate in the development and confirmation of a claim to the policy's legitimacy that is put forward by EU officials. As a consequence, the agents seeking legitimacy and the addressees granting it become closely associated and “get cozy” with each other. EU officials address their claim to legitimacy to a community of co-opted elites who are likely to confirm this claim and in whose own interests it is to do so. The result is legitimation as a collaborative activity with preordained outcomes. Taking the case of the European Commission's research and innovation policy, and building in part on an ethnographic practitioner's account, the article provides an original insight into how this legitimation strategy works in everyday EU policymaking

Business · Commission · European commission · European union · International trade · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Legitimation · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · European Union Policy and Governance · Policy Transfer and Learning · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Law · Public Administration