Politicisation, Representation and Legitimation Crisis(?) in the European Union

Abstract

- What is the relationship between politicisation, representation and any legitimacy crisis in the European Union? - Is politicisation a cause of any legitimacy problems experienced by the EU; or is, politicisation to the contrary, a means of generating legitimacy and resolving legitimacy problems? - Can politicisation even be self-negating either by encouraging elites to regain technocratic control of nascently politicised questions; or by provoking populist challenges to the very debates and compromises on which politics depend? - Or does politicisation, to the contrary, help by putting the ‘public’s problems’ on to the EU’s political agenda; by stimulating public opinion formation on EU matters; and by offering competition and choice over what would otherwise by purely technocratic exercises of EU powers? - Can we, indeed, distinguish ‘pro-representation politicisations’ from ‘anti-representation politicisations’: politicisations that stimulate the development of mass representative institutions and practices at the EU level from politicisations that are opposed precisely to that possibility? Answers to these questions are likely to depend on how and by whom publics are represented on EU questions, This panel, therefore, includes papers on the politicisation and representation of partisan ideological identities by governments seeking to justify economic adjustments to the financial crisis; on the representation of national parliaments in the public control of the European semester; on attempts by the European Commission to frame itself as a representative of EU citizens in deciding state aids cases; and on the role of citizens themselves in representing their own emotions and understandings of the European Union and of the Euro through focus groups. All papers are based on PhD research within the PLATO network on the legitimacy of the European Union after the financial crisis (funded by the Marie Skłodowska/Curie programme of the European Commission).