Empirical Legitimation Analysis in International Relations: How to Learn from the Insights – and Avoid the Mistakes – of Research in EU Studies

The European Union (EU) represents a particularly advanced example of global governance. Given its encompassing policy competencies and influential supranational institutions, as well as the growing impact of EU decisions on the citizens, it is unsurprising that the political legitimation (or de-legitimation) of EU governance has been the object of much empirical research. This paper argues that this EU-related research holds lessons that can inform debates about the legitimation of global governance more generally. After some conceptual clarifications, the paper presents a critical review of the literature on the EU’s legitimation, focusing on five crucial aspects – the analysis of legitimation change over time, the arenas where legitimation occurs, the difference between various objects of legitimation, the interplay of top-down and bottom-up legitimation processes, as well as the relationship between legitimation and polity development. In each of these respects, the paper identifies important insights that can be gained from EU Studies, but also conceptual and methodological weaknesses in the EU-related literature that researchers working on other aspects of global governance should avoid. The paper closes by formulating a set of general desiderata for empirical legitimation research in International Relations.