An Empirical Analysis of the Legitimacy of European Interest Groups: Perspectives from National Organizations

The aim of this article is to identify why national interest groups legitimize European interest groups representing them at the EU level. European interest groups are understood as umbrella associations gathering together national organizations and representing this membership towards EU Institutions. The article proposes to unpack the concept of organizational legitimacy by analyzing how national interest groups perceive their European umbrella associations. The analysis of the structural arrangement between national and European interest groups is crucial to acquire a more comprehensive picture of the role of these political actors in the representation system of the EU. Since EU official discourse supports the view that European interest groups assume the role of legitimate transmitters of the opinions expressed by national groups, this article explores the perceptions of national groups themselves, on the other side of the mirror. The role of national organizations within European groups has been little discussed by EU studies. This empirical analysis assess the transmitter role of European interest groups, not in normative terms, but as regards to the perception national actors have of these European groups. The proposal of the article is to open a path towards an innovative approach of interest groups’ legitimacy. This approach is based on a positive analysis of organizational legitimacy, as opposed the normative approach usually mobilized by literature on European organizations and CSOs. Following this positive approach, the article addresses the issue of interest groups legitimacy by analyzing the appropriation of certain standards by particular audiences of these groups, namely the member organizations. The aim is not to analyze if an interest group either ‘is’ or ‘is not’ legitimate regarding certain predefined standards, as would do normative analysis. For the purpose of this positive analysis, organizational legitimacy refers to the conditions under which organizations gain acceptance or support from the actors with whom they interact. Since a positive approach of legitimacy requires no predetermined definition of legitimacy, the method has to be inductive in order to not presuppose norms and standards mobilized by actors. The objective is to identify how national actors themselves define legitimacy of their European interest groups. The issue of legitimacy is addressed as firmly located in context. Firstly, the analysis identifies the different conceptions that national organizations have about the legitimacy of their European interest groups. The output of this positive analysis is the identification of different legitimation elements mobilized by national organizations regarding their European interest groups (functional legitimation, efficiency legitimation, membership legitimation – to be updated). Secondly, the analysis strives to isolate the variables that explain the mobilization of similar legitimation elements by different national organizations (national environment, type of interest, resources, type of members, activities in Brussels, etc). The results are based on a computer assisted qualitative analysis (using NVivo) of semi-structured interviews with representatives from 50 national organizations from France, Malta, Slovenia and Sweden. These organizations were selected on the basis of the stakeholders consultation of the 'fitness check' of the Nature Legislation driven by the European Commission during spring 2015.