Innovating Empirical Research on Legitimacy: Repertory Grid Analysis

Key literature on theoretical research of EU-Legitimacy (f.e. Kielmannsegg 1996, Blondel et al. 1998, Katz und Weßels 1999, Scharpf 1999, Thomassen und Schmidt 1999, Fuchs 2003) suggests a profound de-legitimation of the European Union. But the question on how to empirically measure the perceptions of legitimacy is highly controversial in the German literature (Zürn 2011a, 2011b, Schmidtke/ Schneider 2012, Padberg 2013, Zürn 2013). The standardized questionnaire traditionally is the methodological procedure in empirical research on legitimacy as well as in research on political culture. But there are frequent discussions about the deficits of these standardized methods in political culture research (Pickel 2006, Lauth et al. 2009) and if research on legitimacy should be understood as measuring or evaluation (Zürn 2011a, 2011b, Padberg 2013, Zürn 2013). Beside the discussion on the appropriate database, these debates on the design of empirical research of legitimacy will be developed further in this paper. The paper will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the different models of empirical research on legitimacy. Additionally the paper will develop an alternative approach where the people’s perceptions of the similarities of an observable phenomenon (governance structure) and the own normative values (what is legitimate) are compared in the process of Repertory Grid Interviews. Repertory Grid offers a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods for this kind of research. As the initial data is qualitative, it reduces the linguistic and cultural equivalence problems. The data analysis is qualitative as well as quantitative. Individual data is transferred to the macro level, which allows for comparability and transferability of the results from the sample to a larger group. The paper discusses in how far Repertory Grid can facilitate the bridging between empirical research on legitimacy as measurement and evaluation (Padberg 2013), as it does not work with questionnaires drawn up beforehand nor with prepared response scales, but with the respondent’s own words and response scales. The paper will introduce the Repertory Grid method as an interface of the different approaches in a first step and explain the theoretical background, data collection and analysis of Repertory Grid. The conclusion will place the results in the general context of the debate and discuss future perspectives of research on EU’s legitimacy