How To Theorize the Legitimacy of EU Disintegration

In recent debates in political theory, the idea has been put forward that deliberate reversals of certain aspects of European integration can be a potentially constructive measure in the overall project of an ever closer union. For example, they may be a way to remedy defects of established EU rules or institutions. However, any step of disintegration also carries the danger of regression, i.e. the possibility of a loss of normative achievements – think, for example, of a weakening of institutional capacities that allow the EU member states to address common problems in a democratic way. This normative ambivalence makes the question of the conditions under which disintegration can be considered legitimate a particularly complex one. In this paper, I ask how the problem should be approached in terms of methodology. Bringing together the literature on political realism and rational reconstruction, I argue that the legitimacy of EU disintegration should be theorized in a practice-oriented manner. I develop an approach of ‘realist reconstructivism’ which combines the mapping of public narratives of (de-)legitimation with the analysis of the institutional effects of disintegration.