Legitimising EU Enlargement through Communicative Action

This paper develops a deliberative approach to EU enlargement that has largely been absent from existing scholarship. Existing studies have rehearsed the classical debate in IR between interest-driven and norm-driven behaviour to explain EU’s enlargement decisions. This binary distinction of interests versus norms, alongside the dominant focus on political elites has constrained our understanding of how enlargement preferences are shaped, justified, and legitimised. This paper examines the logic of deliberation as the cornerstone of the EU enlargement process. The deliberative approach is particularly relevant for the current EU enlargement debate in which various interests and normative commitments within the EU interact and demand building consensus beyond power and identity politics. Drawing on the literatures on communicative action (Habermas, 1996; Risse, 2000, 2004), legitimacy (Beetham, 2013; Börzel & Zürn, 2021; Finnemore, 2009; Scharpf, 1999; Tallberg & Zürn, 2019; Wajner, 2019) and policy learning (Achrainer & Pace, 2025; Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000; Dunlop & Radaelli, 2017; Grin & Loeber, 2007; Moyson et al., 2017; Radaelli, 2009), the paper develops a novel perspective on how the communicative legitimacy of EU enlargement is constructed through justification, deliberation and persuasion. It posits that communicative action can strengthen the legitimacy of EU enlargement by bridging the gap between citizens’ perceptions and preferences (the micro level), national interests (the meso level) and collective EU goals (the macro level) in the context of polarized public opinion. By applying the logic of arguing to the EU enlargement debate, the paper generates new insights into how deliberation among policy makers, citizens, and policy experts in the EU and the candidates can foster more reasoned and legitimate forms of consensus-building on EU enlargement.