This Workshop examines the democratic legitimacy of the EU’s enlargement process. Moving beyond the traditional international relations output-based framework, it focuses on various forms of legitimacy, both internally (within the EU) and externally (with candidate countries). It unpacks how the participatory quality of the enlargement process, and its transparency, inclusiveness, and reciprocity, shape public and elite perceptions of enlargement in an era of politicisation, geopolitical pressure, and multi-level governance.
Bringing together scholars from EU studies, comparative politics, and international relations, the Workshop advances innovative theoretical, conceptual, and empirical understandings of legitimacy in EU enlargement, setting a new research agenda.
Despite decades of research on the drivers, outcomes, and normative underpinnings of EU enlargement, the legitimacy of the process itself has received remarkably little direct scholarly attention. Most studies take legitimacy for granted, deriving it from its redistributive material benefits, geopolitical stability, or the EU’s normative self-image as a ‘community of values.’
Yet, the permissive consensus that once underpinned public – and especially elite – acceptance of enlargement has eroded, giving way to politicisation, contestation, and divergent frames across and within member and candidate states. Geopolitical pressures, such as Russia’s war against Ukraine, have reinvigorated enlargement debates but also intensified trade-offs between speed, conditionality, and democratic process.
The governance of enlargement is a complex, multi-level system involving supranational institutions, national governments, parliaments, civil society, and interest groups, with varying degrees of participation, transparency, and reciprocity. This raises important questions about the sources, dimensions, and trade-offs of legitimacy in enlargement, including external legitimacy vis-à-vis candidate countries and their societies.
This focus is significant in theoretical terms, by connecting enlargement scholarship to overarching debates on legitimacy in multi-level governance and international organisations, and in practical terms, by offering insights that can shape more transparent, inclusive, and accountable enlargement policies and processes.
This Workshop will bring together scholars to develop conceptual tools, share empirical findings, and explore how participatory and procedural legitimacy can be strengthened in the face of geopolitical urgency, making a timely and original contribution to EU studies, comparative politics, and international relations.
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1: How can the legitimacy of the EU enlargement process be conceptualised beyond output-based justifications?
2: What are the internal (EU-level) and external (candidate country) dimensions of legitimacy in enlargement?
3: How do politicisation, asymmetric power relations, and geopolitical pressures shape these legitimacy dimensions?
4: How do perceptions of fairness, transparency, and inclusiveness affect public and elite support for enlargement?
5: What policy reforms could strengthen the legitimacy of the enlargement policy and process?
1: Conceptual and theoretical approaches to legitimacy in the EU enlargement policy and processes.
2: Empirical analyses of participatory and procedural dimensions of enlargement.
3: Comparative studies of legitimacy across enlargement waves and candidate countries.
4: The role of supranational, national, and subnational actors in shaping the legitimacy of EU enlargement.
5: Civil society and public engagement in the enlargement processes in candidate countries and member states.
6: Legitimacy trade-offs under conditions of geopolitical urgency.
7: Methodologies for assessing legitimacy perceptions among elites and citizens.
8: Lessons from other international organisations’ accession or membership processes.
