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Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited - Input, Output and Throughput

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  • Vivien Schmidt

Abstract

Whether their analytic frameworks focus on institutional form and practices or on its interactive construction, scholars have analyzed the EU’s democratic legitimacy mainly in terms of the trade-offs between the output effectiveness of EU’s policies outcomes for the people and the input participation by and representation of the people. Missing is theorization of the throughput efficiency, accountability, transparency, and openness to consultation with the people of the EU’s internal governance processes. The paper argues that adding this analytic category facilitates assessment of these legitimizing mechanisms’ interdependencies and facilitates consideration of reforms that could turn this democratic trilemma into a virtuous circle.

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  • Vivien Schmidt, 2010. "Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited - Input, Output and Throughput," KFG Working Papers p0021, Free University Berlin.
    • Handle: RePEc:erp:kfgxxx:p0021
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Steffek, Jens, 2014. "The democratic output legitimacy of international organizations," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Global Governance SP IV 2014-101, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Joshua C. Yang & Carina I. Hausladen & Dominik Peters & Evangelos Pournaras & Regula Hanggli Fricker & Dirk Helbing, 2023. "Designing Digital Voting Systems for Citizens: Achieving Fairness and Legitimacy in Participatory Budgeting," Papers 2310.03501, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    3. Vivien A. Schmidt, 2010. "The European Union in search of political identity and legitimacy: Is more Politics the Answer?," Working Papers of the Vienna Institute for European integration research (EIF) 5, Institute for European integration research (EIF).
    4. Ramona Coman & Amandine Crespy & Frederik Ponjaert & Vivien Schmidt & Pierre Vanheuverzwijn, 2016. "Issue on EU Economic Governance," CEVIPOL Working Papers 5, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

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