Administrative legitimacy and the democratic deficit of the European Union

Murdoch, Zuzana, Connolly, Sara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6714-3493 and Kassim, Hussein ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7603-8377 (2018) Administrative legitimacy and the democratic deficit of the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy, 25 (3). pp. 389-408. ISSN 1350-1763

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Abstract

This article suggests a new concept of measurement for the EU’s oft-alleged democratic deficit based on two contributions. First, we turn attention to the administrative staff involved in policy-making rather than the (un)accountability of EUs’ parliamentarians and executive agents. Second, building on the idea that policy-makers’ legitimacy depends on the extent to which they can claim to represent some groups or social interests, we assess the extent to which Commission officials’ preferences reflect European citizens’ policy stance. Our results indicate a statistically significant positive correlation between the policy preferences of EU administrative staff and their home country population, which, we argue, can provide EU administrators a basic degree of legitimacy relative to their home country.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: accountability,democratic deficit,legitimacy,representative bureaucracy,sdg 16 - peace, justice and strong institutions ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/peace_justice_and_strong_institutions
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Employment Systems and Institutions
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Political, Social and International Studies
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Policy & Politics
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Research on Children and Families
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Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 18 Oct 2016 16:00
Last Modified: 21 Jul 2023 09:43
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60977
DOI: 10.1080/13501763.2016.1268193

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