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National Parliaments and Mediated Legitimacy in the EU: Theory and History

Legitimacy is a protean concept in law and politics. In general terms, legitimacy refers to the manner in which social and political actors experience a system of governance as worthy of their acceptance, loyalty, and respect. In this way, legitimacy can provide a degree of stability and durability to forms of social organization and rule. But how actors in fact experience a system may well shift not only by social or political context but also over time. Moreover, although these shifts may at times appear obvious, they are often perceptible only in the slow evolution of the system itself. Legitimacy thus presents an analytical challenge to anyone interested in the relationship between legal and political change and its socio-political, socio-cultural underpinnings.This chapter reflects on this challenge in relation to the evolving role of national parliaments (NPs) in EU governance. The emergence of the EU over the last six and a half decades presents a fascinating case study in legal and political change in which varying conceptions of legitimacy have played a crucial role. This chapter explores how those conceptions have manifested themselves in EU public law with regard to NPs, an undertaking that requires us to confront the variable nature of legitimacy in more theoretical depth. That is the objective of Part I of this chapter, focusing on notions of democratic, constitutional, legal, and technocratic legitimacy, culminating in a discussion of what this chapter calls mediated legitimacy in modern administrative governance. Part II then explores how the theory of mediated legitimacy might illuminate the historical evolution of national parliamentary scrutiny in EU affairs. The conclusion to the chapter, in keeping with the aims of the volume as a whole, reflects on the broader question of ‘resilience’ and ‘resignation’ of NPs in the process of European integration going forward.