The authors discuss potential sources of legitimacy of the EU, i. e. of the normative bindingness of its decisions …. After rejecting the views that such legitimacy is either not needed, not feasible, or provided for already, they focus upon … the corrosive impact of the EU upon democratic legitimacy within member states. Brussels-based 'governance' is essentially …

the intrinsic relation between majority voting and democracy. …

per se, it links republican views of democracy and constitutionalism with the process of EU polity-building. It is also … polity to which they belong. But it is also a means of incorporating social norms of legitimacy in the EU’s policy …

Legal studies react to the Union’s social legitimacy deficit either by funneling the problem into empirical sociology … (accompanied by the familiar call for more transparency and democracy), or by ignoring it altogether. This article argues that the …

of the European basic law and its corresponding concept of legitimacy – ever forming and reforming overlapping …

European level. Without such "re-balancing", the current legitimacy problems of EU are likely to get worse. …