This paper attempts a normative assessment of the input and output-oriented legitimacy of the present euro-rescuing regime on the basis of policy analyses examining the causes of present crises, the available policy options, and the impact of the policies actually chosen. Concluding that the...

On the basis of a brief reconstruction of the causes and impacts of the euro crisis, this paper explores, counterfactually and hypothetically, whether the new euro regime, insisting on fiscal austerity and supply-side reforms, could have prevented the rise of the crisis or is able to deal with...

The European Monetary Union (EMU) has removed crucial instruments of macroeconomic management from the control of democratically accountable governments. Worse still, the EMU has systemically caused destabilizing macroeconomic imbalances that member states found difficult or impossible to...

Judge-made law has played a crucial role in the process of European integration. In the vertical dimension, it has greatly reduced the range of autonomous policy choices in the member states, and it has helped to expand the reach of European competences. At the same time, however, "Integration...

In order to be simultaneously effective and liberal, governments must normally be able to count on voluntary compliance - which, in turn, depends on the support of socially shared legitimacy beliefs. In Western constitutional democracies, such beliefs are derived from the distinct but coexistent...

The function of legitimacy is to ensure voluntary compliance with unwelcome exercises of governing authority. Since practically all European law needs to be implemented and enforced by the governments and courts of the member states, the EU does not have to face its citizens directly. It follows...

The paper begins by examining the functions of input-oriented and output-oriented legitimating arguments in liberal democracies. At the European level, input-oriented arguments remain weak, but legitimacy problems are generally avoided since the policies which can in fact be adopted under...

The paper represents a preliminary and partial analysis of the information collected in a comparative 12-country study of the adjustment of national employment and social-welfare policies to the increasing internationalization of product and capital markets. After the postwar decades, when...

This essay re-examines the dual – republican and liberal – foundations of democratic legitimacy in the Western traditions of normative political theory. Considered in isolation, the European Union conforms to liberal standards but cannot satisfy republican criteria. Given these conflicting...