This workshop aims at exploring interdisciplinary approaches to the legitimation deficit in EU governance. It will create a space for discussion that brings together quantitative, model-based political science and sociological research with research applying ethnographic methods. The innovative dialogue and cross-disciplinary exchange between various approaches to the study of EU governance, specifically EU institutions and policies, will shed more light on the legitimation of EU institutions and policies.

The workshop seeks to engage with the following questions: how can a cross-disciplinary approach contribute to the understanding and knowledge of the gap left by the complex political processes involved in EU governance and the European public, or that between the “culture” of EU institutions on the one hand and the broader political processes and public within the EU? How can we better understand the entanglements between the “culture” of EU institutions and wider EU politics and thus shed light on the EU’s lack of legitimacy? Can a large-scale problem be explained with a small-scale focus? Which methods are being employed to understand this legitimacy? Which specific methods can contribute to a better understanding ofthe issue of the legitimacy of the EU in terms of its institutions and governance?

We suggest that a cross-disciplinary perspective can reveal the gaps among the meanings circulating within the so called “Brussels bubble”, EU political processes, the wider EU, and the national public of member states with greater coherence and continuity, which, in turn, will contribute to knowledge about processes and discourses of legitimation, both within the EU’s bureaucracy and its political surroundings and among EU citizens.

We ask participants to address these questions from the viewpoint of their respective disciplines, including their methodological/theoretical, interdisciplinary, and empirical perspectives. Please send us your abstract (up to 500 words) and a short bio by February 28th, 2021, to lewicki@europa-uni.de and alexandra.schwell@aau.at.

Final papers are to be sent by August 1st. They should not exceed the scope of 10 pages (approximately 6000 words) and will be circulated in advance of the workshop. We plan to publish selected papers in an edited volume.