Political Legitimacy and the Invisibility of Politics: Exploring the European Union’s Communication Deficit

Abstract

The debate about the legitimacy deficit of the European Union (EU) has so far devoted little attention to the role of political communication in legitimating governance. The resignation of the Commission has highlighted the consequences of communicative failure and points to the new role of the media in EU affairs. The article analyses and evaluates the Commission’s media communicationand places it in the context of the EU’s broader institutional set‐up and decision‐making procedures. The article argues that the Commission’s public communication suffers from the fragmentation of political authority, a pervading technocratic mindset and a lack of adequate staffing. More importantly, however, the Commission is located within a system of governance which depoliticizes conflict and obfuscates political accountability. This system has been used by Member States to circumvent public scrutiny and externalize public dissatisfaction to the Commission.

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