Perceptions of EU and member state legitimacy in times of crisis: a citizens’ perspective

REGROUP Research Paper No. 14 (September 2024)

This study investigates citizens’ perceptions of the European Union’s (EU’s) and member states’ legitimacy in two major crises over the last 15 years: the eurozone and debt crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. By collecting and analysing letters to the editor from the German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) in the period 2010 to 2021, we examine responsibility attribution to political actors, the overall tone of the letters and whether these letters are focused on the polity or the policy dimension. The results of our study show how these perceptions of legitimacy of the EU and national executives that are expressed in the letters to the editor were debated differently in the two crises studied. Additionally, we find that there was a clear focus on the national executive during the pandemic. Furthermore, the crises provide a public opportunity to criticise how the political system works, thus contesting the legitimacy of EU or national polity extending beyond concrete policy measures.