How limited representativeness weakens throughput legitimacy in the EU: The example of interest groups
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12410 |
| Author | Sandra Kröger |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE
How limited representativeness weakens
throughput legitimacy in the EU: The example
of interest groups
Sandra Kröger
Department of Politics, University of Exeter,
Exeter, UK
Correspondence
Sandra Kröger, Department of Politics, Amory,
Rennes Drive, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4
4QJ, UK.
Email: s.kroeger@exeter.ac.uk
Funding information
Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (grant
number PIEF-GA-2010-273514) and a
fellowship at the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg
Are the interestgroups (IGs) that constituteEuropean umbrella orga-
nizations capable of cooperating in a way that contributes to the
throughputlegitimacy of the EU? To answer thisquestion, the repre-
sentativenessof supranational actors is developed as the central cri-
teria of throughput legitimacy, thereby reconfiguring throughput
legitimacy as a two-levelconcept. Representativeness is operationa-
lized as consisting of regular contacts between the constituent and
the umbrella organization as well as the satisfaction of the former
with the representation by the latter. The article looksempirically at
agricultural, environmental and anti-poverty groups. Whereas there
are different degrees of contact depending on the policy area, the
satisfaction withthe representation by the umbrellais compromised
for all three IGs. This is closely linked to lowest commondenomina-
tor policies which reduce the representativeness of the umbrellas
and therefore the throughput legitimacy of the EU, a problem that
also exists for otheractors of supranational governance.
1|INTRODUCTION
In the European Union (EU), input and output legitimacy (Scharpf 1999) are de facto separated between different
levels of governance. Whereas input legitimacy operates at the domestic level, creating ‘politics without policies’
(Schmidt 2006), output legitimacy operates at the EU level, creating ‘policies without politics’(Schmidt 2006). Some
have argued that output legitimacy is sufficient for the EU level, given its non-majoritarian institutions (Majone
1998). Others have insisted that input legitimacy at the EU level is crucial to combat its democratic deficit (Follesdal
and Hix 2006).
More recently, Vivien Schmidt (2013) has identified a third type of legitimacy, namely throughput legitimacy,
which focuses on the democratic quality of the decision-making process. Throughput legitimacy, according to
Schmidt, is necessary to connect input and output legitimacy so as to make sure that the input from the domestic
level ‘comes out as uncorrupted output’(Schmidt 2013, p. 9). Good throughput will ensure that EU policies are devel-
oped according to domestic preferences; bad throughput will corrupt these and increase the democratic deficit even
Received: 19 September 2017 Revised: 16 March 2018 Accepted: 17 March 2018
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12410
770 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm Public Administration. 2019;97:770–783.
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