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dc.contributor.authorOBERHUBER, Florian
dc.date.accessioned2007-10-22T08:57:05Z
dc.date.available2007-10-22T08:57:05Z
dc.date.issued2007
dc.identifier.issn1028-3625
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/7160
dc.description.abstractFollowing up on a previous study on the Convention on the Future of Europe, the present article investigates the reception of the EU’s constitutional experience in the public. A qualitative analysis of the press coverage of the various phases of constitutionalisation between the decision on establishing a Convention in December 2001 and the provisional suspension of ratification in 2005 is carried out. While it is pointed out that the constitutional project entailed a bid for legitimacy which implied a strong engagement of the public, the reception of constitutionalisation in the press did not result in a democratic process of mobilisation. However, the failure of such an interpretation of the European Union as a democracy in the making did not amount to a de-legitimation of the EU in the coverage analysed. Rather, another semantic framework for making meaning of the Europolity was found which was based on a predominantly statist reading of its constituents and which legitimated co-operation over unilateral action, namely constructing a normative discourse of the EU member-states in search of a common “European” as opposed to their “national” interests. Hence, the article proposes to take note of the fact that discourses about the European Union show a large degree of polysemia and contestedness, and it develops a framework for empirically studying legitimation as a semiotic process involving the justification of the political system and its output.en
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoenen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesEUI RSCASen
dc.relation.ispartofseries2007/25en
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subjectConstitution buildingen
dc.subjectEuropean public spaceen
dc.subjectmediaen
dc.subjectEuropean Conventionen
dc.subjectqualitative analysisen
dc.subjectAustriaen
dc.subjectlegitimacyen
dc.subjectdemocracyen
dc.titleLegitimating the European Union: The Contested Meanings of an EU Constitutionen
dc.typeWorking Paperen
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