Public opinion in the EU institutions’ discourses on EU legitimacy from the beginnings of integration to today

This article offers a long-term historical account of changing and competing references to public opinion and “what the people want”, and of the projected relationship between the two, in legitimation discourses by EU or Community institutions from the 1950s to today. It describes shifts from taking a generally permissive public opinion for granted, over an increased emphasis on the need to act upon and shape it, to a distinct turn, starting in the mid-1970s and in full swing by the 1980s, towards centring any claims regarding Community legitimacy on citizen expectations. The next chapter in the history of discourses around public opinion was marked by the growing and incontrovertible politicization and polarization of public opinion. This came to a head in the context of the constitutional, euro, refugee, and most recently Brexit crises, but was already beginning to show at the times of the Maastricht and constitutional treaties. By now the discursive balance of plausibility has irrevocably been tilted in favour of discourses acknowledging the political nature of the stakes of EU politics, as opposed to de-politicising them. The challenge is to develop mechanisms of channelling and reconciling clashing preferences, interests, and identities, recognising differences without claiming to harmonise them.