Euroapathy, another type of resistances to European integration? Empirical and theoretical considerations about the European ‘Legitimacy deficit’

Using a brief overview of the literature on legitimacy, European public opinion and Euroscepticism (Section I) as point of departure and pointing to some of its shortcomings, this paper aims to reconsider the issue of legitimacy at a micro-level and from a sociopolitical perspective, by studying how the European integration process has impacted on the acceptance and the appropriation (or not) of the political order by citizens (Section II). Indeed, legitimacy refers here to the, more or less conscious, appropriation and acceptance by citizens of the structures of political authority, broadly understood to be both organisational and symbolic, an issue that has not yet been addressed directly and empirically by the European literature. Focus groups realized in Great-Britain, France and Belgium in the framework of the CITAE project3 will serve as a microscope to address empirically the issue of Euroapathy as another type of resistance to European integration - and consequently more largely that of the deficit of EU legitimacy (Section III).