Power and Legitimacy ─ Reconciling Europe and the Nation-State

"Peter Lindseth has written an important book, which has found its moment. Lindseth explains why the EU represents an international offshoot of the administrative state as established at national level. His original and persuasive account, grounded in European political history, has important implications for legitimacy, control and accountability in the EU, explained in exemplary fashion." Carol Harlow Emeritus Professor of Law, Law Department, London School of Economics

"Peter Lindseth has written a rich and historically informed work that tackles a question of enduring significance for the European Union, namely what the basic source of legitimacy is for this unique supranational economic and political organization. His answer presents a clear challenge to the dominant constitutional understanding of the EU today by arguing that it is best understood as a system of delegated administrative governance, which, following principal-agent theory, rests on national sources of democratic and constitutional legitimacy. Even for those who do not agree with his characterization of the EU, this book is a worthwhile and absorbing read. "Grainne De Burca Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

"Peter Lindseth brings real historical depth to the vexed question of the special legal character of the European Union. His conclusion that the European project signals a new transnational stage in administrative governance and administrative law is supported by a rich exploration of the evolving institutional forms and political cultures of the twentieth century European state. Lindseth's urbane style, his subtle grasp of comparative detail, his steady attention to the big picture and his unswerving commitment to making sense of supranational Europe in terms that emphasize the continuity of our legal imagination make this a compelling and rewarding achievement." Neil Walker Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations, The University of Edinburgh School of Law

A succession of crises has marked the last decade of European integration, leading to disorientation among integration scholar. Older frameworks for understanding have been challenged, while the outlines of new ones are only now beginning to emerge. This book looks to history to provide a more durable explanation of the nature and legitimacy of European governance going forward. Through detailed examination of certain fundamental but often overlooked elements in EU history, Peter Lindseth describes the convergence of European integration around the `postwar constitutional settlement of administrative governance.' `Administrative' here does not mean `non-political' or `technical'---it means that supranationl regulatory authority should properly be seen as `delegated' from national constitutional bodies. As such, supranational policymaking has relied to a significant degree on forms of oversight by national executives, legislatures, and judiciaries, following models of `mediated legitimation' first developed in the administrative state and then translated into the European context. These national mechanisms developed specifically to overcome the core disconnect in European integration---between exercises of otherwise autonomous supranational regulatory `power,' on the one hand, and the persistence of the nationstate as the primary source of democratic and constitutional `legitimacy' in the European system, on the other. It has been through recourse to the legitimating structures and normative principles of the postwar constitutional settlement, this study shows, that European public law has sought to reconcile `Europe' and the nation-state for more than fifty years.

Peter L. Lindseth is the Olimpiad S. loffe Professor of International and Comparative Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law. He has taught at Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, and also has held fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History (Frankfurt), and the French Council of State (Paris), among other institutions. Professor Lindseth holds a BA and JD from Cornell and a PhD in European history from Columbia.