A matter of habit? The sociological foundations of empowering the European Parliament

In this article we study the 'institutionalization' of the European Parliament (EP), analysing those processes whereby the EP and its role in the EU's institutional setting acquire legitimacy and are increasingly taken for granted by political actors. In order to both explain the process of institutionalization and to understand why granting the EP more powers has become the EU's standard response to eliminate the (alleged) democratic deficit, we argue that a sociological perspective is necessary. In particular, only when we relate the evolution of the EP to its perceived legitimacy among EU member states, can we begin to better grasp the process of its empowerment. To that effect, we discuss the concept of legitimacy and conceive of it as an inter-subjective property that, nevertheless, operates through individuals via cognitive scripts. We then empirically demonstrate that the legitimacy of the EP did change over the course of its existence. Whereas until the early 1990s, categorical opposition to extend the powers of the EP was commonplace and several governments drew symbolic boundaries between the EP and national legislatures, the value of these indicators of legitimacy had fundamentally changed by the mid-late 1990s. We therefore suggest to perceive of the more recent episodes of empowering the EP as common habitual responses triggered by a recurring challenge rather than explicit calculations based on instrumental rationality. Comparative European Politics (2010) 8, 37-54. doi:10.1057/cep.2010.3