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Article published In:
(De)legitimising EUrope in times of crisis
Edited by Franco Zappettini and Samuel Bennett
[Journal of Language and Politics 21:2] 2022
► pp. 191–207

Reimagining Europe and its (dis)integration

(De)legitimising the EU’s project in times of crisis

ORCID logo | University of Liverpool
ORCID logo | Adam Mickiewicz UniversityPoznań
In this article we introduce our special issue of the Journal of Language & Politics on the (de)legitimisation of Europe. We start by outlining the rationale and research that led us to the special issue. In Section 2 we set out the contextual framing of the contributions, i.e., the crisis of legitimacy that European institutions and indeed the entire European project, have faced for the last decade and a half; crises that have been brought about by different events and actors and have resulted in centrifugal and centripetal processes. Next, we outline our theoretical approach to legitimation, which combines politico-sociological perspectives with discursive and communicative ones. This is followed by Section 4, which introduces and weaves together the contributions to the special issue. Finally, in Section 5 we briefly discuss the findings with regard to the aims and goals of the issue and also suggest potential next research steps.
Keywords: Europe, legitimation, legitimacy, European Union, discourse analysis, crisis, COVID, politicisation, mediatisation, language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Framing EU-rope’s current malaise
  • 3.Legitimation as a discursive process
  • 4.Crises, contexts and contestations
  • 5.A (de)legitimised Europe?
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21075.zap
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