Segmented Europeanization: Exploring the Legitimacy of the European Union from a Public Discourse Perspective*

Abstract

Abstract The article presents the results of a longitudinal newspaper analysis on the Europeanization of public discourses in five EU countries. It shows that European governance is increasingly subject to public scrutiny, but neither has a common discourse in Europe developed nor has the communication lag of the EU disappeared. Therefore the EU remains largely dependent on domestic processes of legitimation.