This is a study in EU legitimacy from the perspective of EU citizens. Mather argues that legitimacy is empirical: 'legitimacy only exists if people feel that it does' and that the EU is a unique and dynamic institution, hence legitimating factors are also evolutionary.

JANET MATHER is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She is the author of The European Union and British Democracy: Towards Convergence, and a number of journal articles. She has also contributed chapters to books edited by Neill Nugent, Juliet Lodge and Michael O'Neill amongst others.