The Political Regime

Abstract This chapter is the third of four on the question of legitimacy in the EU, and deals with the political institutions of the EU and its policy processes. The first section elaborates on these aspects of legitimacy or regime support, and presents a conceptual framework. The second examines cross‐national variations and variations over time in regime support, including public satisfaction with the basic principles, decision‐making processes, and institutional arrangements of the EU. The third section analyses alternative explanations for these variations in regime support, including the role of (political) cultural legacies, social background, and policy performance‐ and leadership‐based factors. The conclusion considers the implications of this analysis for understanding the future of the EU.