From internal-input to external-output: a multi-tiered understanding of legitimacy in EU foreign policy

In this Special Issue of Global Affairs we prioritize a sociological or empirical understanding of legitimacy and the extent to which the European Union is deemed to be legitimate (i.e. a belief or faith in the rightness of EU governance), prior to asking any normative questions as to its moral or ethical standing as a system of governance. We are particularly looking into six different types of EU external action legitimacy: reaching from internal to external input, throughput and output legitimacy. For each of these we identify legitimatory conditions and practices, which are challenged both in and outside the European Union.