Policy Feedback and Legitimacy in the European multi-level polity

The focal point of the literature on policy feedbacks (Campbell, 2012; Kumlin, 2004; Mettler & Soss, 2004; Soss & Schram, 2007) is to investigate how public policies impact upon citizens’ attitudes and behaviors. The contemporary changes in the distribution of power across Europe provide interesting empirical material to address this strand of research. As long shown by theories of state-building in Western Europe, welfare systems had been a powerful tool used by political centers to build up a sense of a national community, to legitimate national political actors, and thereby the nation-state (Bartolini, 2005; Rokkan & al., 1987). But since the 1970’s, central states are not the sole providers of welfare anymore: the European Union has increasingly intervened in this field, through decisions of the European Court of Justice (Ferrera, 2005; Pierson & Leibfried, 1995; de la Porte, 2010), and regional governments have been entrusted with social policy responsibilities (Keating, McEwen, 2005). If one takes seriously the hypothesis of policy feedbacks, major changes in the legitimacy structure should therefore be noticed. Classical questions are at stake in this analysis, notably how and when regional and European governing elites are able to use public policies to reshape beliefs and preferences in the citizenry (Soss & Schram, 2007, p. 111). Starting from the classical distinction between input-oriented and output-oriented legitimacy (Scharpf, 1999), this paper examines how the restructuring of European (welfare) states has affected the legitimacy attributed to levels of government. Rather than focusing solely on the European level, it focuses on the implications of the multilevel characteristics of the European polity (Scharpf, 2001, 2007). Specifically, the paper explores how the features of European social policy impact upon citizens’ preferences for the allocation of social policy responsibility in a complex and multilevel polity. It hypothesizes that the visibility and the traceability of social policy (Pierson, 1993) are key to the explanation of the feedback effects of European social policy on citizens’ preferences for the European level. Methodologically, the legitimacy is operationalized by citizens’ preferences for the allocation of policy responsibility (De Winter, Swyngedouw, & Goeminne, 2008). Additionally, the paper draws on previous research that emphasizes the national framing of European and redistribution issues (Diez Medrano, 2005; Van Ingelgom, forthcoming; Eichenberg & Dalton, 2007). The paper thereby focuses on a case-study of Belgium, as this country incorporates multi-level features when it comes to politics and policy making (Hooghe, 2004). Furthermore, the focus on a single case allows challenging the assumption of a uniform policy impact. Each European policy or initiatives’ feedback effect (employment policy, health care, family policy) on the preference of citizens for the European level are investigated. Lastly, the paper combines qualitative and quantitative contextual data on social policy with secondary survey data (EVS, ESS and Eurobarometers). Indeed, previous studies make clear that it is crucial to know how individuals react in particular policy context to evaluate the social impact of public policies (Elster, 1998; Jones & Cullis, 2003)