Objective Along the lines of the project 'Nested Legitimacy'? Core Identities and their Impact on Subjective Evaluations of Governance' financed through a Marie Curie action, this project continues the prospects on the nature of the relationship between people's identity, legitimacy mechanisms, and how those two influence the level of people's involvement in the political processes. Whereas the first project focused on the understanding of public opinion and the European Union's ability for creating of a public sphere, in this second project more clear emphasis will be put onto the connection between the elites and the general public.Why is this connection between elites and the general public so important? Why should the representatives' identities matter when studying the creation of a European political community? If political elites largely shape public opinion through the media, it is highly relevant to understand where are located the loyalties of the elected representatives in order to estimate the likelihood for a European citizenship to arise.The main research goals of the project are that of shedding some light to the questions:1) What is the ranking of loyalty priorities of the elected representatives in the EU? Is there a change in loyalties and allegiances along the EU-building process?2) If loyalties are changing, are they also changing the nature of political representation and how?3) Are they finally changing the sources of political legitimacy?For that purpose the applicant intends to contribute to both:(1) the development of existing theoretical frameworks;(2) the testing of existing and newly advanced theories through an exhaustive use of available data, and the gathering of new empirical material.Finally, in an attempt to bring together the results of the first Marie Curie project (MCI) and this Re-integration project (MC2), the last stage of the project will map out the attitudes and beliefs of European elites. Fields of science social sciencessociologygovernance Keywords Citizenship Comparative Politics Identities Information Knowledge Legitimacy Political Interest Political Participation Political Representation Public Opinion Programme(s) FP6-MOBILITY - Human resources and Mobility in the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006 Topic(s) MOBILITY-4.1 - Marie Curie European Reintegration Grants (ERG) Call for proposal FP6-2002-MOBILITY-11 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERG - Marie Curie actions-European Re-integration Grants Coordinator UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN Address Louvain-la-neuve Belgium See on map Links Website Opens in new window EU contribution € 0,00
