Throughput Legitimacy Concept for the Political System of the European Union

The article presents the concept of throughput legitimacy for the political system of the European Union. Throughput legitimacy was conceptualized by the American political scientist Vivien Schmidt in 2012. In Russian political science this concept was not widely used, despite its obvious practical applicability. The author aims to acquaint researchers of European integration to this concept and to show how productive its practical application for political analysis may be. The author refers to the republican and liberal traditions in European political philosophy, which are fundamental for legitimacy formulation. The methodology of the article lies in the system-based historical approach. Three features of the political system of the EU are explored, explaining the shift of the legitimacy balance in favour of the republican component. Based on D. Easton theory of political systems and functional theory of N. Luhmann, the author substantiates the thesis that the legitimacy of the political system consists of three components: input legitimacy, throughput legitimacy and output legitimacy. The author comes to the conclusion that in assessing the legitimacy of the EU political system, the concept of throughput legitimacy is the most adequate, since it takes into account the peculiar features of this system, reflects interrelations within the system, allows to estimate the quality of governance and to develop appropriate recommendations.