Governance and Legitimacy in the EU

We research models for enhancing the legitimacy of legal entities beyond nation states, including trans-national adjudication, contractual governance (eg. in health care) and governance by non-state actors. This also involves a wider engagement with jurisprudence, with particular focus on the topic of legal pluralism which will be linked to spatial issues, such as the collective use of natural resources including land, and to regionalism and localism.

CELLS was represented in the European Research Project "Reflexive Governance in the Public Interest" (Dr Caroline Mullen). In 2011, Dr Jen Hendry was funded by the framework of the Cluster of Excellence (Normative Orders) in Comparative Constitutional Studies at Goethe University (Frankfurt/Main) to participate in the ‘Ordering Pluralism’ workshop, an edited collection from which is planned for 2012.

The CELLS seminar series has already hosted speakers to enhance this theme during academic year 2011/12, with Professor Stephen Tierney (Edinburgh) having delivered a paper on ‘Referendums and Europe: Filling the Democratic Gap?’ and Dr Matej Avbelj (Graduate School of Government & European Studies, Kranj) speaking on the topic ‘EU Integration: Unity or Differentiation?’.

The latest activity as part of this overarching research project was Dr. Hendry’s conference on Spaces of Indigenous Justice.

Further information

• Reflexive Governance in the Public Interest

Project Publications

Hendry J, ‘Legal Pluralism and Normative Transfer’ in G. Frankenberg (ed) Order from Transfer (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2013)