Would a stronger common foreign and security policy make the EU more 'legitimate' in the eyes of its citizens?
             In this essay I will be firstly touching on what is meant by the notion of legitimacy and why the EU has had problems concerning it, I will next explain what a common foreign and security policy is. I shall subsequently argue that a stronger common foreign and security policy would help make the EU more legitimate in the eyes of its citizens, concluding by questioning if a stronger common foreign and security policy alone would legitimate the EU.
             To answer this question, I must first address what is meant by the concept of legitimacy, specifically in relation to the EU and its legitimacy problems. Traditionally legitimacy is defined as the 'ability of a political system to articulate interests and provide for the needs of the group it is mandated to represent' [Weiler, 1997], instrumental and functional viewpoints on legitimacy share the beliefs that collective identity, shared backgrounds, cultures and norms are necessary to integrate the political and social realms. This is the main issue in the EU as it does not engender a sense of common background or values, nor does it have the resources for monopoly of violence and taxation to enforce its will and no underlying tradition to back it up, meaning that the EU must draw upon other sources to provide legitimacy [Eriksen and Fossum]. Rather than input-orientated sources of legitimacy, the EU must then draw mostly upon output-orientated sources 'government for the people', whereby the EU will be seen as legitimate if and because of its efficiency in promoting common welfare [Scharpf, 1999:6]. In this essay I will be considering whether a stronger Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) will aid in increasing output-orientated legitimacy.
             Firstly, what is the CFSP? The foreign policy of a state determines the state's relation...