Suchergebnisse

Today few people deny the existence of regional substate diplomacy (Criekemans 2010). But there is still no common agreement on a region's right to do so and, above all, on their scope of action. This question goes against what used to be the dominant approach in international relations, the state-centric approach that leads to the logic of speaking with one voice. Increasingly, a multilevel-governance approach has contested this state-centric view and proposes an alternative logic of multiple actors speaking with their voice, nuancing strongly the seminal distinction between "sovereignty-bound" and "sovereignty-free" actors (Rosenau 1990). From the 1970s, the world has seen the growing presence of sovereignty-free actors in international relations. Among these actors, non-central or, better, substate, governments of federal states have developed intensive foreign relations. These governments are using a range of techniques: from shaping the federal government's foreign policy to establishing themselves directly in the international arena (Blatter et al. 2008). For minority nation governments this is particularly a challenge, as they have to act internally – where they have developed full-fledged legislative powers within a multinational federation – and externally – where international and national laws are often still reluctant to recognise their right of action (Lejeune 2003). Yet some minority nations have thrived in developing their own international relations. Bavaria, Catalonia, Flanders, Quebec, Scotland and Wallonia are often seen as successful international players even if they are not fully sovereignty bound (Michelmann 2009; Criekemans 2010). The international actions of these minority nations have been characterised under the umbrella of "identity paradiplomacy" (Paquin 2003); that is, a willingness to use international relations to foster a nation-building process within a multinational state. This observation was particularly prevalent for minority nations strongly in competition with a federal government about their nationbuilding process, albeit for different reasons, namely Flanders, Quebec and Scotland (Paquin 2004). The case of Wallonia seems to fits less well into the identity paradiplomacy framework, which therefore raises the question of alternative roads to international relations. This is the core question of this chapter: is identity paradiplomacy the only way to go for minority nations? Quebec and Wallonia are both well known for their active foreign relations.

The Global Nutrition Report (GNR) provides a global profile and country profiles on nutrition for each of the United Nations' 193 member states, and includes specific progress for each country. It will be a centerpiece of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) in Rome on 19-21 November, organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. ; Supplementary Online Materials ix Acknowledgments x Abbreviations xii Executive summary xiii Chapter 1 ntroduction 2 Chapter 2 Nutrition Is Central to Sustainable Development 7 Chapter 3 Progress toward the World Health Assembly Nutrition Targets Is Too Slow1 5 Chapter 4 The Coexistence of Different Forms of Malnutrition Is the "New Normal" 22 Chapter 5 The Coverage of Nutrition-Specific Interventions Needs to Improve 29 Chapter 6 Interventions Addressing the Underlying Determinants of Nutrition Status Are Important, but They Need to Be More Nutrition sensitive 38 Chapter 7 The Enabling Environment Is Improving, but Not Quickly Enough 47 Chapter 8 The Need to Strengthen Accountability in Nutrition 56 Chapter 9 What Are the Priorities for Investment in Improved Nutrition Data? 67 Chapter 10 Key Messages and Recommendations 71 Appendix 1 The Nutrition Country Profile: A Tool for Action 75 Appendix 2 Which Countries Are on Course to Meet Several WHA Targets? 77 Appendix 3 Which Countries Are on Course for Which WHA Targets? 79 Appendix 4 Donor Spending on Nutrition-Specific and Nutrition-Sensitive Interventions and Programs 84 Appendix 5 How Accountable Is the Global Nutrition Report? 86 Appendix 6 Availability of Data for Nutrition Country Profile Indicators 88 Notes 91 References 95 PANELS Panel 11 Types of Nutrition Investment, Lawrence Haddad 4 Panel 21 Nutrition and the Sustainable Development Goals—No Room for Complacency, Michael Anderson 11 Panel 22 Some New Data from India: What If?, Lawrence Haddad, Komal Bhatia, and Kamilla Eriksen 12 Panel 23 How Did Maharashtra Cut Child Stunting?, Lawrence Haddad 13 Panel 24 Can Improving the Underlying Determinants of Nutrition Help Meet the WHA Targets?, Lisa Smith and Lawrence Haddad 14 Panel 41 Malnutrition in the United States and United Kingdom, Jessica Fanzo 25 Panel 42 Regional Drivers of Malnutrition in Indonesia, Endang Achadi with acknowledgment to Sudarno Sumarto and Taufik Hidayat 26 Panel 43 Compiling District-Level Nutrition Data in India, Purnima Menon and Shruthi Cyriac 27 Panel 44 Targeting Minority Groups at Risk in the United States, Jennifer Requejo and Joel Gittelsohn 28 Panel 51 Measuring Coverage of Programs to Treat Severe Acute Malnutrition, Jose Luis Alvarez 37 Panel 61 Trends in Dietary Quality among Adults in the United States, Daniel Wang and Walter Willett 41 Panel 62 How Did Bangladesh Reduce Stunting So Rapidly?, Derek Headey 43 Panel 63 Using an Agricultural Platform in Burkina Faso to Improve Nutrition during the First 1,000 Days, Deanna Kelly Olney, Andrew Dillon, Abdoulaye Pedehombga, Marcellin Ouédraogo, and Marie Ruel 45 Panel 71 Is There a Better Way to Track Nutrition Spending? 48 Panel 72 Tracking Financial Allocations to Nutrition: Guatemala's Experience, Jesús Bulux, Otto Velasquez, Cecibel Juárez, Carla Guillén, and Fernando Arriola 49 Panel 73 A Tool for Assessing Government Progress on Creating Healthy Food Environments, Boyd Swinburn 51 Panel 74 Engaging Food and Beverage Companies through the Access to Nutrition Index, Inge Kauer 52 Panel 75 How Brazil Cut Child Stunting and Improved Breastfeeding Practices, Jennifer Requejo 54 Panel 81 Scaling Up Nutrition through Business, Jonathan Tench 61 Panel 82 How Civil Society Organizations Build Commitment to Nutrition, Claire Blanchard 62 Panel 83 Building Civil Society's Capacity to Push for Policies on Obesity and Noncommunicable Diseases, Corinna Hawkes 63 Panel 84 Can Community Monitoring Enhance Accountability for Nutrition?, Nick Nisbett and Dolf te Lintelo 64 Panel 85 National Evaluation Platforms: Potential for Nutrition, Jennifer Bryce and colleagues 65 Panel 86 The State of African Nutrition Data for Accountability and Learning, Carl Lachat, Joyce Kinabo, Eunice Nago, Annamarie Kruger, and Patrick Kolsteren 66 ; PR ; IFPRI1; CRP4; B Promoting healthy food systems ; DGO; A4NH; PHND ; CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)

The participation of non-state actors to international politics has been investigated since the creation of international institutions. Yet, the rules, principles and norms of global governance are no more discussed in single, isolated institutions. Rather, with the proliferation of international regimes and organisations, international issues are now negotiated in a context of institutional interactions known as "regime complexes". This poses new questions, in particular on the negotiation burden that these new processes place on international actors. To answer this question, this contribution compares non-state participation in both contexts (single regimes and regime complexes), using the international forest negotiations as a case study. It uses quantitative methods to measure the negotiation burden of single regimes and compare it to the negotiation burden of regime complexes. The negotiation burden of single regimes is found insignificant with political interest being the major motivation for participation, while the negotiation burden of regime complexes is found relevant, requiring a certain type of material and organisational resources for non-state actors to participate. Yet a certain diversity of non-state representation is maintained within regime complexes, with non-governmental organisations being dominant with respect to business groups.

While a great deal of attention is devoted to the Pacific region as the new chessboard of international politics, Pakistan remains a key actor in terms of both threat and potential. Two observations back this argument: first, Pakistan's fundamental roles as a state are challenged by its ongoing conflict with India and internal insurgencies. Second, due to a power-status gap, Pakistan experiences difficulties in holding specific self-conceived roles. In addition to hampering its socio-economic potential, these developments prevent Pakistan's quest for normalization in the system. As a consequence, we argue that engaging with Islamabad should be a priority for Washington so as to prevent the country from further aligning with Beijing, thus reinforcing China's regional leadership and status as peer-competitor to the United States. Indeed, as the potential for deviance in the international system arises from its normative dimension, the US, as the global leader, counts among its roles that of norm-setter and primary socializer for most states. Our research proposes to look at an old puzzle with new theoretical insights. By addressing the question of Washington's engagement towards non-conforming states, we aim to document a set of socialization processes as intervening variables linking American global role as leader and primary socializer to Pakistan's process of social integration (normalization/deviance). Drawing from sociology and social psychology, the paper seeks to explore the ability of the leader to act as a primary source of role location and status recognition towards non-conforming states so as to integrate them (back) into the US-led system.

The Red Devils, chocolate or beer and the King, such is the typical answers given to the oft-asked question of what is still holding Belgium together. To these three symbols, two extra elements are often added: the debt and Brussels, the capital of the country and of the Flemish Region/Community, the French Community (politically but not constitutionally the Wallonia-Brussels Federation), the European Union (to be more specific, one of the three capitals, along with Strasbourg and Luxemburg), while being as well the seat of the Brussels Capital Region. Generally, the list of factors of unity in Belgium ends with this short list. Is it already too long, or on the contrary, is it really too short? This is the main question of this chapter. Paradoxically, although this question often arises, there are very few scientific writings analyzing it. To do so, this chapter will discuss six sets of factors: historical, identity, socio-economic, political, international and symbolic. Nonetheless, it is important to take into account that such enterprise seeks to be informative and not prescriptive. This chapter does not assume that Belgium should be united. There are several points of view about what Belgium should be, and this contribution merely wishes to nurture the political debate by conveying an original approach on six types of factors.

After years of political crises and negotiations, the deep-rooted conflict between Dutch- and French-speaking parties recently led to the 2011 agreement concerning a further reform of the Belgian state. This reform mainly furthers decentralises the – already federal – state structure, including the allocation of additional competences and fiscal powers to sub-national entities (Regions and Communities). But this new state reform also brings about a radical reform of the upper house: the Belgian Senate. Since 1995, the Senate was composed of three different types of members: Senators directly elected by two linguistically separated electorate (the Dutch-speaking and the French-speaking electorates), Senators indirectly elected by the Community parliaments and Senators coopted by the two other types. The French- and German-speaking linguistic minorities had a fixed amount of seats in this assembly. The reform of the state radically changed the legislative competences of the Senate and its composition as its members will now be designated by Regional and Community parliaments (plus 10 coopted senators). Broadly speaking, the appointment of the majority of the Senators moved from a system of direct and language-based election to a system of indirect and mixed regional and language-based designation. This change is not without consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. In May 2014, regional, community and federal elections will be organised in Belgium, testing for the first time this new system of designation of Senators by regional and community parliaments. This paper intends to present the 2013 reform of the Senate in Belgium and its consequence for the representation of linguistic minorities. The situations before and after the reform of the Senate will be compared, not only in terms of the way Senators are appointed but in terms of its consequence on the linguistic aspects of the regional and community elections campaign and of the profile of the appointed Senators.

Transparency is a widely used concept in debates on international politics, from transnational anti-corruption campaigns to renewed requests for greater disclosure on health, finance, or even security issues. Calls for transparency date back at least to the League of Nations, when internationalists demanded open diplomacy. Yet, it is in the subfield of GEG, and its developments on nonstate actors as a key research topic (see introduction), where the practice and theory of transparency has made the most profound inroads (Gupta 2010a). GEG has been a particularly fertile ground for the development of informational governance (Mol 2008) and the rise of numerous transparency initiatives which have been analyzed in a rapidly developing literature. Importantly, current GEG research is also highly relevant for other IR subfields. For one, recent GEG research can help IR scholars to further refine the concept of transparency and to increase conceptual clarity and sophistication. Second, research on GEG has improved our understanding of the factors that determine the effectiveness of transparency as a governance tool in international politics.

The conflict over Kashmir has been a core issue between India and Pakistan since their independence. It is not only just a territorial conflict but also the core issue of the region, which has been changing along with the regional and international environment. In particular, after the 1990's, the people of Kashmir committed to armed resistance, which has become the focus of the risk to regional and international security because both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers. Resolution of this problem is quite difficult because it would require committing to the ideas of national integration of both countries. Specifically, for India, it is secularism; for Pakistan, it is the two-nation theory. However, the people of Kashmir want to choose their own destiny—integration with neither India nor Pakistan. India promised Kashmir a degree of freedom and democracy under article 370 of the Indian Constitution; however, for the time being, these right have been curtailed. To resolve this issue, two main plans have been presented by both countries; a referendum and the partition of Kashmir along the Line of Control. But, these ideas disregard the right of self-determination or the nationalist sentiment of the people of Kashmir. Recently a new idea emerged based on the notion of shared sovereignty. The history of discord between India and Pakistan has caused critical anxiety for regional peace and stability. However, there will is hope that a constructive solution to this problem can be found in the future through continuity of dialogue and negotiation between the two countries. We as an international society surrounding these nations, we should maintain a supportive stance for continued cordial dialogue.

The EUROSUR system is supposed to further the surveillance of external borders of European Union Member States. From this point of view, it can be considered an important step in the construction of a controlled space. Drawing inspiration from the Foucauldian attention to programs and technologies, and mobilizing the Actor- Network-Theory concepts of setting and actant, the paper investigates EUROSUR main methodological operations. It highlights how the making of a controlled space is, first and foremost, a mise-en-discours going well beyond surveillance and pro- hibition: a continuous effort to make sense of a disparate multiplicity, encompassing both human and nonhuman elements, both controlled and controlling ones. From a theoretical perspective, the chapter contributes to on-going endeavors to reinvigor- ate the post-structuralist studies of International Relations with approaches inspired by Actor-Network-Theory.

Some states are widely recognized by policy makers and scholars as middle powers. The characteristics that were highlighted for these countries have become the basic guidelines for understanding middle powermanship and developing the corresponding theory. While those analyses offer rich in-depth insights into the foreign policy of specific countries, they have so far lacked a further step of generalization. When establishing such power-based rankings, we assume the possibility to determine states' capacities so as to identify their position in said ranking. As appealing as this theoretical model may be, the reality of international politics increasingly challenge it. Thus, we argue that this theoretical inadequacy is due to the fact that middle power theory as it has been developed so far should be understood as an inductive, not a deductive, approach . Consequently, the contemporary reality calls for yet another stage of development in this theory. The choice of Pakistan as our case study arises from the observation that while Pakistan can hardly fit into the current classification(s) of middle powermanship due to its poor economic and development performances, it is a nuclear state and is –at least– in the top twenty armies of the world. Moreover, we find several cases in which Pakistan has used the diplomatic tools characterizing middle powers, such as mediation or niche diplomacy. Our paper aims at answering two questions: (1) can middle power theory bring some light on Pakistan's positioning in world politics? (2) Alternatively, what does the case of Pakistan tell us about the (ir)relevance of middle power theory? We build upon role theory to develop the case of middle powermanship as a status-role bundle, by analyzing three specific cases of Pakistan's foreign policy: Pakistani nuclear posturing, its Afghan policy and its posturing vis-à-vis the Saudi-Iranian regional competition.

Traduction japonaise, original anglais disponible en ligne sur HAL-SHS. Remerciements à Matoba Hiroshi pour sa traduction. ; International audience ; This paper responds to two different contexts. The first one was the coming UK referendum and, whatever the result, the challenge for the EU to reinvent itself or dissolve if it continues failing European populations. The second context was a deep questioning in Japan, but also in South Korea, about the future of East Asia and of ASEAN: is a convergence possible beyond economic interactions? How to breach cultural divides? How to overcome the search for hegemony, deep historical hatred, in order to reach and establish a common ground? The paper analyzes the presupposition of the European construction from the beginning: a union can be negotiated and instituted by the construction of a joint or common economic sphere. This construction has always denied or even repressed the fact that the autonomization of the economic sphere is complex historical process different for each nation in Europe or in the rest of the world. So the economic sphere has different relations to politics, society, knowledge production and education, even religion, in each nation. The same can be said of the conception and practice of public opinion, the structure and role of the state, etc. A union based on the presupposition of a common economic sphere becomes unsustainable in time of crisis. No solution can be hoped from the minds of politicians and bureaucrats: they don't act at the level where solutions can be found. "Culture", like "market", does not touch the problems at stake. The only real solution is to produce and share knowledge on the differentiation in each case of politics, civil society, the economy, research and education, even religion in order to map the differences and the family ressemblance between the different national trajectories. This joint knowledge is the only common ground of a coherent and creative union in Europe. It is also true in other parts of the world where ...

Traduction japonaise, original anglais disponible en ligne sur HAL-SHS. Remerciements à Matoba Hiroshi pour sa traduction. ; International audience ; This paper responds to two different contexts. The first one was the coming UK referendum and, whatever the result, the challenge for the EU to reinvent itself or dissolve if it continues failing European populations. The second context was a deep questioning in Japan, but also in South Korea, about the future of East Asia and of ASEAN: is a convergence possible beyond economic interactions? How to breach cultural divides? How to overcome the search for hegemony, deep historical hatred, in order to reach and establish a common ground? The paper analyzes the presupposition of the European construction from the beginning: a union can be negotiated and instituted by the construction of a joint or common economic sphere. This construction has always denied or even repressed the fact that the autonomization of the economic sphere is complex historical process different for each nation in Europe or in the rest of the world. So the economic sphere has different relations to politics, society, knowledge production and education, even religion, in each nation. The same can be said of the conception and practice of public opinion, the structure and role of the state, etc. A union based on the presupposition of a common economic sphere becomes unsustainable in time of crisis. No solution can be hoped from the minds of politicians and bureaucrats: they don't act at the level where solutions can be found. "Culture", like "market", does not touch the problems at stake. The only real solution is to produce and share knowledge on the differentiation in each case of politics, civil society, the economy, research and education, even religion in order to map the differences and the family ressemblance between the different national trajectories. This joint knowledge is the only common ground of a coherent and creative union in Europe. It is also true in other parts of the world where ...

Traduction japonaise, original anglais disponible en ligne sur HAL-SHS. Remerciements à Matoba Hiroshi pour sa traduction. ; International audience ; This paper responds to two different contexts. The first one was the coming UK referendum and, whatever the result, the challenge for the EU to reinvent itself or dissolve if it continues failing European populations. The second context was a deep questioning in Japan, but also in South Korea, about the future of East Asia and of ASEAN: is a convergence possible beyond economic interactions? How to breach cultural divides? How to overcome the search for hegemony, deep historical hatred, in order to reach and establish a common ground? The paper analyzes the presupposition of the European construction from the beginning: a union can be negotiated and instituted by the construction of a joint or common economic sphere. This construction has always denied or even repressed the fact that the autonomization of the economic sphere is complex historical process different for each nation in Europe or in the rest of the world. So the economic sphere has different relations to politics, society, knowledge production and education, even religion, in each nation. The same can be said of the conception and practice of public opinion, the structure and role of the state, etc. A union based on the presupposition of a common economic sphere becomes unsustainable in time of crisis. No solution can be hoped from the minds of politicians and bureaucrats: they don't act at the level where solutions can be found. "Culture", like "market", does not touch the problems at stake. The only real solution is to produce and share knowledge on the differentiation in each case of politics, civil society, the economy, research and education, even religion in order to map the differences and the family ressemblance between the different national trajectories. This joint knowledge is the only common ground of a coherent and creative union in Europe. It is also true in other parts of the world where ...

From the beginning of the 1990's onwards, political analysts in all Western European countries discovered the contours of what they thought to be a widespread crisis of democracy. The alleged decline of political trust and public participation, and the rise of electoral volatility pointed out that the gap between politicians and citizens had never been wider. This political climate characterized by a deep-rooted crisis of democratic legitimacy offered an excellent breeding ground for critical reflection on the role, shape and function of democracy in modern societies. It gave rise to a fruitful quest for new and innovative ways of governing a democracy. It is in this turbulent period that the ideal of a deliberative democracy was coined (Dryzek 2000). A community of international scholars and philosophers, inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas, became more and more convinced that a vibrant democracy is more than the aggregate of its individual citizens, and that democratic politics should be about more than merely voting. The quality of a democracy and the quality of democratic decisions, according to them, did not depend on the correct aggregation of individual preferences, but rather on the quality of the public debate that preceded the voting stage. Democratic decisions were thus no longer considered a function of mere compliance with aggregation rules. Instead, they were determined by extensive argumentation about political choices before voting on them. Because of its strong focus of public involvement in politics, this deliberative model of democracy started out in life as a theory of legitimacy (Benhabib 1996; Cohen 1997; Dryzek 2001; Parkinson 2006). By including everyone who is affected by a decision in the process leading to that decision, deliberation has important political merits: it is capable of generating political decisions that receive broad public support, even when there is strong disagreement on the aims and values a polity should promote (Geenens & Tinnevelt 2007, p. 47). After all, talking about political issues allows citizens to hear other perspectives to a problem and to see their own perspectives represented in the final decision. However, deliberation's beneficial effects do not come about easily. If deliberative democracy wants to contribute to increasing the legitimacy of the political system as a whole, it has to be legitimate in itself. In other words, deliberative events have to reflect the principles of legitimacy in their own functioning before their outcomes can generate legitimate political decisions. It is therefore crucial to assess the internal legitimacy of deliberative mini-publics before making claims about their contribution to the legitimacy of the political system as a whole. Our research question is therefore: to what extent can deliberative mini-publics live up to the criteria of democratic and political legitimacy? In this paper, we set out to assess the internal legitimacy of one specific deliberative event, namely the G1000 project in Belgium (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2012). The G1000 project takes a particular place in the world of deliberative practice because it was not only grassroots in its process and its results, but also in its organization. Most deliberative events are introduced and funded by either public administrations or scientific institutions. The G1000 was rather considered a genuine citizens' initiative from its very inception. All of the organizers of the event were volunteers, and all of the funds were gathered using crowd funding. So instead of a scientific experiment, the G1000 was more of a democratic experiment by, through, and for citizens. This grass-root structure makes it a very interesting case for students of legitimacy, because as we will see later on it situated at the heart of the democratic trade-off between input and output legitimacy.

From the beginning of the 1990's onwards, political analysts in all Western European countries discovered the contours of what they thought to be a widespread crisis of democracy. The alleged decline of political trust and public participation, and the rise of electoral volatility pointed out that the gap between politicians and citizens had never been wider. This political climate characterized by a deep-rooted crisis of democratic legitimacy offered an excellent breeding ground for critical reflection on the role, shape and function of democracy in modern societies. It gave rise to a fruitful quest for new and innovative ways of governing a democracy. It is in this turbulent period that the ideal of a deliberative democracy was coined (Dryzek 2000). A community of international scholars and philosophers, inspired by the work of Jürgen Habermas, became more and more convinced that a vibrant democracy is more than the aggregate of its individual citizens, and that democratic politics should be about more than merely voting. The quality of a democracy and the quality of democratic decisions, according to them, did not depend on the correct aggregation of individual preferences, but rather on the quality of the public debate that preceded the voting stage. Democratic decisions were thus no longer considered a function of mere compliance with aggregation rules. Instead, they are determined by extensive argumentation about political choices before voting on them. Because of its strong focus of public involvement in politics, this deliberative model of democracy started out in life as a theory of legitimacy (Benhabib 1996; Cohen 2002; Dryzek 2001; Parkinson 2006). By including everyone who is affected by a decision in the process leading to that decision, deliberation has important political merits: it is capable of generating political decisions that receive broad public support, even when there is strong disagreement on the aims and values a polity should promote (Geenens & Tinnevelt 2007, p. 47). After all, talking about political issues allows citizens to hear other perspectives to a problem and to see their own perspectives represented in the final decision. As such, deliberative democracy seeks to score high on input, throughput and output legitimacy. However, deliberation's beneficial effects do not come about easily. If deliberative democracy wants to contribute to increasing the legitimacy of the political system as a whole, it has to be legitimate in itself. In other words, deliberative events have to reflect the principles of legitimacy in their own functioning before their outcomes can generate legitimate political decisions. It is therefore crucial to assess the internal legitimacy of deliberative mini-publics before making claims about their contribution to the legitimacy of the political system as a whole. In this paper, we set out to assess the internal legitimacy of one specific deliberative event, namely the G1000 project in Belgium (Caluwaerts & Reuchamps, 2012a). Our research question is therefore: to what extent does the G1000 live up to the criteria of input, throughput and output legitimacy? The G1000 project takes a particular place in the world of deliberative practice because it was not only grass roots in its process and its results, but also in its organization. Most deliberative events are introduced and funded by either public administrations or scientific institutions. The G1000 was rather considered a citizens' initiative from its very inception. All of the organizers of the event were volunteers, and all of the funds were gathered using crowd funding. So instead of a scientific experiment, the G1000 was more of a democratic experiment by, through, and for citizens. This grass-root structure makes it a very interesting case for students of legitimacy, because as we will see later on it situated at the heart of the democratic trade-off between input and output legitimacy.