Input and/or Output Legitimacy in Participatory Governance: The Case of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and Platform

The Lisbon Treaty enshrined the legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights and a recently created Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) as conceptually and institutionally advanced human rights institution. In particular the rights agency, created in 2008 as an institutional enhancement providing specialized rights assessments to governments while promoting dialogue with civil society organizations (CSOs) in the member states, aims at promoting the rights of minorities and vulnerable populations in the EU. The civil society platform provides a venue inside the agency intended to obtain CSO-feedback from below so as to channel input into the programing of the agency. Yet little research has been conducted on the enabling as well as simultaneously constraining effects of the EU’s normative and organizational parameter-setting when consulting CSOs. Using the case of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and Platform, this paper analyzes their effects on input-legitimacy (provided by CSOs) and on the other hand, output-legitimacy (rights-maintenance). Coming from a political sociological perspective, I probe the kind of legitimacy of such participatory governance tools for human rights maintenance and promotion, and argue that while both kinds of legitimacy should be pursued in reality output-legitimacy is much harder to achieve, given the diverse claims of CSOs and importantly, the obstructing influence of member states. Thus while the agency and platform are contributing to participatory governance in a limited human rights area, the overall output of rights provisions is less impressive.