This article identifies how Belgian civil society organisations (CSOs) legitimise their European networks (ENs). European networks are understood as European umbrella associations gathering together national CSOs and representing them at the EU level. This article unpacks the concept of organisational legitimacy by empirically analysing Belgian CSOs’ discourse about their ENs. EU institutions consider ENs as appropriate organisations to link the European policymaking process to the requests and opinions expressed by national CSOs and their constituents. Existing studies draw negative conclusions about the transmitter role of ENs and highlight the malfunction of the accountability channel and an unfair representative balance among members. This empirical analysis qualifies these two arguments. The results show that Belgian CSOs legitimise their ENs in two ways: the function they hold in Brussels and their efficiency. ENs are thus not legitimised as accurate transmitters between national CSOs and European officials but as efficient champions of general political objectives, to which Belgian CSOs broadly adhere. These results are based on an inductive qualitative analysis of interviews with staff from five Belgian environmental CSOs.

中文翻译：

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欧洲网络的合法性：比利时民间社会组织的观点

本文介绍了比利时民间社会组织 (CSO) 如何使其欧洲网络 (EN) 合法化。欧洲网络被理解为将国家公民社会组织聚集在一起并在欧盟层面代表他们的欧洲伞式协会。本文通过实证分析比利时公民社会组织关于他们的 EN 的话语来解开组织合法性的概念。欧盟机构将 EN 视为将欧洲政策制定过程与国家公民社会组织及其选民表达的要求和意见联系起来的适当组织。现有研究对 EN 的传递者角色得出负面结论，并突出了问责渠道的故障和成员之间不公平的代表平衡。这种实证分析证实了这两个论点。结果表明，比利时公民社会组织通过两种方式使他们的 EN 合法化：他们在布鲁塞尔的职能和他们的效率。因此，EN 并没有被合法化为国家公民社会组织和欧洲官员之间的准确传递者，而是作为一般政治目标的有效拥护者，比利时公民社会组织广泛遵守这一目标。这些结果基于对来自五家比利时环境公民社会组织的工作人员的访谈的归纳定性分析。