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The recent economic crisis has brought into focus how even open and highly interdependent economies in the European Union try to govern their economies according to territorially defined interests. The aim of this article is to examine an area, online gambling, with the technological and legal conditions that challenge approaches that favour economic patriotism. The article compares two cases, the United Kingdom and Italy, that represent two different models of economic governance to argue that they are similar in which interests they seek to protect and at which level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Enjoying a surge of national pride, the German media celebrated the 2010 German World Cup team's success in South Africa. A dominant theme in this coverage was the 'immigration background' of 11 of the 23 players on the team and their claim to German identity despite their ethnic diversity. Amid debate over the changing nature of German citizenship, the national team's 'multicultural kickers' became the focal point for those who wished to reframe German identity. This article examines German newspaper and magazine coverage of the national soccer team emphasizing the role that media played in constructing competing definitions of the German citizen and nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the politicisation of European tax governance in mass media. Although taxation is commonly assumed to remain a national prerogative, European institutions have extended their reach far into national tax regimes. Whether this expansion of EU authority towards one of the core functions of the nation state is accompanied by politicisation is the question to be addressed in this article. To analyse the causal nexus between growing EU authority – measured in terms of formal authority and tax legislation – and the politicisation of EU tax governance, the paper compares public debates in Germany, Ireland and Switzerland over a time period of 30 years between 1981 and 2011. Based on a newspaper content analysis, the empirical results demonstrate that EU tax governance is increasingly politicised in all three countries. Varying levels and content of politicisation across time and space are explained by national economic and socio-cultural conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Much of the empowerment of the European Parliament over the years is due to its special role in providing a bridge connecting the public’s policy preferences on the one hand, and the legislative behaviour of elected officials on the other. As the only popularly elected EU institution, successive treaty reforms increased the EP’s political power. These reforms were accompanied by an explicit desire to see citizens’ involvement in EU politics increase and, in turn, provide support and legitimacy to the European integration project. This paper models MEPs’ track records on various political issues, and assesses the extent to which their output is in line with the positions their party campaigned on and the policy preferences expressed in public opinion. The findings suggest that there are discrete patterns of representation, where some parties are more inclined toward greater congruence with their selectorate and manifesto than others. Furthermore, the degree of congruence varies across policy issues and is shaped, to a large extent, by institutional arrangements and political context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we analyze political parties' campaign communication during the 2009 European Parliamentary election in 11 countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK). We study which types of issues Euroskeptic fringe and Euroskeptic mainstream parties put on their campaign agendas and the kind and extent of EU opposition they voice. Further, we seek to understand whether Euroskeptic and non-Euroskeptic parties co-orient themselves toward each other within their national party systems with regard to their campaigns. To understand the role of Euroskeptic parties in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, we draw on a systematic content analysis of parties' posters and televised campaign spots. Our results show that it is Euroskeptic parties at the edges of the political spectrum who discuss polity questions of EU integration and who most openly criticize the union. Principled opposition against the project of EU integration, however, can only be observed in the UK. Finally, we find indicators for co-orientation effects regarding the tone of EU mobilization: In national political environments where Euroskeptic parties strongly criticize the EU, pro-European parties at the same time publicly advance pro-EU positions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]