Search

The article critically evaluates existing theories and approaches on European Union (EU) politicization to understand how the EU's democratic politics can potentially work in an era of 'mediated politics'. Moving beyond questions of why politicization has occurred, and what kind of EU will it lead to, we outline a theoretical perspective on the mechanisms of how the EU's politicization is taking place. Against the backdrop of a post-functionalist theory of integration, the contours of which have been recently discussed within political science, we think that the dynamics of EU politicization can be better grasped from a public sphere perspective within the framework of what we will call a 'democratic functionalism' approach. The Eurozone debt crisis case is used as an example of deep and broad EU politicization to explicate the mechanisms at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes the European Union's constitution-making as a case study to examine 'how' politicization can emerge through contestation by political actors in response to political opportunities. It advances understanding of the conditions and processes through which politicization emerges by undertaking empirical analysis. The primary data source is an original sample of political actors' claims-making over European integration issues retrieved from news samples in France, Germany and Britain during the constitution event (2000-05). Main tenets of prominent theories on politicization are unpacked and tested in relation to the evidence from the claims-making analysis. The findings demonstrate the transformative impact of the French referendum as a specific opportunity: politicization was largely restricted to internal national contestation by French actors; political party competition was the prominent contestation form; and the Socialists mobilized against the constitution by advocating 'Social Europe'. This transformed the political space by introducing competition over Europe into the party system's core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of media performance seem to be inherently linked to any proposed solutions to Europe's perceived 'democratic deficit'. This article addresses a specific part of this story: the attempts by journalists from the national press to commentate politically on European affairs, and their self-perceptions about the opportunities and constraints facing them. The article's main enquiry is whether commentating on Europe is different from commentating on national affairs. A model was constructed to assess types of political advocacy. The empirical study is based on interviews with a sample of journalists with four different roles, and from four different types of newspaper, from seven European countries. The main finding is that to the extent that they take on an advocacy role at all with regard to Europe, journalists see themselves as adopting an educational mode of raising public awareness, more than a political 'partisan' or 'ideological campaign' mode. Such findings are then discussed in relation to the broader issue of media performance over Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article undertakes an analysis of British public debates on European integration by recourse to an original data set on political claims-making. The public sphere is conceptualized as a space where citizens interact through their acts of public communication. Such public communications are an important source of the Europe-building process, because they potentially provide public inputs to the elite-led processes of European political institutional integration. Our empirical findings show that British public debates are internalized within the nation-state rather than creating links to supra- or transnational European polities. In addition, we find relatively low levels of civil society engagement compared to that of political elites, and a high level of political competition between the two major political parties, Labour and Conservative. Overall, we argue that elite ambivalence to Britain's position within the European Union has created this climate of uncertainty and political competition over Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]