How much and why do political parties emphasize Europe in election campaigns? The literature is increasingly focusing on two aspects of party issue competition: position and salience. However, recent studies on salience tend to ignore the fact that Europe is a compound political issue. This article contributes to the debate by highlighting the crucial difference between constitutive and policy-related European issues. Using data from the Euromanifestos Project for 14 EU member states for the period 1979-2009, we first show that Europe is much more salient in European Parliament elections than previously assumed. Second, EU issue salience depends on party position and party system polarization over European integration. However, different explanations come into play once we bring in the polity-vs.-policy distinction. This has important implications for our understanding of party competition on European integration.
This article examines whether and how the Euro crisis has affected the long-term trends of politicization of Europe in France. Has the crisis fueled the extent of politicization? Do we observe shifts in specific aspects of Europe being politicized? Are the patterns of opposition changing? To answer these questions, the authors compare the electoral campaign in 2012 with all French campaigns since 1974. Additionally, France is put in a broader comparative perspective. Politicization is conceptualized as three interrelated dimensions: issue salience, actor expansion, and polarization. Methodologically, the article is based on a relational content analysis of newspaper articles. The findings show that the Euro crisis boosted the level of politicization, and economic policies, as well as justification frames became more important. However, the degree of polarization was higher in election campaigns that focused more on constitutional conflicts over membership and were dominated by concerns with national identity and sovereignty.
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