From More or Less Integration to Status Quo? Explaining Candidates’ and Citizens’ Attitudes Towards European Integration

Defacqz, Samuel; Dodeigne, Jérémy; Teuber, Ferdinand; Ingelgom, Virginie Van

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-96460-7_10

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The research has also shown that while the programme so far has met some of the EPP Group’s objectives, it has also faced significant obstacles. To begin with, although targeted at national MPs with limited prior knowledge of or emotional attachment to the EU, in its first phase, the programme was largely characterised by self-recruiting of participants who already had quite high self-reported knowledge of the EU, the EP, and the EPP Group—a phenomenon that has already been identified for the selection and subsequent election of MEPs, especially those of the centrist pro-integration groups (Defacqz et al 2019 ; Buskjær 2009 ; Scarrow 1997 ). Crucially, no MPs took part from (then) EPP-affiliated parties that are either Eurosceptic themselves, especially the Hungarian Fidesz, or formally cooperate with heavily Eurosceptic parties at party and/or government level, like Forza Italia in a party alliance and government or the Bulgarian GERB in government until 2021.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic leadership in the EU multilevel parliamentary field: the EPP Group’s Erasmus Programme

Kaiser

Revesz

2022

Comp Eur Polit

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This article, for the first time, analyses vertical networking among parliamentary groups and elected politicians from the same Europarty in the EU. It explores how, concerned about its growing ideological diversity, political fragmentation and recent sovereigniste tendencies, the European People’s Party Group in the European Parliament has sought to exercise strategic leadership within the EU multilevel parliamentary field by systematizing its cooperation with younger national MPs. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach including document analysis, elite interviews, and a participant survey, the article traces the origins, motivations, and implementation since 2016 of the EPP Group’s unique Erasmus Programme for visits by such national MPs to Brussels. It shows that participation enhanced the MPs’ knowledge about the EPP Group, the EP, and the EU. It also created new contacts between them and the EPP Group and other EP actors, and it contributed somewhat to legitimising the EPP Group’s role for national politics. It remains to be seen, however, whether increased vertical parliamentary networking will be both sustainable, not ephemeral, and transnational, not national—long-term effects that could only be traced with the help of a longitudinal research design.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic leadership in the EU multilevel parliamentary field: the EPP Group’s Erasmus Programme

Kaiser

Revesz

2022

Comp Eur Polit

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The method has been used in various political science applications in recent years (Duchesne & Van Ingelgom, 2008; Bailey & Schonhardt‐Bailey, 2008; Weal et al, 2012; Ratinaud & Marchand, 2015; Sanders et al, 2017). In this regard, the contribution of Defacqz et al (2019) is similar to the approach chosen here as the authors also analyzed the answers to an open‐ended question posed to voters and candidates in the 2014 regional, federal, and European elections in Belgium.…”

Section: Research Context Data and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%