Politicizing Europe in Hard Times: Conflicts over Europe in France in a Long-term Perspective, 1974–2012

Abstract

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.

Comparing the Politicisation of EU Integration during the Euro and Schengen Crises

“…Miklin (2014) highlights that salience and polarisation were very pronounced in the Austrian Parliament due to much greater divisions among political parties on European integration -within the mainstream parties but also caused by the strong presence of the Eurosceptic Freedom Party (FPÖ) -than in Germany. Various scholars empirically show that the Euro crisis boosted politicisation in France (Hutter and Kerscher 2014;Rothacher 2015). Unsurprisingly, in countries like Greece and, to a lesser extent, Italy, where the socio-economic repercussions from bailout conditionalities or austerity policies respectively were particularly pronounced, the Euro crisis was also strongly politicised (Gianetti, Pedrazzani and Pinto 2017;Kousis and Kanellopoulos 2014).…”

The Catalan struggle for independence and the role of the European Union

“…Anderson (1998) finds that economic confidence translates into more support for the EU. However, this study has taken place in times of "permissive consensus" characterized by a lack of public awareness about the impact of EU affairs on domestic politics (Hutter& Kerscher, 2014;Lindberg& Scheingold, 1970). With the increasing politicization of EU issues in national and European elections and a concomitant rise of Eurosceptic parties, in the last decades, there has been a shift towards a "constraining dissensus" replete with multiple forms of Euroscepticism (Hooghe& Marks, 2009).…”

Beyond a constraining dissensus: The role of national parliaments in domesticating and normalising the politicization of European integration

“…Both these approaches tend to ignore a development that scholars have dubbed 'politicization' -the increasing awareness, salience, polarization of and mobilization around EU affairs in domestic politics, and the expansion of domestic actors, such as Eurosceptic parties and National Parliaments (NPs), in the EU's decision-making processes (Hutter and Kerscher 2014). This politicization has gone together with the end of the 'permissive consensus' that characterized the pre-Maastricht phase of European integration and a shift towards what Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks (2009: 5) have called a 'constraining dissensus', typified by multiple forms of Euroscepticism.…”