Rethinking Politicisation

Abstract

Politicisation, in a broad and basic understanding, means to turn something -an issue, an institution, a policy -that previously was not a subject to political action into something that now is subject to political action. So far, most definitions of the concept would agree. But besides this basic approach, there is much discussion: Politicisation is a concept that is currently much used in the social sciences, and also a concept that is contested in its definitions and understandings. Several paths and subdisciplines contribute to the debate, but they are not necessarily connected to one another. Political theory or political economy discusses politicisation and also what can be termed the counter-concept, depoliticisation, theoretically and often with a normative background, whereas comparative politics and EU studies have increasingly taken to deliver empirical studies on the politicisation of the European Union. These latter studies most often rely on the indicators of salience, actor involvement and polarisation in and of political debates and processes. International Relations, last not least, increasingly discusses the politicisation of international politics and international organisations. This is why the contributions in this Critical Exchange bring together differing strands of the debate and aim to rethink politicisation in both theoretical and empirical understandings and usages. Kari Palonen starts the exchange with an overview on historical usages of the concept. Claudia Wiesner follows with an approach to challenges and possible pathways of concept specification. Veith Selk discusses politicisation and its linkages to populism. Niilo Kauppi and Hans-Jo ¨rg Trenz, as well as Claire Dupuy and Virginie van Ingelgom, critically regard the state of the art in studying EU politicisation and depoliticisation. Philip Liste closes with a discussion of the linkages between the concepts of juridification, depoliticisation, and politicisation in transnational politics. Taken together, the contributions raise a number of crucial issues in the academic debate on politicisation: the conception of politics and the political that politicisation relates to, its linkage to depoliticisation and juridification, and the relation of politicisation and populism.

Conceptualizing the Parliamentarization and Politicization of European Policies

“…Kiiver (2007) even argues that we can at best expect 'targeted' politicization: some specific EU policies, which attract deliberate attention by national parliaments, while the bulk of policies pass unnoticed. This is in line with the idea that politicization is essentially about how public and political attentiona scarce resource-flows (Palonen et al, 2019). A certain politicized issue might detract attention, resources, and debate from another, pre-empting a comparative analysis of different issues.…”

“…From an academic point of view, the first tasks are therefore to conceptualize the politicization phenomenon and its relation to 'politics', as well as to analytically capture its varying manifestations, in order to measure its occurrence and extent. From a conceptual point of view, politicization implies a special case of 'turning something political', combining the visible and contested aspects of 'the political' (Palonen et al, 2019). The underlying idea is hence that the existence of the EU, or its policies and decisions, are debated and no longer escape the wider public's attention (Rauh, 2016).…”

“…Besides highlighting issues themselves, parties may, of course, react to publicly salient topics, which means we also need to take into account how societal debate expands from initial discursive interventions, to its entrance in (semi-)public arenas and ultimately in parliaments (Palonen et al, 2019). Recent studies on the derailing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Crespy & Parks, 2017;Dür & Mateo, 2014) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP; Gheyle, 2019) have shown how interest groups and social movements succeeded in making complex foreign policy issues publicly salient, after which both national and European MPs picked it up.…”

Feeling the Heat: Emotions, Politicization, and the European Union

“…Indeed, whilst the disciplinary field of EU studies continues to be dominated by quantitative approaches, scholars working on EU politicization habitually refer to emotions. For example, mentions of frustration (Mair, 2007; Palonen et al ., 2019), fear (Hooghe & Marks, 2012; Hutter et al ., 2016; Zürn, 2016; Hegemann & Schneckener, 2019; Jabko & Luhman, 2019), anxiety (Hegemann & Schneckener, 2019), love (Hooghe & Marks, 2012), hope (Zürn, 2016; Palonen et al ., 2019; Zeitlin et al ., 2019), anger (Schmidt, 2019), passion (Jabko & Luhman, 2019), worries (Schmidt, 2019) and emotions (Hurrelmann et al ., 2015; Hegemann & Schneckener, 2019) can all be found in the literature. These references to emotions in empirical work point to the relevance of emotive aspects in shaping political behaviour and motivation and should therefore not be ignored a priori in research on politicization dynamics.…”

Pandemic responses at the subnational level: Exploring politics, administration, and politicization in Swedish municipalities

“…We lean on Hay's theorization of politics and politicization ( 2007 ) to interrogate the synergies and tensions between (local) politics and administration in Sweden. We examine the politicization of the municipal pandemic response based on the structures underpinning local policy decisions (Hay, 2007 ; Palonen et al, 2019 ). More specifically, we base our analysis on whether the municipalities utilized legislation allowing them to activate an emergency decision‐making structure (the “crisis management committee”) that bestows local politicians with extended decision‐making powers during extraordinary circumstances.…”