Abstract
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.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For other examples of the politicized dynamics of European integration, see Statham and Trenz (2013a, 2013b).
See the contributions of Schmitter (2009) and Börzel and Risse (2009) in response to Hooghe and Marks (2009).
It is well established that the predominant structuring of mass media systems is within national frameworks and we have little that resembles a European mass media (Schlesinger, 1999). This makes a European supranational public sphere replicating the emergence of public spheres at the national level implausible (Gerhards, 1994).
For this instrumental perspective on public discourse and its ‘distorting effects’ in referendum campaigns, see de Vreese (2007) and Majone (2009).
Of course, the Internet and social media are important communicative spaces. However, for political communication about Europe, professional news journalism provided by traditional mass media remains the primary forum for debates that are influential for public opinion formation with regard to decision making (Koopmans and Zimmermann, 2010; Michailidou and Trenz, 2010).
Social movement researchers make a similar point when they anticipate the emergence of ‘contentious Europeans’ in the form of collective mobilization to challenge the EU’s multi-level polity (Imig and Tarrow, 2001, p. 16): ‘Europe is a composite polity composed of semisovereign states, quasi-autonomous European institutions, and virtually represented citizens. This kind of polity fosters ambiguity, perceptions of uncertainty, and shifting alliances – exactly the combination of properties … most likely to produce contentious politics’.
This follows the research agenda of de Wilde (2011), who provides a working definition for EU politicization (p. 560), ‘as an increase in the polarization of opinions, interests or values and the extent to which they are publicly advanced towards the process of policy formation within the EU … (P)oliticization involves actors presenting themselves as representatives publicly and thereby contesting other representatives. It is this practice of competitive representative claims-making that may function to crystallize dimensions of conflict, raise the question of EU legitimacy and alter the course of integration’.
European Commission (2009) and most explicitly again in European Commission (2013).
References
Almond, G.A. (1960) The American People and Foreign Policy. New York: Praeger.
Beck, U. (2013) German Europe. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bennett, L.W. and Entman, R.M. (eds.) (2001) Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of Democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Börzel, T.A. and Risse, T. (2009) Revisiting the nature of the beast – politicization, European identity, and postfunctionalism: A comment on Hooghe and Marks. British Journal of Political Science 39 (1): 217–220.
Checkel, J.T. and Katzenstein, P.J. (eds.) (2009) The politicization of European identity. In: European Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–25.
de Vreese, C.H. (2007) The Dynamics of Referendum Campaigns: An International Perspective. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
de Wilde, P. (2011) No polity for old politics? A framework for analyzing politicization of European integration. Journal of European Integration 33 (5): 559–575.
de Wilde, P. and Trenz, H.J. (2012) Denouncing European integration: Euroscepticism as polity contestation. In European Journal of Social Theory 15 (4): 537–554.
de Wilde, P. and Zürn, M. (2012) Can the politicization of European integration be reversed? Journal of Common Market Studies 50 (1): 137–153.
European Commission. (2009) Economic crisis in Europe: Causes, consequences and responses. European Commission Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/publication15887_en.pdf, accessed 9 December 2013.
European Commission. (2013) Employment and social developments in Europe 2012. European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Directorate A. Catalog N. KE-BD-12-001-EN-C, http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=7315, accessed 9 December 2013.
Fligstein, N. (2008) Euro-Clash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Flinders, M. and Buller, J. (2006) Depolitization, democracy and arena shifting. In: T. Christensen and P. Lægreid (eds.) Autonomy and Regulation: Coping with Agencies in the Modern State. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 53–80.
Gerhards, J. (1994) Westeuropäische Integration und die Schwierigkeiten der Entstehung einer europäischen Öffenlichkeit. Ein system- und akteurstheoretischer Bestimmungsversuch. In: F. Niedhart (ed.) Öffenlichkeit, öffenliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen. Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag.
Haas, E.B. (1958) The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social and Economic Forces 1950–1957. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Habermas, J. (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (2006) Time of Transitions. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Habermas, J. (2009) Europe. The Faltering Project. London: Polity Press.
Hix, S. and Bartolini, S. (2006) Politics: The right or the wrong sort of medicine for the EU? In: Notre Europe, Etudes & Recherches, http://www.notre-europe.eu/media/pdf.php?file=R_actionQuermonne-en.pdf, accessed 9 December 2013.
Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2005) The neofunctionalists were (almost) right: Politicization and European Integration, In: Constitutionalism Web-Papers, http://ideas.repec.org/p/erp/conweb/p0024.html, accessed 8 December 2013.
Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2006) Europe’s blues: Theoretical soul-searching after the rejection of the European Constitution. PS: Political Science and Politics 39 (2): 247–250.
Hooghe, L. and Marks, G. (2009) A postfunctionalist theory of European Integration: From permissive consensus to constraining dissensus. British Journal of Political Science 39 (1): 1–23.
Imig, D. and Tarrow, S. (eds.) (2001) Contentious Europeans: Protest and Politics in an Emerging Polity. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Koopmans, R. and Statham, P. (1999) Political claims analysis: Integrating protest event and political discourse approaches. Mobilization: An International Quarterly 4 (2): 203–221.
Koopmans, R. and Statham, P. (eds.) (2010) The Making of a European Public Sphere: The Europeanisation of Media Discourse and Political Contention. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Koopmans, R. and Zimmermann, A. (2010) Transnational political communication on the internet: Seach engine results and hyperlink networks. In: R. Koopmans and P. Statham (eds.) Media Discourse and Political Contention. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 171–194.
Kriesi, H. (2012) The political consequences of the financial and economic crisis in Europe: Electoral punishment and popular protest. Swiss Political Science Review 18 (4): 518–522.
Kriesi, H., Grande, E., Lachat, R., Dolezal, M., Bornschier, S. and Frey, T. (2008) West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Majone, G. (2009) The ‘Referendum Threat’, the rational ignorant voter and the political culture of the EU, RECON Online Working Papers. ARENA: University of Oslo, www.reconproject.eu/projectweb/portalproject/RECONWorkingPapers.html, accessed 9 December 2013.
Majone, G. (2013) The general crisis of the European Union: A genetic approach, Paper presented at the conference ‘Europe in Crisis: Implications for the EU and Norway’, Oslo, 14–15 March, Unpublished Conference Paper.
Mylonas, Y. (2012) Media and the economic crisis of the EU: The ‘culturalization’ of a systemic crisis and Bild-Zeitung’s framing of Greece. tripleC: Cognition, Communication, Co-ooperation 10 (2): 646–671.
Michailidou, A. and Trenz, H.-J. (2010) Mediati(zi)ng EU politics: Online news coverage of the 2009 European parliamentary elections. Communications 35 (3): 327–346.
Morgan, G. (2005) The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Olsen, J.P. (2007) Europe in Search of Political Order: An Institutional Perspective on Unity/Diversity, Citizens/their Helpers, Democratic Design/Historical Drift, and the Co-existence of Orders. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Risse, T. (2010) A Community of Europeans?: Transnational Identities and Public Spheres. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schlesinger, P. (1999) Changing spaces of political communication: The case of the European Union. Political Communication 16 (3): 263–279.
Schmitter, P.C. (2009) On the way to a post-functionalist theory of European integration. British Journal of Political Science 39 (1): 211–215.
Statham, P. and Trenz, H.-J. (2013a) The Politicization of Europe: Contesting the Constitution in the Mass Media. London: Routledge.
Statham, P. and Trenz, H.-J. (2013b) How European Union politicization can emerge through contestation: The constitution case. Journal of Common Market Studies 51 (5): 965–980.
Tilly, C. (2001) Mechanisms in political processes. Annual Review of Political Science 4: 21–41.
Trenz, H.-J. and Eder, K. (2004) The democratizing dynamics of a European public sphere: Towards a theory of democratic functionalism. European Journal of Social Theory 7 (1): 5–25.
White, J. (2013) Emergency Europe. To Appear in Political Studies, doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12072, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9248.12072/abstract, accessed 19 December 2013.
Zürn, M. (2006) Zur Politisierung der Europäischen Union. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 47 (2): 242–251.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Correction
We have updated the affiliation of Hans-Jörg Trenz in this final version.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Statham, P., Trenz, HJ. Understanding the mechanisms of EU politicization: Lessons from the Eurozone crisis. Comp Eur Polit 13, 287–306 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2013.30
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2013.30