IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v12y2011i3p431-453.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

National parties as politicizers of EU integration? Party campaign communication in the run-up to the 2009 European Parliament election

Author

Listed:
  • Silke Adam

    (University of Bern, Switzerland, silke.adam@ikmb.unibe.ch)

  • Michaela Maier

    (University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany)

Abstract

In this article we seek to understand whether, how and under what conditions political parties publicly articulate matters of European integration and encourage contestation over Europe. Based on a content analysis of parties’ televised advertising spots during the 2009 European Parliament (EP) election campaign in six countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom), we find evidence that European Union (EU) issues and actors are more prominent on the campaign agenda in countries with many Eurosceptic parties. Eurosceptic and non-Eurosceptic parties co-orient themselves towards each other in their EU articulation. Finally, contestation over Europe exists in the realm of identity politics: right-wing fringe parties (and in some countries also mainstream parties) characterize the EU as a threat to national sovereignty and identity, whereas left-wing mobilization against the EU on economic matters is hardly visible. Regarding the two politicization dimensions — EU articulation and contestation — we show that party campaigns cannot be described as purely second-order national contests any more. Instead, the strategic party mobilization model seems to better characterize the 2009 EP campaigns.

Suggested Citation

  • Silke Adam & Michaela Maier, 2011. "National parties as politicizers of EU integration? Party campaign communication in the run-up to the 2009 European Parliament election," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 431-453, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:12:y:2011:i:3:p:431-453
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116511410234
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116511410234
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116511410234?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Follesdal, Andreas & Hix, Simon, 2005. "Why There is a Democratic Deficit in the EU: A Response to Majone and Moravcsik," European Governance Papers (EUROGOV) 2, CONNEX and EUROGOV networks.
    2. Claes H. De Vreese & Hajo G. Boomgaarden, 2006. "Media Effects on Public Opinion about the Enlargement of the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 419-436, June.
    3. Pieter de Wilde, 2007. "Politicisation of European Integration: Bringing the Process into Focus," ARENA Working Papers 18, ARENA.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aaron J. Abbarno & Galina M. Zapryanova, 2013. "Indirect Effects of Eurosceptic Messages on Citizen Attitudes toward Domestic Politics," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 581-597, July.
    2. Raul Gomez, 2015. "The Economy Strikes Back: Support for the EU during the Great Recession," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 577-592, May.
    3. Roman Senninger & Markus Wagner, 2015. "Political parties and the EU in national election campaigns: who talks about Europe, and how?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1336-1351, November.
    4. Juha Herkman, 2017. "The Finns Party: Euroscepticism, Euro Crisis, Populism and the Media," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(2), pages 1-10.
    5. Guri Rosén, 2019. "Proving Their Worth? The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Members of the European Parliament," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 266-278.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Silke Adam, 2009. "Bringing the Mass Media in - The Contribution of the Mass Media for Understanding Citizens’ Attitudes towards the European Union," KFG Working Papers p0004, Free University Berlin.
    2. Elena Mihaela LIGHIAN, 2012. "Multilevel Governance and Principle of Subsidiarity in the European Union," Europolity – Continuity and Change in European Governance - Old Series, Department of International Relations and European Integration, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, vol. 6(1-2), pages 15-26.
    3. Michaela Maier & Silke Adam & Jürgen Maier, 2012. "The impact of identity and economic cues on citizens’ EU support: An experimental study on the effects of party communication in the run-up to the 2009 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 580-603, December.
    4. Catherine E. De Vries, 2017. "Benchmarking Brexit: How the British Decision to Leave Shapes EU Public Opinion," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55, pages 38-53, September.
    5. Chris Skelcher & Jacob Torfing, 2010. "Improving democratic governance through institutional design: Civic participation and democratic ownership in Europe," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(1), pages 71-91, March.
    6. Anca-Maria LILEA, 2012. "Aspects of European Citizenship," Europolity – Continuity and Change in European Governance - Old Series, Department of International Relations and European Integration, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, vol. 6(1-2), pages 27-34.
    7. Milena Büchs, 2008. "How Legitimate is the Open Method of Co-ordination?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46, pages 765-786, September.
    8. Scott L. Greer & Elize Massard da Fonseca & Christopher Adolph, 2008. "Mobilizing Bias in Europe," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(3), pages 403-433, September.
    9. Christian Joerges; Jurgen Neyer, 2006. "Deliberative Supranationalism Revisited," EUI-LAW Working Papers 20, European University Institute (EUI), Department of Law.
    10. Hortala-Vallve, Rafael & Larcinese, Valentino, 2017. "The Perverse Consequences of Policy Restrictions in the Presence of Asymmetric Information," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 411-425, July.
    11. Chun Yang & James Price Dillard & Ruobing Li, 2018. "Understanding Fear of Zika: Personal, Interpersonal, and Media Influences," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(12), pages 2535-2545, December.
    12. Claes H. de Vreese & Hajo G. Boomgaarden & Holli A. Semetko, 2008. "Hard and Soft," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(4), pages 511-530, December.
    13. Carlos Mendez & Fernando Mendez & Vasiliki Triga & Juan Miguel Carrascosa, 2020. "EU Cohesion Policy under the Media Spotlight: Exploring Territorial and Temporal Patterns in News Coverage and Tone," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 1034-1055, July.
    14. Pieter de Wilde, 2009. "Designing Politicization: How control mechanisms in national parliaments affect parliamentary debates in EU policy-formulation," RECON Online Working Papers Series 9, RECON.
    15. Andreas C. Goldberg & Erika J. van Elsas & Claes H. De Vreese, 2021. "Eurovisions: An Exploration and Explanation of Public Preferences for Future EU Scenarios," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 222-241, March.
    16. Claus Offe & Ulrich K. Preuss, 2006. "The Problem of Legitimacy in the European Polity. Is Democratization the Answer?," The Constitutionalism Web-Papers p0028, University of Hamburg, Faculty for Economics and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science.
    17. Adriana ANGHEL, 2012. "The Open Method of Coordination," Europolity – Continuity and Change in European Governance - Old Series, Department of International Relations and European Integration, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, vol. 6(1-2), pages 4-14.
    18. Cigdem Kentmen-Cin & Cengiz Erisen, 2017. "Anti-immigration attitudes and the opposition to European integration: A critical assessment," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(1), pages 3-25, March.
    19. Steven Buigut & Burcu Kapar, 2021. "COVID-19 Cases, Media Attention and Social Mood," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 11(4), pages 66-72.
    20. Margarete Scherer, 2015. "The Religious Context in Explaining Public Support for the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 893-909, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:12:y:2011:i:3:p:431-453. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.