A structural approach to politicisation in the Euro crisis

Abstract

Domestic opportunity structures and political actors' positions are widely regarded as the most important explanatory factors for EU politicisation. The euro crisis, however, has revealed cleavages across rather than within countries, suggesting structural factors as a potential explanation for politicisation. Based on the political economy literature on Europe's Economic and Monetary Union, this contribution develops a structural approach to politicisation with respect to countries' power and variety of capitalism. Using a content and claims analysis of business papers in Germany, France, Austria and Ireland before and during the crisis, the findings reveal a differentiated pattern of politicisation. While an expansion of actors indicates that EMU became more politicised during the crisis, polarisation remained low within countries. Countries' variety of capitalism and their perceived power in the EU largely explain the substance and objects of politicisation. The findings encourage further research considering structural explanations for differentiated politicisation in less elite-centred settings of politicisation.

Introduction: the differentiated politicisation of European governance

“…Of utmost concern is the question of membership: shall we be a member of the EU and/or the Eurozone mobilises people much more than treaty revisions or the accession of other countries (Grande and Hutter 2015). However, we also demonstrate that the day-to-day exercise of formal authority spurs politicisation (Leupold 2015;Schmidtke 2015;Wonka 2015).…”

“…Börzel and Risse 2000) argues that the greater the discrepancy between the national economic and political system and the EU system, the higher the potential for politicisation (Brinegar et al 2004). Leupold (2015) presents new evidence supporting this hypothesis, albeit qualifying the mechanism how politicisation plays out in the public sphere under the condition of institutional misfit. Given that the EU affects a range of different national policies, countries suffering from high institutional misfit, which consequently strive to alter European rules, are more likely to use inside-lobbying strategies that are more sensitive diplomatically.…”

“…It may be indicated by the number of newspaper articles reporting on European governance (e.g. Grande and Hutter 2015;Hoeglinger 2015;Leupold 2015;Schmidtke 2015), how 'aware' citizens are of the existence of the EU, its institutions and policies and how worried they are about EU politics (Baglioni and Hurrelmann 2015), by the amount of public statements party representatives dedicate to EU issues in national election campaigns (Hoeglinger 2015) or by the number of parliamentary questions devoted to EU issues (Wonka 2015).…”

“…This setting is thus often considered to play a crucial role in the politicisation process (Kleinen-von Königslöw 2012;Koopmans and Statham 2010;Kriesi et al 2012;Risse 2010;Trenz 2013, 2015). The majority of the contributions to this volume draw on mass media data to study politicisation, albeit for different reasons: while some consider mass media as the primary setting of democratic politics due to its communicative and connecting functions (De Wilde and Lord 2015;Leupold 2015), others consider it a data source for the analysis of politicisation more generally (Grande and Hutter 2015;Hoeglinger 2015;Schmidtke 2015).…”

“…Unpacking EU policies, Leupold (2015) and Schmidtke (2015) analyse issue-specific politicisation processes. They show that mass media do not only feature controversy over the European polity but that, under specific conditions, EU day-to-day policy-making and policies also become objects of politicisation.…”