Suchergebnisse

We ask how pro-European parties communicate in the face of a Eurosceptic challenge and how this affects the politicization of European Union integration within a country. We draw on a quantitative content analysis of parties' press releases issued in the run-up to the 2014 European Parliament elections in seven countries. Our results show that pro-European parties as such put Europe on the agenda, debate issues similar to those voiced by Eurosceptics and defend their pro-European positions: yet, they do so to varying degrees and with major exceptions. It is pro-European catch-all parties with strong internal dissent that silence Europe and choose blurring or adoption strategies. Consequently, the politicization of European integration varies among countries, thereby high topic visibility is accompanied by low levels of party ...

We ask how pro-European parties communicate in the face of a Eurosceptic challenge and how this affects the politicization of European Union integration within a country. We draw on a quantitative content analysis of parties' press releases issued in the run-up to the 2014 European Parliament elections in seven countries. Our results show that pro-European parties as such put Europe on the agenda, debate issues similar to those voiced by Eurosceptics and defend their pro-European positions: yet, they do so to varying degrees and with major exceptions. It is pro-European catch-all parties with strong internal dissent that silence Europe and choose blurring or adoption strategies. Consequently, the politicization of European integration varies among countries, thereby high topic visibility is accompanied by low levels of party conflict.

This article examines which parties included European issues in their 2014 European Parliament campaigns, and what influenced whether they did so, based on innovative data from the content analysis of 9,100 press releases in seven countries. Overall, established and especially governing parties no longer shied away from EU issues, referring to them as often as challenger parties did. The likelihood of EU issues in campaigns derives from a combination of predictors from the selective emphasis and co-orientation approaches. In general, parties with high internal dissent on EU integration avoid European issues, and weak leaders will only dare talk about the EU if internal dissent is low. However, between-party-type comparisons indicate that successful leaderships of governing parties facing strong internal divisions are even less likely to put EU issues on the agenda. With respect to the co-orientation model, parties' EU focus seems to be mainly determined by the communication of (other) opposition parties.