This Methodological Appendix serves four purposes. First, we explain how we operationalise the three dimensions of politicisation. Second, we show how we combine the indicators of the three dimensions in our politicisation index. Third, we discuss the construction of the empirical benchmarks which allow us to compare the politicisation of European integration with other political issues. Finally, we present tables with the values of all the indicators and the index for each integration step and election campaign (see Tables A.2 and A.3). The tables allow the interested reader to have a look at detailed information – because we sometimes needed to restrict our discussion in the empirical chapters to the index value only. In addition, the tables may serve as a reference for researchers interested in extending our study in time and space.

Measuring salience, actor expansion and polarisation

How did we measure the three dimensions of politicisation, i.e., salience, actor expansion and polarisation? While protest events by definition integrate the three dimensions, we had to find indicators for each of them in public debates on integration steps and election campaigns. For clarity and simplification, we rely on one indicator for each dimension and we operationalise them in a similar way for the two ‘windows of observation’ in order to secure comparability. The remaining differences – especially as regards the salience measure – are due to the different sampling and coding strategies for the two arenas (see Chapter 2).

Salience

In the case of election campaigns, we rely on a relative indicator to measure the salience of European integration. The indicator refers to the share of core sentences related to European integration as a percentage of all core sentences related to any political issue. We take into account both types of core sentences, i.e., actor–actor and actor–issue sentences. Note that in the context of this project we only coded actor–actor and actor–issues sentences with a thematic reference to European integration. We rely on data previously collected by Kriesi et al. (2008, 2012) to estimate the overall number of core sentences on all issues in a campaign (for details on the data, see ‘Constructing benchmarks’). We opted for the relative measure because the total numbers of coded sentences related to European integration give a very similar picture when looking at trends over time, but they are not well suited for comparative research.

Introduction

So far, we have shown that European integration has been politicised on various occasions and in different political arenas during the past four decades. However, the intensity and patterns of politicisation vary significantly across arenas, countries and over time. To understand and explain this variation, this chapter – as the first of a group of three chapters – puts the spotlight on the substantive content of the conflicts and its implications for politicisation. Our central hypothesis is that constitutive issues, a specific type of European issue, are a driving force of politicisation. Thus, we set out to answer the following two questions. Is the politicisation of Europe triggered by constitutive issues? Are constitutive issues positively related to higher levels of politicisation?

Constitutive issues relate to the very nature of the EU polity. Such issues involve questions related to the typical problems of regional integration introduced in Chapter 1, i.e., authority transfer, membership and decision-making rules (see Bartolini 2005: 310). Policy-related issues, by contrast, relate to questions about how in their policy-making European institutions make use of the competencies they have been attributed. Since these issues correspond to similarly structured national issues, such as, economic, social and environmental policies, they have been labelled ‘isomorphic issues’ by Bartolini (2005: 310). In contrast to consolidated national political systems, the EU polity is still in the making, and this continually raises questions about its functional and territorial boundaries. When political actors fight over such constitutive issues – be it over competencies (‘deepening’) or membership (‘widening’) – they thus touch upon the crucial elements of the European political system. This can be expected to trigger more intense opposition than policy-related European issues, and these conflicts may cut across existing party alliances, while policy-related issues tend to be more firmly embedded along traditional left–right conflict lines (e.g. Hoeglinger 2012; Hooghe and Marks 2009; Kriesi 2007; Kriesi et al. 2008, 2012; Statham and Trenz 2013a).

In this chapter, we answer our central questions by systematically differentiating between constitutive and policy-related European issues and by studying their consequences for the level of politicisation in both electoral and protest politics. Since debates on integration steps offer no fair test of our guiding hypothesis because the selection strategy is biased towards constitutive aspects of European integration, we do not consider them in this analysis.

Introduction

Since it broke out with the financial troubles of Greece in early 2010, the euro crisis has been dominating the agendas of governments and European institutions, it has sparked an intensive public debate widely covered by the mass media, and it has unleashed a new wave of public protest, in particular in those countries most heavily affected by the crisis (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain). The question of whether the euro crisis has contributed to the politicisation of the European integration process seems to be trivial. It certainly has! Less obvious is how the politicisation of the euro crisis compares to previous integration debates. The scholarly literature on this topic has been dominated by three propositions (see Statham and Trenz 2013a, 2015; Rauh and Zürn 2014; Zürn and Rauh 2014; Risse 2014b). First, scholars assume that the euro crisis has produced a ‘cosmopolitan moment’ (Beck 2000) in which national debates have been integrated and Europeanised in a unique way (Beck 2012; Risse 2014b). Second, they argue that ‘the Eurozone crisis has led to an unprecedented degree of politicisation’ (Statham and Trenz 2013a: 167) characterised by extraordinarily high levels of salience and particularly broad actor participation in public debates and protest events (Rauh and Zürn 2014). Third, this high level of conflict is explained not the least by the fact that politicisation in the euro crisis is not principally driven by authority transfer and membership conflicts, as in previous integration debates, but ‘by conflicts over redistribution both within and across member states’ (Statham and Trenz 2013a: 164). As a result, the euro crisis is thought to have changed not only the level and intensity of politicisation, but also its content and nature.

The empirical evidence provided thus far is mixed at best, however. An analysis of media debates and public opinion in the six founding member states of the EU by Rauh and Zürn (2014) shows a significant increase in politicisation since the early 1990s with a clear peak in the euro crisis. A comparative review of national elections in Europe shows that governments have been punished in elections following the euro crisis regardless of their party-political affiliation (Kriesi 2014).

Introduction

Having shown the importance of constitutive issues and the role of political parties in the previous two chapters, we now turn to another key variable discussed in the scholarly literature as a driving force of politicisation, namely, the framing of European issues. Political actors not only emphasise different issues and adopt different issue positions; they also frame their issue positions differently. In this context, frames are conceived as ‘thought organisers’ (Ferree et al. 2002: 13) which give political issues a specific meaning. Within the constraints of their general ideological predispositions, political actors can strategically construct and promote such frames in order to improve their competitive position in terms of votes, offices and influence (Hänggli and Kriesi 2012). By strategically framing a given issue, actors can shift the central logic of a political conflict.

Statham and Trenz (2013a: 128) distinguish three types of frames: ‘campaigning frames’, which emphasise tactical and strategic considerations; ‘issue-specific frames’, which focus on specific attributes of a political issue; and ‘justification frames’, which ‘aim to resonate with the public by adding political meaning’ (Statham and Trenz 2013a: 128–129) to an issue at stake. For the articulation and mobilisation of political conflict over Europe, justification frames are the most important because they ‘move beyond the assumed party loyalty of campaigning and issue-specific frames and try to win votes by politicising a stance over integration’ (Statham and Trenz 2013a: 129; emphasis in the original).

In short, the question of how Europe has been framed in political conflicts is crucial for an understanding of its politicisation. In the scholarly literature, three arguments in particular have been advanced on the ‘framing of Europe’ (Diez Medrano 2003). First, scholars assume a positive relationship between the importance of cultural-identitarian frames and high levels of politicisation (Kriesi et al. 2008, 2012). This implies an increasing importance of cultural frames in debates on European integration, as formulated in our ‘cultural shift hypothesis’. Hooghe and Marks (2004, 2006, 2009) argue that with the completion of the common market and the introduction of a common currency citizen preferences and public opinion on European integration have to an increasing extent being determined by attachments to national identity rather than by economic rationality. In this context, they distinguish between ‘exclusive’ (nationalist) and ‘inclusive’ (multiculturalist) identities. While inclusive identities welcome cultural openness and supranational political integration, exclusive identities aim at protecting national identity and sovereignty.

Introduction

In Chapter 4, we presented an overall map of the levels of politicisation in the electoral arenas of the six countries covered by this book. We demonstrated that European integration has become a relevant factor in national elections and that a general trend towards higher levels of politicisation in the post-Maastricht era exists. However, Chapter 4 also pointed to remarkable across- and within-country differences that could not be sufficiently explained by the questions at stake and the political context. More generally, we concluded that integration problems do not automatically lead to manifest political conflict and thus to politicisation in election campaigns. They rather produce potentials for political mobilisation, and these potentials have to be exploited by political actors.

The present chapter builds on these results and focuses on political parties, the key players in the electoral arena and the main non-governmental actors in integration debates more generally (see Chapter 3). In other words, we analyse the factors which influence parties’ decisions to strategically use European issues, and we explore how parties position themselves towards them. It is these strategic decisions that may finally explain the level of politicisation in the electoral arena. Our data again cover the sixty-one national elections from 1970 to 2010. Besides variation in selective emphasis and position taking, which we examine in this chapter, party strategies also differ, as discussed in Chapter 1, with respect to justification framing. This aspect, however, will be dealt with in the subsequent Chapter 8.

In the introductory chapter, it was argued that radical right and Eurosceptic parties may form the most important driving forces of the politicisation of Europe (radical right hypothesis). In contemporary politics, populist radical right parties seem to stand out as the most Eurosceptic party family. They oppose the pro-European mainstream, their (relative) visibility in election campaigns is high when it comes to the articulation of European issues and they also focus on constitutive aspects, which – as Chapter 6 has demonstrated – are the most conflict-prone. Many authors (e.g. Kriesi 2007; Kriesi et al. 2008; Hooghe and Marks 2009; Kriesi et al. 2012) therefore see these parties as the driving force of politicisation of Europe in the electoral arena. When comparing different routes towards politicisation in this arena we will call a path shaped by this party family a Type 1: radical right path.

Introduction

Public debates on key events in the integration process have been the most important object of analysis in the study of politicisation in Europe (see Trenz 2005; Koopmans 2007; Adam and Pfetsch 2009; Koopmans and Statham 2010a; Risse 2010; Helbling et al. 2012 and Hoeglinger 2012). In many respects, they seem to be perfect sites for a politicisation of the European integration process. They are triggered by critical institutional events in the integration process, and unlike national elections they directly focus attention on specific aspects of European integration – either transfers of authority and changes in the institutional framework of the EU or the admission of new member states. Moreover, they are open for the participation of all kinds of actors beyond the narrow scope of the national governmental elites and political parties. To paraphrase Schattschneider (1975 [1960]: 1), public debates are the contests where it is easiest for the ‘crowd’ to get in, where the ‘fight’ is most directly pointed at European integration issues, and where it is not contained by national boundaries. Therefore, the cosmopolitan potential of politicisation should become most apparent in these debates, and we should expect particularly high levels of politicisation in debates on the most important integration steps, such as the Maastricht Treaty and the Constitutional Treaty.

For all these reasons, public debates on major integration steps seem to be the perfect ‘window of observation’ for analysing the politicisation of European integration, and we start our empirical stocktaking of politicisation here. In particular, they give us the opportunity to investigate the expansion of the range of actors in two directions: politically, we examine the participation of non-government actors from political parties and organised civil society; and territorially, with regard to the scope of horizontal and vertical Europeanisation, we are interested in the importance of foreign national and supranational actors in the public debate. As highlighted in the previous chapter, our data allow debates to be analysed at two different levels. At an aggregate level, we can examine controversies on an integration step as an ‘integrated European debate’. This includes statements reported in any of the six newspapers made by all types of actors from all territorial levels. This is most appropriate for a general assessment of politicisation and its variation across integration steps.

In domestic politics in most developed democracies, political debates are organised along a very small number of dominant dimensions, sometimes even just a single left–right dimension (Kitschelt 1994; Kriesi et al. 2008; Enyedi and Deegan-Krause 2010) and the established actors take more or less stable positions within this political space. Bartolini (2005) and Ferrera (2006) refer to this condition as ‘structuring’. Structure in their understanding is the result of a process whereby political conflicts become institutionalised in the sense that actors form stable, routinised patterns of oppositions and coalitions around a limited set of basic conflicts.

Whether such structure also exists in debates on European integration and the form it takes is an open empirical question that we address in this chapter. In particular, we examine the structuring hypothesis as formulated in the first chapter. This holds that politicisation leads to structuring of political contestation over European integration. Thus, the chapter changes the direction of causal explanation. We no longer focus on the factors leading to high levels of politicisation, but now continue to study the consequences of politicisation. More specifically, we address the structuring hypothesis by asking four key questions. Are debates on European integration structured by a limited number of dimensions? If so, which conflicts are reflected in these dimensions? Within this space, what are the dominant actor constellations? And finally, does clarity of structure increase with levels of politicisation?

Existing studies provide mixed answers to these questions. Studies focusing on national party competition (Hix 1999; Pennings 2002; Hooghe et al. 2004; Kriesi et al. 2012; Wendler 2013), on the European Parliament (Hix et al. 2003; Gabel and Hix 2004; Thomassen et al. 2004; Hix et al. 2006; McElroy and Benoit 2007; Proksch and Slapin 2010; Benoit and Laver 2012; Costello et al. 2012), on the Council of Ministers or the European Council (Haas 1964; Moravcsik 1998; Mattila 2004; Zimmer et al. 2005; Hagemann and Hoyland 2008; Bailer 2011; Veen 2011), on the European Commission (Egeberg 2006; Wonka 2008), on public opinion (Gabel and Anderson 2004; Bornschier 2011) and on several of these arenas at the same time (Selck 2004; Kaeding and Selck 2005; Lindberg et al. 2008; Warntjen et al. 2008) have arrived at quite contradictory conclusions with respect to the structure of conflicts about European integration.

By some accounts, Russian politics is a realm of cynics, where everything is for sale, leaders rudely dismiss public opinion and politicians mainly pursue their own power and enrichment through a mix of repression and corruption (Gessen 2013; Dawisha 2014). In others, Russia's leadership is resolutely principled, driven at least in part by a nationalist goal of restoring Russian pride and recapturing the status and perhaps even the territory of the former USSR and Russian Empire before it (Aron 2008; Trenin 2014; Tsygankov 2014). If we assume that each perspective at least partly reflects at least some aspect of Russian politics, an interesting puzzle is framed. How precisely is it that these things fit together? In other words, how can a strong principle like nationalism play an important role in a political system where corruption is rife and elections are the preserve of the political machine?

The present chapter argues that we must understand the logic of what I have elsewhere called patronal presidentialism in order to explain how and why Russia's leadership is likely to be influenced by ideas like nationalism. Patronal presidentialism refers to a constitutionally strong presidency that exists in a particular social context, one in which political collective action takes place primarily through extensive networks of personal acquaintance, networks that tend to give presidents ‘informal’ power that extends far beyond the authority formally stipulated in the constitution. It turns out that even when such presidents use manipulation, coercion and fraud to win such elections, they run significant risks of losing power when they lose popular support. For this reason, presidents like those in Russia have been very sensitive to public opinion. Nationalism comes into play here.

The relationship between nationalism and political support in Russia is not straightforward, however, and for this reason the Kremlin has generally treaded very carefully on this issue. In fact, this chapter argues that President Vladimir Putin up until 2014 largely avoided making nationalism a central element of his popular appeal.

This chapter explores Russian state-aligned television's approaches to representing ethnicity and nationhood in its news broadcasts, considering the medium's effectiveness as a tool for forging a sense of belonging among the citizens of the Russian Federation. The material on which it is based largely precedes the 2014 political crisis around Ukraine. But that material, and our reading of it, is framed by the crisis and by Russian federal television's role in fanning the flames that continue to engulf the actors at its heart. The pertinence and purpose of the points we make are not restricted to the Ukraine context. Their significance relates also to our understanding both of Russian nation-building and of the responsibilities of the media in complex multi-cultural societies more generally. However, central to our argument is the conviction that neither the conflict with the West that Russia's actions in Ukraine precipitated, nor the rationale for those actions promoted in news broadcasts on state-aligned channels, can be understood without reference to tensions within the Putin regime's nation-building project that had long been evident in television news broadcasts, and that we focus on below. While our analysis is primarily historical with respect to the Ukraine crisis, it identifies several factors with a direct bearing on those later events. These have to do with contradictions between different versions of Russian nationalism; concerns regarding a disconnection between official policy on national cohesion and popular sentiment; and ambiguities surrounding the Kremlin's relationship with broad- casters. We summarise their bearing on the Ukraine crisis in our conclusion.

Historically, the media have been central to every nation-building project, as they disseminate particular imaginings of the community, of its shared values and its constitutive ‘others’ (Postill 2006). By selecting certain issues for coverage and by framing news reports in one way or another, the media contribute to building community consensus around particular perceptions (McCombs 1997).