From streets to parliament: understanding the mechanisms of protest impact on the policy-making process in the European Parliament’s TTIP debate

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following years of intense protest, the negotiations for the TTIP agreement were declared ‘dead in the water’ by the end of 2016. Although there has been ample scholarly attention on how Civil Society Organisations were able to politicise the issue, there is little evidence on how this politicisation ultimately impacted the policy-making process for the trade agreement. Building on an analysis of over 500 parliamentary questions in conjunction with in-depth interviews with eight MEPs from five different political groups, I show that the anti-TTIP campaigns reframed the problem definition of the agreement which led to a lasting shift of its policy image and changed the stance of some policymakers. Further, the anti-TTIP protests contributed to the salience of TTIP among the public and subsequently changed policymakers’ perceptions of the attitudes of the public towards the proposed agreement. Finally, the protests created partisan as well as inter-institutional conflict on the issue.