Abstract
In this article, we suggest a novel conceptual framework for understanding and analysing EU politicisation. Recent studies on EU politicisation argue that the post-Maastricht era led to the politicisation of EU integration via an increasing citizens’ dissatisfaction. Contrary to this account, we argue that European integration has been from the beginning linked to politicisation, but in an unusual way. To capture its uniqueness we introduce the concepts of politisation as a precondition of politicisation and of politification as a depoliticised modality of politicisation. Politicisation is then not something new to EU integration but rather it is constitutive of EU integration itself. We further claim that understanding politicisation requires taking a closer look at its relationship to “politics” or “political”, as the interpretation of what is considered as politicisation depends on the interpretation of what is politics/political. It is thus essential to spell out the respective understanding of this key concept – Grundbegriff in Reinhart Koselleck’s sense. We aim at an understanding of EU politicisation that is at once broader than what is currently discussed, more historically based, and related to an actor-oriented perspective on the political. On this basis we discuss the main conceptual weaknesses of current studies on EU politicisation and conclude by illustrating our alternative conception.
Highlights
Characteristic of the current research on EU politicisation is a curious autonomisation of the expression ‘politicisation’
In particular when concepts aim at grasping complex phenomena or are subject to several interpretations, as it is the case with politics and politicisation, scholars should reflect on their own interpretations, as well as on those of the actors using these concepts and their academic interpreters
We argue that European integration has been from the beginning linked to politicisation, but in an unusual way
Summary
We suggest a novel conceptual framework for understanding and analysing EU politicisation. The possibility of engaging in creative political action beyond the nation-state in the European context will be described by distinguishing between three terms that refer to different facets of the concept: ‘politisation’ as a passive form and precondition of politicisation, ‘politicisation’ as rendering something political, and ‘politification’ as politicisation through depoliticisation (for a slightly different understanding of the concept see Duclos 1962). For example in parliamentary debates we can notice that politicisation refers to two different types of phenomena: a ‘passive’ form of a process of ‘being politicised’, as an unintended result of some activities, and an ‘active’ form of a demand ‘to politicise’ something and a successful action to realize this politicisation This semantics is fairly similar in English, French and German, for the passive form it would be possible in German to speak of Verpolitisierung and reserve Politisierung to the active concept (even if historically there hardly is such a linguistic separation). Weber inverted the Bismarckian slogan of politics as the ‘art of the possible’ to ‘art of the impossible’, Kunst des Unmöglichen in the sense of setting goals that transcend the limits of what is considered as possible (Weber 1917, 514)
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