EU Issues Research Articles

Politicisation of the European Union in Slovenia in the Twenty Years of its Membership

Abstract Ever since Slovenia became independent, the European idea has been viewed fondly by the political elite and the public. The absence of any successful Eurosceptic parties has meant the main goals concerning European integration became national projects. Euroscepticism has remained limited, although in more recent years politicisation has steadily grown through political parties’ positions on EU issues. At the same time, the country’s political elite has lost sight of the specific strategy Slovenia should play in the EU. Moreover, alignment with other EU member states has begun to vary depending on the ruling party. After twenty years of membership, this has led to Slovenia being seen as one of the more submissive actors in EU policymaking. In the article, by applying an analytical framework of politicisation, we consider the changing attitudes to the EU in Slovenia through the twenty years of its membership. The central research question is: in which ways have European issues become politicised over the last twenty years in Slovenia? The research question is addressed by considering a chronological approach and analysis of events, participation in European elections and public opinion data. We argue that, as a newer member state, Slovenia politicises European issues to a limited extent.

Upcoming events on EU issues

Compilation of congresses and conferences on matters related to the EU.

The European commitment to human-centered technology: the integral role of HCI in the EU AI Act’s success

Abstract The evolution of AI is set to profoundly reshape the future. The European Union, recognizing this impending prominence, has enacted the AI Act, regulating market access for AI-based systems. A salient feature of the Act is to guard democratic and humanistic values by focusing regulation on transparency, explainability, and the human ability to understand and control AI systems. Hereby, the EU AI Act does not merely specify technological requirements for AI systems. The EU issues a democratic call for human-centered AI systems and, in turn, an interdisciplinary research agenda for human-centered innovation in AI development. Without robust methods to assess AI systems and their effect on individuals and society, the EU AI Act may lead to repeating the mistakes of the General Data Protection Regulation of the EU and to rushed, chaotic, ad-hoc, and ambiguous implementation, causing more confusion than lending guidance. Moreover, determined research activities in Human-AI interaction will be pivotal for both regulatory compliance and the advancement of AI in a manner that is both ethical and effective. Such an approach will ensure that AI development aligns with human values and needs, fostering a technology landscape that is innovative, responsible, and an integral part of our society.

The differential impact of EU attitudes on voting behaviour in the European parliamentary elections 2019

ABSTRACT EU attitudes are multidimensional and likely to matter differentially for voting across different parties. The 2019 European Parliament (EP) elections offer a unique setting for testing the differential effects of multidimensional EU attitudes, as the election results entailed increased political fragmentation – with notable pro- and anti-EU party groups in the EP gaining strength. This article examines the importance of EU attitudes on electoral choice and zooms in on the influence of specific EU attitudes on party voting in EP elections (‘EU issue voting’). We use original survey data collected around the 2019 EP elections in ten EU member states, which include a fine-grained measurement of EU attitudes. We find evidence for EU issue voting in all countries, albeit not equally structured across countries. EU issue voting matters across all party groups with affective and performance evaluations having the strongest effects.

Opinion polarization of immigration and EU attitudes between social classes – the limiting role of working class dissensus

ABSTRACT This study examines polarization in political opinions toward immigration and the European Union between occupational classes, i.e. structural polarization. We maintain that two conditions must hold to indicate structural opinion polarization: high between-class divergence and high within-class consensus. Our main contribution is to study these two conditions systematically for a wide variety of immigration and EU-related topics. Using data from four high-quality German surveys spanning three decades, we document three main findings. First, we find substantial between-class divergence: respondents in typical working class occupations express substantially more unfavorable opinions about immigration and the EU than the upper classes across the majority of survey indicators. Second, however, we also observe considerable opinion heterogeneity within the working class. This lack of within-class consensus limits the potential of mobilizing the working class as a group on the basis of anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiments. Third, while we do not document durable increases in structural opinion polarization over time across most of our opinion indicators, we do draw attention to those individual indicators that show relatively high polarization. Overall, our results suggest limited opinion polarization between occupational classes on immigration and EU issues in Germany.

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‘Party position, electoral incentives, and attention to European Union issues in the 2019 European Parliament election’

Under what conditions do Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) give attention to EU issues in European Parliament (EP) election campaigns? This study examines how party positioning on European integration and individual electoral incentives affected MEPs’ attention to EU issues in the 2019 EP election campaign. Based on data collected from Twitter, the findings show that pro-EU parties and individual vote-seeking incentives increased attention to EU issues. More specifically, they show that MEPs from pro-EU mainstream parties had incentives to debate about EU issues, especially when they competed for votes. The findings help to unfold the interplay between party-level and legislator-level factors and its effects on attention to EU issues and aim to contribute to research on EU issue salience and EP election campaigns.

Living in a hostile country: the ‘Migrant’ and ‘Unbelonging’ in contemporary Brexit literature

ABSTRACT This article will assess the situation of migrant ‘others’ in Britain post-Brexit. It will develop my established research interests in the situation of EU citizens in the UK in a new direction by looking at the impact Brexit has had on non-EU citizens living in the UK. Utilising Rosa Mas Giralt's concept of unbelonging, it will offer a close-reading of Isabel Dupuy’s 2019 novel Living the Dream and argue that Brexit, generally considered a Britain and EU issue, has affected individual lives, problematised identities and destroyed family units beyond that usual demographic. This wider gaze will allow for a more rounded understanding of the impacts of Brexit.

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Awakening the Europhile Giant: EU Issue Voting in Western and Central‐Eastern Europe

AbstractMany works have analysed EU issue voting, showing that European integration affects electoral preferences. This article posits that EU issues have increasingly influenced party preferences, boosting their effects and, in particular, on Europhile parties. Several punctuation points – authority transfer towards the EU, party politicisation efforts and a multiple set of crises – have occurred, with EU issues cumulating effects on voting preferences. Europhile parties may have strategically responded on this issue dimension, seizing on more favourable public orientations and, thus, prompting an electoral mobilisation of their constituents. By exploring the EU issue voting patterns in 25 Western and Central‐Eastern European countries between 2014 and 2019, the article presents two core findings, corroborating its expectations. It demonstrates that EU issues have increasingly affected electoral preferences, as well as enhancing their effects amongst the Europhile party voters.

Electoral mobilization, party support and EU issue voting: an analysis of five countries

AbstractThis article analyzes the influence of the EU party-voter distance on party support moderated by the impact of EU salience. To this goal, we focus on the party-voter dyad and we analyze patterns of EU issue voting in first-order national elections in five EU countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands) between 2017 and 2018. We make use of a combination of data from CHES and a public opinion survey to construct the distance measures, and a mix of CHES and Twitter data to measure EU salience. We show that voters are mobilized on the EU, with EU party positions operating as a driving factor of the voting preferences of the electorate and EU salience moderating this relationship.

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A leader without followers: Tory Euroscepticism in a comparative perspective

This article examines the rare phenomenon of mainstream Euroscepticism that has characterised the British Conservative Party and asks whether a similar pattern has appeared elsewhere in the EU. The study traces the long-term evolution of salience and positions on the EU issue in the manifestos of a heterogenous set of centre-right parties, paying particular attention to whether Brexit or successive EU crises have had some noticeable effect. The thesis of Tory exceptionalism is largely supported by the findings – no other mainstream conservative party in the EU has talked more, and more negatively, about the EU over a long time period. Most other centre-right parties were part of the permissive consensus on the EU and have supported, more or less openly, the integration project throughout the past 30 years. However, some parties of mainstream conservatism have shown a similar negative shift as British Conservatives did in the 2000s, such as the Austrian ÖVP, the Hungarian Fidesz, the Polish PiS and (marginally) the Dutch VVD. Being in opposition or pressured by radical right challengers does not necessarily make the mainstream right more critical of the EU. Internal organisational developments (i.e. the ascent of more Eurosceptic influences within the party) constitute the most convincing proximate explanation for mainstream Euroscepticism on the right.

Electoral Competition, the EU Issue and Far-right Success in Western Europe

We argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that to understand the electoral fortunes of far-right parties in Western Europe, we need to consider the advantages and disadvantages these parties encounter in the multidimensional political issue space. We argue that salience changes among the electorate benefit far-right parties more than shifting far-right parties’ policy positions. We further posit that changes in the public salience of European integration are more important for far-right success than other issues -- including immigration. Utilizing similar survey questions from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) about parties’ positions and the European Election Studies (EES) about voters’ policy preferences, we estimate multidimensional voting models in 12 West European countries. We then use mathematical simulations to show that the issue that matters most for far-right success is European integration. This research has important implications for the study of electoral competition, parties’ campaign strategies, and voting behavior.

New Challenges for Representative Democracy: The Changing Political Space in Western Europe

Globalisation and EU integration have reshaped political alignments in western Europe, with the emergence of new conflicts within a political space still ideologically structured in two dimensions (economic and cultural). However, recent challenger parties appear to question such alleged bi-dimensionality, e.g. combining anti-immigrant stances with progressive views on moral issues. In light of such challenges, the article aims to understand whether citizens’ positions on policy issues can still be interpreted according to latent ideological dimensions, exploring possible differences across distinct party electorates and age groups (young vs. older people). The article analyses the ideological consistency of voters’ issue preferences and the dimensionality of the issue space in seven western European countries through original survey data and scaling techniques. Results show that most citizens (especially young and right-wing voters) take ideologically inconsistent positions on cultural GAL-TAN and economic left-right issues, whereas are quite consistent on immigration and EU issues.

Drivers of domestic politicisation of European issues: explaining low politicisation of differentiated integration in Czechia

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the debate on domestic politicisation of EU issues by suggesting hitherto overlooked explanation of (non)politicisation. This paper uses Czechia as an intriguing case in which the mainstream explanations of a low level of domestic politicisation of EU issues do not apply. The Czech case illustrates that, first, even in the context of high public Euroscepticism, EU issues do not necessarily become politicised, particularly so when the public does not consider them to be important. Second, high politicisation does not occur when there is a path dependency of a mismatch between positions of political parties and significant parts of their electorates on EU issues. Finally, the rise of catch-all populist parties prevents a high level of politicisation of EU issues.

Upcoming events on EU issues

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Political Responsiveness in Crisis Period, Sustainability and ESG in EU: The Initiatives of Next Generation EU and the Potentials for Programming Period 2021-2027

Crisis in Europe used to generate significant socioeconomic and political changes in institutions and states cooperation, especially in post war period. During the last decade, the financial crisis, in combination with climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged significantly EU, while at the same time, the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 provided solutions as well as the political will of “being together is better”. The EU Green Deal indicated that cooperation is a prerequisite for EU as a whole and at the same time, it is a fact in combination with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moreover, Covid-19 has indicated the need for an effective policy response in order to deal with this health crisis. The main issue for EU is how to inspire and provide a sustainable, fair and social inclusive future for the member states and next generation. The EU via the “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” booklet analyzes its international position in sustainable development issues, while the Next Generation EU is an important policy and financial tool in order to improve the common policies in new programming period 2021-2027.

Issue Hierarchization in Agenda‐Setting: The Case of the European Council Agenda

AbstractAgenda‐setting scholars tend to search for a problem that receives the most policy attention, a so‐called primary issue. Since the concept of the primary issue is vague, this article aims to define and implement it in a framework of issue hierarchization leaning on the issue's place, space and framing on the agenda. The position and the hierarchy of issues are considered crucial elements of agenda‐setting but omitted in the literature. The article thus examines the hierarchy of issues in EU agenda‐setting, specifically on the case of the European Council agenda in the period December 2014–December 2020 using a holistic grading method. The findings show that the agenda can consist of more primary and several secondary issues at once. Interestingly, if more primary issues require policy attention, policy‐makers tend to mobilize additional resources to tackle them instead of dropping secondary issues off the agenda.

Caught between sovereignty and solidarity? A multidimensional revisitation of EU mass–elite congruence

AbstractThis article undertakes a critical revisitation of mass–elite congruence on EU matters, taking stock of 30 years of research and addressing durable ambiguities flagged by recent scholarship. Its specific contribution leverages EUEngage elite and mass survey data gathered in 2016 in 10 European countries. Examining congruence at both the country and the party level, we carry out an uncommon multidimensional analysis that encompasses general European integration and certain key sub-dimensions. At both levels, we perform a distinctive systematization of multiple approaches to the assessment of EU issue congruence, probing the substantive consistency of ensuing results. The findings qualify and soften the conventional wisdom of a chasm between pro-European elites and lukewarm citizens. While most countries exhibit pro-EU elite bias in terms of averages and proportions alike, mass–elite alignment is the rule when the general dimension and its sub-dimensions are understood as binary. Party-level analyses display different outcomes, depending on whether party positions are derived from elites' self-placement or their voters' perceptions, yet discrepancies are generally lower than in past assessments. Altogether, ‘constraining dissensus’ chiefly emerges along sub-dimensions concerning decision-making authority, as opposed to sub-dimensions evoking solidarity and burden-sharing. The layered panorama of congruence and incongruence implies a dependence of mass–elite interplays on context and sub-dimensions, drawing attention to the mediating role of critical junctures and elite entrepreneurship.