A Giant Fast Asleep? Party Incentives and the Politicisation of European Integration
| Published date | 01 March 2012 |
| Author | Christoffer Green-Pedersen |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00895.x |
| Date | 01 March 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 1 2 VO L 6 0 , 1 1 5 – 1 3 0
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00895.x
A Giant Fast Asleep? Party Incentives and
the Politicisation of European Integrationpost_895115..130
Christoffer Green-Pedersen
University of Aarhus
Hooghe and Marks recently introduced a new research agenda for the study of European integration focusing on
politicisation, that is, the inclusion of mass public attitudes in the politics of European integration. The overall aim of
this article is to respond to this new research agenda. Unlike the existing literature, which focuses on Euro-sceptical
extreme left or right-wing parties, the article argues that the explanation for politicisation or the lack of it should be
found in the incentives the issue offers for mainstream political parties. Denmark serves as a crucial case study to show
the limitations of the existing literature and the need to focus on the incentives of mainstream political parties.
Empirically, the article argues that expectations about the impending politicisation of European integration are
misplaced. The giant is fast asleep because those who could wake it up generally have no incentive to do so and those
who have an incentive cannot.
Keywords: party competition; European integration; politicisation; Denmark
Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks (2009) recently introduced a new research agenda for the
study of European integration focusing on politicisation. Moving this question to the top
of the agenda of European integration research highlights the fact that our understanding
of politicisation remains surprisingly limited (see Kriesi, 2009).1 Hooghe and Marks (2009)
outline a theoretical framework for approaching the question of politicisation, which a few
other studies have approached empirically (see De Vries, 2007; Kriesi, 2007; Steenbergen
and Scott, 2004).
This article responds to the call for greater focus on politicisation in European integration
research. Its core theoretical argument is that the explanation for politicisation or the lack of
it should be found in the incentives an issue offers mainstream political parties (see Meguid,
2005). This is in contrast to the existing literature which has focused on Euro-sceptical
extreme left or right-wing parties (see DeVries, 2007; DeVries and Edwards, 2009; Hooghe
and Marks, 2009; Kriesi et al., 2008; Szczerbiak and Taggart, 2008). Mainstream parties find
European integration an unattractive issue for two reasons. First, party positions on the issue
deviate from the left–right dimension, which is the basic structure of party competition in
Europe. This makes the coalition-building impact of politicisation uncertain. Second, voting
behaviour with regard to European integration depends crucially on how the issue is framed
and this makes the electoral impact of politicisation more unpredictable for mainstream
parties than is the case with politicisation of, for example, immigration.
The article also differs from the existing literature in terms of research strategy. The
typical approach to electoral politics around European integration is comparative studies
(De Vries, 2007; Kriesi, 2007; Steenbergen and Scott, 2004). This study draws on one
country, Denmark, but includes the entire political agenda. The strategy has two advantages.
First, Denmark can be seen as a ‘crucial case’ (Gerring, 2007) for the existing literature on
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the politicisation of European integration. The factors presented as conducive to politici-
sation, such as Euro-sceptical extreme parties and referenda, are all clearly present in the
Danish case, but, as will be argued below, they do not lead to a politicisation of European
integration. Second, the drawback of a cross-national comparative strategy is that it offers
limited variation. As argued by Cees Van der Eijk and Mark Franklin (2007), the issue of
European integration is a ‘sleeping giant’. As European integration has rarely been politi-
cised, studying the issue cross-nationally provides limited understanding of the factors that
could lead to politicisation, thus making it hard to explain why it does not come about.
Politicisation and European Integration
Hooghe and Marks (2009) put the question of politicisation at the centre of their
post-functionalist research programme on European integration. Politicisation is under-
stood as the inclusion of mass public attitudes in the politics of European integration. The
question is how important public opinion about the European Union has become for its
development (Hooghe and Marks, 2009, pp. 6–8). Hooghe and Marks (2009, p. 7) argue that
the Maastricht Accord was the starting point for a politicisation of European integration
when the issue ‘entered the contentious world of party competition, elections and
referendums’.
They further outline a theory of issue politicisation pointing to different factors that are
conducive to or which limit politicisation (Hooghe and Marks, 2009, pp. 6–9, pp. 18–21).
Factors conducive to politicisation are institutional factors, most importantly the constitu-
tional opportunities of referenda and party strategies.With regard to the latter, Hooghe and
Marks point to the role of radical right or left-wing parties, the parties that have opposed
European integration and thus taken advantage of the electoral incentives resulting from a
Euro-sceptic mass public (Hooghe and Marks, 2009, p. 21). At the same time, fears of
internal party disagreement and the need to appear consistent in the eyes of the mass public
are factors that limit party interests in politicisation (Hooghe and Marks, 2009, p. 19).
Politicisation has made appearances in the European integration literature before (e.g.
Bartolini, 2005, pp. 309–62; Marks and Steenbergen, 2004; Van der Brug and Van der Eijk,
2007), and the literature has focused on similar factors as Hooghe and Marks (2009) have
done: some studies point to internal party coherence as a factor that limits party interest in
politicisation (Aylott, 2002; Steenbergen and Scott, 2004), and Catherine De Vries (2009)
emphasises the ‘spillover’ effect from referenda. However, the literature has paid most
attention to the role of extreme left and right parties. Studies seeking to explain the salience
of the issue at the electoral level thus point to the role of party polarisation due to
Euro-sceptical extreme parties (DeVries, 2007; DeVries and Edwards, 2009). This is in line
with Hanspeter Kriesi (2007), who draws on a more general study (Kriesi et al., 2008)
which focuses on how extreme parties introduce a new globalisation cleavage that includes
European integration.
This focus on extreme parties is highly influenced by the ‘sleeping giant’ metaphor
introduced by Van der Eijk and Franklin (2007; see Börzel and Risse, 2009; Kriesi, 2009):
the issue of integration is thus characterised by pro-EU consensus at the elite level,
including most political parties that form governments, and widespread Euro-scepticism
among the European public, which has been highly visible in recent referenda. This leads
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one to expect the emergence of parties that take electoral advantage from the widespread
Euro-scepticism. However, as Kriesi (2007, p. 104) acknowledges, this line of reasoning does
not explain the issue of European integration very well since politicisation is less widespread
than expected. This calls for an alternative.
This article thus aims to push the research programme outlined by Hooghe and Marks
(2009) further by focusing on the question of party strategies and party competition around
European integration. The article builds on a narrower definition of politicisation as a
matter of saliency, that is, that the issue is high on the agenda of political parties as well as
the electorate. According to this definition, politicisation is not the same as party conflict
on an issue. As will be argued below, party conflict in the form of different party positions
on an issue is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for politicisation. Parties have
different positions on many issues that do not receive much attention, that is, become
politicised.
In comparison with Hooghe and Marks (2009, p. 9), the article focuses on the central
factor of their model of issue politicisation, namely political parties and their strategies. This
focus allows the article to take issue with the idea presented by Hooghe and Marks (2009,
p. 21) – and prominent in the literature – that Euro-sceptical extreme parties can drive
politicisation of European integration. The aim is thus to outline an understanding of issue
politicisation that goes beyond arguing that the existence of electoral potential will generate
politicisation just because some – extreme – parties will have an incentive to politicise the
issue.
Party Attention to European Integration
To build a theoretical framework for understanding which issues political parties focus
on, that is, party issue competition, we draw on insights from agenda-setting literature
( Baumgartner et al., 2006) since party issue competition can be seen as an agenda-setting
process.
First, an agenda is a ‘hierarchy of issues’, which implies that some issues are more
important than others, and that an...
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