The Politicization of European Integration: Towards Democratic Renationalization?

Abstract

European integration has become increasingly controversial since the beginning of the 1990s (Eichenberg and Dalton 2007; Hooghe and Marks 2009; de Wilde and Zürn 2012; Statham and Trenz 2013b). That is, mass publics have come to pay more attention to political decision making within the European Union (EU) framework and at the same time seem more critical of the results. What is more, the action repertoire of political elites in Europe appears restricted in light of this increased contentiousness. In this way, social contestation and political decision making appear intricately linked (Schmitter 1969; Aspinwall 2002; Mattila and Raunio 2009). This increasing contentiousness has been called the ‘politicization’ of European integration (Schmitter 1969; Ray 1998; Hooghe and Marks 2006, 2009; de Wilde 2011b; de Wilde and Zürn 2012). To be more precise, the process of politicization refers to ‘an increase in polarization of opinions, interests or values and the extent to which they are publicly advanced towards policy formulation within the EU’ (de Wilde 2011b: 566–7).