Departing from the idea that political controversies are embedded in the very framework of European integration, this volume focuses on the relationship between politicisation and European democracy. The contributors to this edited volume trace the various ways of understanding ‘politicisation’ before and beyond the 2019 European elections. The aim is to offer constructive reinterpretations of the concept for further research in the field. Encompassing different approaches, the book shows a plurality of perspectives and provides innovative analytical tools to make sense of the phenomenon of politicisation in the EU context. Assuming that EU politicisation can be seen both as vice and virtue depending on the way in which it takes place, the authors analyse under what conditions it has a positive or negative influence over European democracy. Emphasising that scholars ought to be aware of the normative assumptions underlying the conceptualisation of politicisation, the book illustrates how many of the features in European politics that were intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic were already present earlier. Tracing the Politicisation of the EU will be of interest to students and scholars in EU Studies, Comparative Politics, Media and Communication, Political Theory and Political Sociology.

Politicising Europe presents the most comprehensive contribution to empirical research on politicisation to date. The study is innovative in both conceptual and empirical terms. Conceptually, the contributors develop and apply a new index and typology of politicisation. Empirically, the volume presents a huge amount of original data, tracing politicisation in a comparative perspective over more than forty years. Focusing on six European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK) from the 1970s to the current euro crisis, the book examines conflicts over Europe in election campaigns, street protests, and public debates on every major step in the integration process. It shows that European integration has indeed become politicised. However, the patterns and developments differ markedly across countries and arenas, and many of the key hypotheses on the driving forces of change need to be revisited in view of new findings.

This book decisively advances the academic debate on politicisation beyond the state of the art. It is the first book to theorise and conceptualise ‘politicisation’ across the epistemic communities of different subdisciplines, bringing together the different strands in the debate: (international) political theory, political sociology, comparative politics, EU studies, legal theory and international relations. This provides a comprehensive discussion of different concepts of politicisation, their ontological and theoretical backgrounds, and their analytical value, including speech-act, practice- and actor-oriented approaches. Furthermore, the linkages of politicisation to the concepts of politics and the political, democracy, depoliticisation, juridification, populism, and Euroscepticism are clarified. Finally, the book shows how the methodological toolbox in empirical politicisation research can be completed regarding different arenas, actors and modes of politicisation. The volume thus provides a much-needed theoretical and conceptual reflection to the newly emerging research field of politicisation in order to recognise and define the key issues and build a solid foundation for further debate and empirical research.

A second edition of this book is now available. This accessible text provides a concise political history of European integration from the end of World War II to the present. The "European project" raises fascinating and important questions: How did Europe's states overcome their traditional rivalries and quarrels to build supranational institutions? What were the economic and geopolitical forces that drove them? Which individual statesmen contributed most to defining the European project? What are the issues that confronted the EU in the last decade and what problems will the EU face as its leaders consider even more advanced forms of political integration? All these questions are addressed by this engaging text, which offers a clear and readable account of the complex historical process by which Europe's unique polity has been built.

This book provides a critical understanding of Europeanization and statebuilding in the Western Balkans, using the notion of everyday practices. This volume argues that it is everyday and mundane events that provide the entry points to showcase a broader set of practices of Europeanization in countries outside the EU. It does this by tracing notions of Europeanization in the everyday statebuilding of Kosovo, Europe Day celebrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, urban politics in Tirana, and space and place making in Skopje. In doing so, the book shows that everyday events tell us that as much as it is about changing structures, institutions, and economic models, Europeanization is also about changing behaviours and ideas in populations at large. At the same time, the work shows that countries outside the EU use everyday events to perform their belonging to Europe. This book will be of much interest to students of European Studies, Balkan politics, statebuilding, and International Relations generally.

This open access book provides an in-depth look into the background of rule of law problems and the open defiance of EU law in East Central European countries. Current illiberal trends and anti-EU politics have the potential to undermine mutual trust between member states and fundamentally change the EU. It is therefore crucial to understand their domestic causes, context conditions, specific processes and consequences. This volume contributes to empirically informed theory-building and includes contributions from researchers from various disciplines and multiple perspectives on illiberal trends and anti-EU politics in the region. The qualitative case studies, comparative works and quantitative analyses provide a comprehensive picture of current societal, political and institutional developments in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Through studying similarities and differences between East Central European and other EU countries, the chapters also explore whether there are regional patterns of democracy- and EU-related problems.

In this 2004 volume, a formidable group of scholars investigate patterns of conflict that are arising in the European Union.

Over the past two decades politicians have delegated many political decisions to expert agencies or ‘quangos’, and portrayed the associated issues, like monetary or drug policy, as technocratic or managerial. At the same time an increasing number of important political decisions are being removed from democratic public debate altogether, leading many commentators to argue that they are part of a ‘crisis of democracy’, marking the ‘end of politics’. Tracing the political uses a broad range of international case studies to chart the politicising and depoliticising dynamics that shape debates about the future of governance and the liberal democratic state. The book is part of the New perspectives in policy and politics series, and will be an important text for students of politics and policy, as well as researchers and policy makers.

The development of the European Union has been one of the most profound advances in European politics and society this century. Yet the institutions of Europe and the 'Eurocrats' who work in them have constantly attracted negative publicity, culminating in the mass resignation of the European Commissioners in March 1999. In this revealing study, Cris Shore scrutinises the process of European integration using the techniques of anthropology, and drawing on thought from across the social sciences. Using the findings of numerous interviews with EU employees, he reveals that there is not just a subculture of corruption within the institutions of Europe, but that their problems are largely a result of the way the EU itself is constituted and run. He argues that European integration has largely failed in bringing about anything but an ever-closer integration of the technical, political and financial elites of Europe - at the expense of its ordinary citizens. This critical anthropology of European integration is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the culture and politics of the EU.

This is the only modern study of European international politics to cover the entire timespan from the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763 to the revolutionary year of 1848.