(De‐)politicization Discourse Strategies: The Case of Trade
Published date | 01 January 2024 |
Author | Alex Andrione‐Moylan,Pieter Wilde,Kolja Raube |
Date | 01 January 2024 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13475 |
(De-)politicization Discourse Strategies: The Case of Trade
ALEX ANDRIONE-MOYLAN,
1
PIETER DE WILDE
2
and KOLJA RAUBE
3
1
Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
2
Department of Sociology and Political Science,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
3
Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Abstract
Examining (de-)politicization as an actor-driven phenomenon, this study asks: How and to what
extent do actors in the public sphere attempt to (de-)politicize European Union (EU) policies?
(De-)politicization is understood not only as a process but also as the deliberate framing of debates
over EU issues at a domestic level. This paper conceptualizes (de-)politicization acts in the public
sphere and shows how these can be detected empirically through a claim-level (de-)politicization
index. This approach is applied to a database of evaluations (claims) on EU trade, by EU actors,
national executive actors and societal actors, surrounding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, in the media of six Member
States (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Denmark). Whilst all kinds of actors may en-
gage in (de-)politicization, the analysis of the index allows us to determine if a certain category
of actors does so to a greater or lesser extent compared with others.
Keywords: depoliticization; EU trade policy; European Commission; media content analysis; Member
States
Introduction
In the literature on the politicization of European integration (De Wilde, 2011; Hooghe
and Marks, 2009; Hutter et al., 2016), the focus has been on the ‘bottom-up’pressures
faced by the European Union (EU), as domestic actors –particularly political parties –
raise the salience of the European project by contesting its legitimacy. Less attention
has been devoted to assessing and analysing the (often) depoliticizing role played by
EU-level institutional actors, like the European Commission, alongside bottom-up politi-
cization. Building on a recent body of literature that conceptualizes depoliticization pri-
marily from an actor-centred and strategic point of view (e.g., Bressanelli et al., 2020),
this article shows how the study of the communicative behaviour of EU actors in the pub-
lic sphere, vis-à-vis domestic players, can be approached empirically. It does so in the
context of two highly contested EU Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the United States and the
Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada.
We ask how and to what extent actors in the public sphere attempt to (de-)politicize
EU policies with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of how (de-)politicization
1
presents itself in discourse. (De-)politicization is understood here not only as a ‘process’
but also as the deliberate framing of debates over EU issues at a domestic level. In partic-
ular, we consider political communication as a crucial strategic act, which plays a key role
in (de-)politicizing policy issues. Aiming to detect (de-)politicization strategies, our focus
1
Throughout, ‘(de-)politicization’is used only when referring to both politicization and depoliticization.
JCMS 2024 Volume 62. Number 1. pp. 21–37DOI: 10.1111/jcms.13475
© 2023 University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
is domestic media debates on EU trade, across six EU Member States (Germany, France,
Spain, Italy, Poland, and Denmark). Before we can answer our research question, we need
to conceptualize what an act of (de-)politicization in the public sphere looks like. To that
end, this study develops a depoliticization discourse index (DDI), a scaled variable,
measuring the ‘extent’to which we detect an attempt to (de-)politicize FTAs through dis-
course. We applied the DDI to a novel representative claims analysis (RCA) database.
Even if all kinds of actors may engage in (de-)politicization strategies, the analysis of
the DDI allows us to determine if a certain category of actors does so to a greater or lesser
extent compared with other actors. By proposing a comprehensive operationalization of
(de-)politicization in an empirical setting and through effective actor-level statistical
analysis of the DDI, this study helps fill the current gap in the literature on politicization
in the EU.
1.The (De-)politicization Debate
Recent developments in the literature have sparked the need for a reassessment of debates
on (de-)politicization, in two crucial ways: firstly, highlighting and exploring the
agency-driven nature of these processes and, secondly, focusing on depoliticization
alongside politicization. A notable example is the definition proposed by
Bressanelli, Koop and Reh. (2020, p. 335), which places the study of depoliticization
from an actor-centred perspective at the heart of its approach, defining it as ‘strategies
targeted at making the new conflict of integration deliberately and explicitly less visible,
less polarizing and less salient’. This constitutes a significant shift, considering how the
debate on (de-)politicization has converged over the past decade. First, there has been
broad agreement on the prevailing understanding of politicization, put forward by De
Wilde (2011), as being characterized by three key aspects, observed within European do-
mestic public spheres: issue salience, polarization of opinion and the expansion of actors
and audiences. Second, much of the work on politicization tends to stem from the hypoth-
esis that authority transfers towards the EU, combined with a lack of (new) legitimacy
venues, have led to increased politicization (Zürn, 2016). However, the focus on ‘bot-
tom-up’pressures faced by the EU, including the so-called populist wave of recent years,
has led to an understandable emphasis on explaining the behaviour of domestic actors and
the nature of polarization at a domestic level (Hutter and Kriesi, 2019; Kriesi et al., 2008).
Debates that rely on the politicization literature, in areas including monetary policy
(Leupold, 2016), migration policy (Lauwers et al., 2021) and development aid
(Hackenesch et al., 2021), have reflected underlying trends in the broader literature, by
focusing on bottom-up pressures and placing special emphasis on their triggers.
This tendency exists also in the prolific debate over the politicization of TTIP and
CETA, which has been linked, for instance, to the distinct nature of different policy issues
and their salience (De Bièvre and Poletti, 2020), specific actor constellations and their
mobilization (Gheyle, 2020) and the process of European integration as a whole (De
Bièvre et al., 2020; Meunier and Czesana, 2019; Young, 2019). Therefore, the relevance
of these case-specific developments surrounding FTAs has become of far broader signif-
icance. Taking an actor-centred approach within such a crucial policy area and placing
special emphasis on depoliticization allows us to expand a conversation that often focuses
on triggers and conditions to one that engages more consistently with (i) how (de-)
Alex Andrione-Moylan, Pieter de Wilde and Kolja Raube22
© 2023 University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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