Tracing the Politicisation of the EU The

Future of Europe Debates Before and

After the 2019 Elections 1st Edition
Taru Haapala Álvaro Oleart
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/tracing-the-politicisation-of-the-eu-the-future-of-europ
e-debates-before-and-after-the-2019-elections-1st-edition-taru-haapala-alvaro-oleart/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Tracing the Politicisation of the EU: The Future of

Europe Debates Before and After the 2019 Elections 1st
Edition Palgrave

https://ebookmeta.com/product/tracing-the-politicisation-of-the-
eu-the-future-of-europe-debates-before-and-after-
the-2019-elections-1st-edition-palgrave/

National Populism and Borders. The Politicisation of

Cross-Border Mobilisations in Europe Oscar Mazzoleni

https://ebookmeta.com/product/national-populism-and-borders-the-
politicisation-of-cross-border-mobilisations-in-europe-oscar-
mazzoleni/

The Politics of a Disillusioned Europe East Central

Europe After the Fall of Communism 1st Edition André
Liebich

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-politics-of-a-disillusioned-
europe-east-central-europe-after-the-fall-of-communism-1st-
edition-andre-liebich/

Europe s Orphan The Future of the Euro and the Politics

of Debt New Edition Martin Sandbu

https://ebookmeta.com/product/europe-s-orphan-the-future-of-the-
euro-and-the-politics-of-debt-new-edition-martin-sandbu/
The Future of the Presidency Journalism and Democracy
After Trump 1st Edition Robert E. Gutsche

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-future-of-the-presidency-
journalism-and-democracy-after-trump-1st-edition-robert-e-
gutsche/

The World Powers and Iran: Before, During and After the
Nuclear Deal Banafsheh Keynoush

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-world-powers-and-iran-before-
during-and-after-the-nuclear-deal-banafsheh-keynoush/

Framing Climate Change In The EU And US After The Paris

Agreement 1st Edition Frank Wendler

https://ebookmeta.com/product/framing-climate-change-in-the-eu-
and-us-after-the-paris-agreement-1st-edition-frank-wendler/

Europe s Hybrid Threats What Kinds of Power Does the EU

Need in the 21st Century 1st Edition Giray Sadik

https://ebookmeta.com/product/europe-s-hybrid-threats-what-kinds-
of-power-does-the-eu-need-in-the-21st-century-1st-edition-giray-
sadik/

Executive Education after the Pandemic: A Vision for

the Future

https://ebookmeta.com/product/executive-education-after-the-
pandemic-a-vision-for-the-future/
Palgrave Studies in European Political
Sociology

Series Editors
Carlo Ruzza
School of International Studies, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

Hans-Jö rg Trenz
Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa,
Italy

Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology addresses

contemporary themes in the field of Political Sociology. Over recent
years, attention has turned increasingly to processes of
Europeanization and globalization and the social and political spaces
that are opened by them. These processes comprise both institutional-
constitutional change and new dynamics of social transnationalism.
Europeanization and globalization are also about changing power
relations as they affect people’s lives, social networks and forms of
mobility.
The Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology series
addresses linkages between regulation, institution building and the full
range of societal repercussions at local, regional, national, European
and global level, and will sharpen understanding of changing patterns
of attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups, the political use
of new rights and opportunities by citizens, new conflict lines and
coalitions, societal interactions and networking, and shifting loyalties
and solidarity within and across the European space.
We welcome proposals from across the spectrum of Political
Sociology and Political Science, on dimensions of citizenship; political
attitudes and values; political communication and public spheres;
states, communities, governance structure and political institutions;
forms of political participation; populism and the radical right; and
democracy and democratization.
More information about this series at http://​www.​palgrave.​com/​
gp/​series/​14630
Editors
Taru Haapala and Á lvaro Oleart

Tracing the Politicisation of the EU

The Future of Europe Debates Before and After the
2019 Elections
1st ed. 2022
Editors
Taru Haapala
Department of Political Science and International Relations,
Universidad Autó noma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Á lvaro Oleart
Department of Political Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The
Netherlands

Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology

ISBN 978-3-030-82699-4 e-ISBN 978-3-030-82700-7
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82700-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This publication has been achieved with the financial support of

OpenEUdebate Jean Monnet Network (600465-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-
EPPJMO-NETWORK) funded by the European Commission. This book
reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be
held responsible for any use which may be made of the information
contained therein.

Cover credit: Viennaslide/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered

company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham,
Switzerland
Acknowledgements
This book started to take its shape in the summer of 2019 and was
finally completed in spring 2021. This period of time has been
extremely rich in events that could be interpreted as politicised. They
encompassed the 2019 European elections, the (end of the) Brexit
negotiations, the ousting of United States President Donald Trump after
Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential elections, the inauguration
of the Von der Leyen European Commission and the Covid-19 pandemic
outbreak with the postponement of the beginning of the Conference of
the Future of Europe debates. It has been a time full of quick turns
provoking fascination from a myriad of political and academic
perspectives. Even though these two years have not been without many
challenges, the book was produced in this intellectually inspiring
environment.
We are, first of all, grateful to the Jean Monnet network
‘OpenEUdebate: Matching politics with policy’ (Jean Monnet—Erasmus
REF: 600465-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPJMO-NETWORK), coordinated by
Elena García-Guitiá n at the Universidad Autó noma de Madrid (2018–
2022), for the initiative and support given throughout this challenging
intellectual journey. The ‘OpenEUdebate’ network was also successful
in adapting to the ‘new normal’ of the Covid-19 pandemic. This
included, for example, the recording of a series of ten podcasts entitled
‘Europe after coronavirus’, in which we brought together experts from
academia, civil society, and politics on the effect of the pandemic on
different scenarios for the future of the European Union. Similarly,
working on the book continued in the form of two online workshops,
on the 4th and 24th of June 2020 and 10–11th February 2021. These
workshops contributed crucially to improving the quality of the
different chapters and the design of the structure and narrative of the
edited volume. We want to thank all the contributors for their capacity
of adapting to the demanding circumstances, both professional and
personal. Thanks to Ramona Coman, Luis Bouza García, Elena García-
Guitiá n, Luciano Morganti, Miruna Butnaru-Troncotă , Jan Beyer, Julie
Vander Meulen, Jorge Tuñ ó n Navarro, Claudia Wiesner, Kari Palonen,
Ana Andguladze, Niilo Kauppi, Dragoș Ioniță , María-Isabel Soldevila
and Stergios Fotopoulos. We are also grateful to Ben Crum and Simona
Guerra for their academic support, as well as to Noah Schmitt and Ian
Connerty for their editorial help.
We would like to warmly thank the Palgrave Macmillan team for all
the support given throughout the development of the book. Our joint
adventure started during the 26th International Conference of
Europeanists, organised by the Council for European Studies at the
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, that took place on 20–22 June 2019.
During those warm days we started cooking what eventually has
become the present edited volume. We thank Hans-Jö rg Trenz and
Carlo Ruzza, editors of the Palgrave series on European political
sociology, and Ambra Finotello, Palgrave’s Executive Editor, for their
critical advice and enthusiastic backing ever since the Madrid
conference in which we first discussed the book. We would also like to
especially thank the anonymous reviewers for the excellent comments
and suggestions, which have contributed to the improvement of the
quality of the book.
Lastly, we are grateful for the support of our home universities, the
Universidad Autó noma de Madrid, the Université Libre de Bruxelles
and Maastricht University—Studio Europa Maastricht.
Madrid and Brussels
June 2021

Taru Haapala

Álvaro Oleart
Contents
1 Introduction:​Towards a Multi-Faceted Approach to Politicisation
in the EU Context
Á lvaro Oleart and Taru Haapala
Part I Politicisation of the EU as a Polity
2 Between Optimism and Pessimism:​Rethinking EU Politicisation
in Theory, Conceptualisatio​n, and Research
Claudia Wiesner
3 Citizens’ ‘Permissive Consensus’ in European Integration
Scholarship:​Theoretical Reflections on EU Politicisation and the
Democratic Deficit Discourse
Elena García-Guitiá n
4 Politicisation as a Speech Act:​A Repertoire for Analysing
Politicisation in Parliamentary Plenary Debates
Kari Palonen
5 The European Rescue of the Front National: From the Fringes
Towards the Centre of National Politics Through EU Politicisation
Niilo Kauppi
Part II Social Media in the Politicisation of the EU
6 Parliamentary Rhetoric Meets the Twittersphere:​Rethinking the
Politicisation of European Public Debates with the Rise of Social
Media
Taru Haapala
7 The Politicisation of the EU and the Making of a European
Twittersphere: The Case of the Spitzenkandidaten Process
Stergios Fotopoulos and Luciano Morganti
8 Framing the Future of Europe Debates on Twitter:​The
Personalisation of EU Politicisation in the 2019 EU Election
Campaigns
Luis Bouza García and Jorge Tuñ ó n Navarro
Part III EU Politicisation Narratives and Patterns
9 Patterns of Politicisation in the 2019 European Elections:​
Salience, Polarisation, and Conflict Over EU Integration in
(Eastern/​Western) Media Coverage
Ana Andguladze, Jan Beyer, Ramona Coman and Julie Vander Meulen
10 The Commission Takes the Lead?​‘Supranational Politicisation’
and Clashes of Narratives on Sovereignty in the ‘Future of Europe’
Debates
Miruna Butnaru-Troncotă and Dragoș Ioniță
11 The European Commission’s Communication Strategy as a
Response to Politicisation in Times of EU Contestation
María-Isabel Soldevila and Julie Vander Meulen
12 Make Europe Great Again:​The Politicising Pro-European
Narrative of Emmanuel Macron in France
Luis Bouza García and Á lvaro Oleart
13 Epilogue:​Tracing the Politicisation of the EU—A Research
Agenda for Exploring the Politicising Strategies in the Future of
Europe Debates
Taru Haapala, Á lvaro Oleart and Jan Beyer
Index
List of Figures
Chapter 7

Fig. 1 Most popular issues in the Spitzenkandidat related Twittersphere

(Source Authors’ own compilation, based on data from Brandwatch)

Fig. 2 Sentiment share of voice (Source Authors’ own compilation,

based on data from Brandwatch)

Fig. 3 Trending topics of the 2019 Maastricht and Eurovision debates

(Source Brandwatch)

Fig. 4 Mentions by country divided by the number of Twitter users

(Source Authors’ own compilation, based on data from Brandwatch)

Chapter 8

Fig.​1 Reception of Macron’s speech in Twitter

Fig.​2 Reception of Merkel’s speech in Twitter

Fig.​3 Reception of Sanchez’ speech in Twitter

Fig.​4 Map of hashtags from the May 2019 campaign

Chapter 9

Fig.​1 Distribution of articles by journal

Fig.​2 Distribution of articles by ideological position of the newspaper

(in %)

Fig.​3 Focus of articles.​EU, EU in another Member State, EU from a

domestic issue perspective, EU in the world (in %)

Fig.​4 Coverage of policy issues by journal

Fig.​5 Conflict density

Fig.​6 Left/​Right and East/​West—density of conflict

Fig.​7 Conflict framed as a confrontation between democracy vs.​

illiberalism

Fig.​8 Conflict framed as a confrontation between integration vs.​

disintegration

Fig.​9 Conflict framed as a confrontation between immigration vs.​anti-

immigration
Fig.​10 Conflict framed as a confrontation between national vs.​
supranational actors

Fig.​11 Clusters of conflict

Chapter 11

Fig.​1 Evolution of the means and tools proposed by the Commission in

its communicative strategies, according to the approach (top-down vs.​
audience-centric)

Fig.​2 Evolution of communication focus/​style 2004–2019

Chapter 12

Fig.​1 Diagram of Macron’s MEGA narrative, formed by three stories

that include five frames
List of Tables
Chapter 5

Table 1 The Front National in the European Parliament and the National
Assembly, number of seats. In 1986, the 35 seats in the National
Assembly were due to the temporary transformation of voting to a
proportional system

Chapter 10

Table 1 Selected speeches from the Future of Europe debates

Table 2 Scenarios on the Future of Europe (European Commission,

2017a)

Chapter 12

Table 1 Data set to analyse Macron’s narrative on ‘Europe’

Notes on Contributors
Ana Andguladze is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. Her research focuses on civil
society engagement with the European Union in the Eastern
partnership countries. She holds an M.A. in European Political and
Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium
and a B.A. in European Studies from the Caucasus University in Tbilisi,
Georgia. Before her academic career, she worked in the public sector
and non-governmental organisations.

Jan Beyer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Université Libre de Bruxelles,

Belgium and the Université de Genève, Switzerland. His research
focuses on protests in hybrid and illiberal regimes in Southeast Europe.
He holds a B.A. in European Studies from Maastricht University, the
Netherlands and an M.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford, the
UK. He has also studied at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain,
and the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Before his
academic career, he worked for the German Development Agency (GIZ).

Luis Bouza García is a Lecturer in political science at the

Autonomous University of Madrid. He has a Ph.D. from the Robert
Gordon University in Aberdeen. He is also a visiting professor at the
College of Europe in Bruges, where he coordinated the European
General Studies courses between 2012 and 2018. He is the author of
Participatory democracy and civil society in the EU: Agenda-setting and
institutionalisation (Palgrave, 2015).

Miruna Butnaru-Troncotă is Lecturer and Director of the Centre of

European Studies at the Department of International Relations and
European Studies of National University of Political Science and Public
Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest, Romania. Her research interests
include EU integration, Europeanisation, and the Western Balkans.
Recent publications include ‘The association that dissociates’—
narratives of local political resistance in Kosovo and the delayed
implementation of the Brussels Agreement in Arolda Elbasani (ed.)
International-led State-building and Local Resistance. Hybrid
Institutional Reforms in Post-conflict Kosovo (Routledge, 2020).

Ramona Coman is a Professor in political science and President of

the Institute for European Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles,
Belgium. She is the author of Réformer la justice dans un pays post-
communiste. Le cas de la Roumanie (Editions de l’Université, 2009) and
the co-editor of Politics and Governance in the Post-Crisis European
Union (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Her research focuses on the
EU’s rule of law policy tools and developments in Central and Eastern
Europe.

Stergios Fotopoulos is an information and communication agent at

the European Commission and a Ph.D. candidate at the Vrije
Universiteit Brussels, Belgium. He graduated in media and
communication from the National and Kapodistrian University of
Athens, Greece, and holds a master’s degree in European studies from
the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the Netherlands, and a master’s
degree in communication from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium.
He has also worked as a parliamentary assistant in the European
Parliament.

Elena García-Guitián is a Professor of political science specialised in

political theory at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. She is
the coordinator of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Network OpenEUdebate:
Matching Politics with Policy. Editor of the Revista Española de Ciencia
Política. Her recent publications include ‘The Concept of “Good Enough”
Citizen Revisited: An Exploration of Current Discourses on Political
Participation’ in Wiesner, C. et al. (Eds.). Shaping Citizenship. A Political
Concept in Theory, Debate and Practice, (Routledge, 2018).

Taru Haapala is a Marie Curie fellow within the MSCA-COFUND

InterTalentum programme at the Department of Political Science and
International Relations of the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
and a docent in political science at University of Jyvä skylä , Finland. She
was a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies, Harvard
University. Her research interests include European democracy,
political rhetoric and history of parliamentary politics. Recent
publications include Debates, Rhetoric and Political Action: Practices of
Textual Interpretation and Analysis (2017).

Dragoș Ioniță is a Ph.D. candidate and junior researcher at the

Department of International Relations and European Studies of
National University of Political Studies and Public Administration
(SNSPA) in Bucharest, Romania. His main fields of interest are EU’s
decision-making processes, Europeanisation, and particularly the EU
enlargement process in the Western Balkans. He is currently part of
several research academic networks that aim to bring EU policies closer
to the general public.

Niilo Kauppi is a CNRS research professor at Sciences Po Strasbourg,

France and visiting professor at the Swedish School of Social Science of
the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests range from
intellectual and political radicalism to European politics and global
governance. Recent publications include ‘(De)politicisation: Shifting
Dynamics in an Emerging Political Field and Public Sphere’ (with Hans-
Jö rg Trenz), in Claudia Wiesner (ed.) Rethinking Politicisation in Politics,
Sociology and International Relations (2021) and Exploring E-Capital as
Social Power: A Neo-capital Perspective (2020).

Luciano Morganti is a Professor, Senior Researcher, and Project

Coordinator at the research centre Studies on Media, Innovation and
Technology VUB/SMIT, Brussels, Belgium. He is the Director of the
Master New Media and Society in Europe. He teaches courses related to
the European public sphere, the EU integration process, and the
relationship between (new) media and society. His main research
interests concern the relationship between media and democracy,
media and participation, and media governance.

Álvaro Oleart is a postdoctoral researcher at Studio Europa

Maastricht and the Department of Political Science of Maastricht
University, and a scientific collaborator at the Institute for European
Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His main research interests
are the interactive relationship between national and European politics,
political communication and the public sphere, civil society, political
sociology, and democracy. He is the author of Framing TTIP in the
European Public Spheres: Towards an Empowering Dissensus for EU
Integration (Palgrave, 2021).

Kari Palonen is a Professor Emeritus of political science at the

University of Jyvä skylä , Finland. His main research topics include the
concept of politics and its history, the political thought and
methodology of Max Weber, the principles and practices of conceptual
history and the concepts, procedures, and rhetoric of parliamentary
politics. He has recently authored Debates, Rhetoric and Political Action:
Practices of Textual Interpretation and Analysis (2017) and
Parliamentary Thinking. Procedure, Rhetoric and Time (2018).
María-Isabel Soldevila is a Journalist and Communication Director
of the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de
Bruxelles, Belgium. She holds M.A. in Journalism from Columbia
University and an Executive Master in EU Studies at the Université
Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. She was Knight-Wallace Fellow at the
University of Michigan and UNESCO chair of Communication,
Democracy and Governance in the Dominican Republic, and Editor-in-
Chief of Listín Diario newspaper.

Jorge Tuñón Navarro is an Associate Professor at the Carlos III

University of Madrid, Spain. European Doctor (Extraordinary Prize) in
Communication, International Relations and EU, after graduating in
Law, Journalism and Politics, he has also worked for the European
Commission. He is an external scientific expert for the European
Parliament, evaluator of European projects, as well as collaborator of
the College of Europe in Bruges, the Spanish National Institute of Public
Administration (INAP), the OBS Business School, and the La Caixa
Foundation.

Julie Vander Meulen is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at

the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. Her research focuses on
symbolic politics of how literary, political, and social imaginaries
interact and influence one another in contemporary political literature.
She holds two Master’s degrees in Modern Languages and Literature,
one specialised in sociolinguistics and one in North American studies,
as well as an M.A. in Political Science and in European Studies, all from
the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
Claudia Wiesner is Jean Monnet Chair and Professor of Political
Science at Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany. Her research
focuses on the comparative study of democracy, political culture, and
political sociology in the EU and its multilevel system, with particular
emphasis on theories and concepts of analysis as well as on the study of
political action, debates, and discourses. She has published broadly in
renowned international publishing houses and leads several
international research projects.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
T. Haapala, Á . Oleart (eds.), Tracing the Politicisation of the EU, Palgrave Studies in
European Political Sociology
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82700-7_1

1. Introduction: Towards a Multi-

Faceted Approach to Politicisation in
the EU Context
Á lvaro Oleart1 and Taru Haapala2
(1) Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
(2) Universidad Autó noma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Álvaro Oleart (Corresponding author)

Email: a.oleart@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Taru Haapala
Email: taru.haapala@uam.es

Keywords Politicisation – European Union – Legitimacy – Democracy

In recent years, internal European Union (EU) debates on migration,

Brexit, the Eurozone, trade and the rule of law, among others, have
focused on the legitimacy of the EU and the dissatisfaction of European
citizens vis-à -vis the European project. After the Brexit referendum of
2016, the European Commission (EC) led by Jean-Claude Juncker
launched the Future of Europe debate with the White Paper on the
Future of Europe: Reflections and scenarios for the EU27 by 2025,
published on 1 March 2017. The Juncker Commission’s white paper
was a reaction to a perceived crisis of legitimacy, as the European
project was considered to be at stake. It envisioned a new phase for
European integration, which continued with the increased turnout of
the 2019 European elections, after which the European Commission
and the European Parliament (EP) put forward the idea of the
Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE). As a reaction to the
increasing EU politicisation, the CoFoE is meant to be ‘an inclusive
platform bringing together different voices’ and a way ‘to underpin the
democratic legitimacy and functioning of the European project’ by
giving citizens ‘further opportunities to express themselves’ (Council of
the European Union, 2020). Ultimately, the CoFoE was delayed due to
the COVID-19 pandemic but inaugurated on 9 May 2021. It is tasked
with drafting proposals for EU laws and treaty changes that contribute
to bridge the gap between EU institutions and European citizens.
Closely related to this political context, there is a growing amount of
literature on the increased politicisation which is connected to the
perceived growing controversies about the EU (Bouza García, 2017),
and by now, it has become a major theme of EU studies. In the majority
of scholarly analyses, however, politicisation seems to be viewed in a
rather negative light. It is often approached as ‘constraining’ European
integration, since national governments face Eurosceptic publics and
the pro-anti Europe divide leaves little room for advancing integration
(esp. Hooghe & Marks, 2009). To apply here the rhetorical strategy of
paradiastole (see e.g. Skinner, 2007), of turning a vice into a virtue, and
vice versa, for political purposes, it could be claimed that the increased
politicisation also lends itself to be discussed in terms of its benefits.
While there are many denunciations of politicisation in EU studies
scholarship, it is equally relevant to consider opposite views as well.
More specifically, we call for closer attention to the multi-facetedness of
the politicisation of the EU in the contemporary debate.
This book departs from the idea that political controversies are
embedded in the very framework of European integration.
Furthermore, contestation is not only a healthy dynamic for the EU but
necessary for its democratisation and can even lead towards an
‘empowering dissensus’ (Bouza & Oleart, 2018) for European
integration. Looking at politicisation from a broader conceptual and
historical perspective, it reveals itself as a much more multi-faceted
phenomenon than commonly suggested. Politicisation in the EU context
takes place in different ways, at different levels, and across different
policy areas, actors, channels, and countries (Statham & Trenz, 2015).
In the current EU studies scholarship, however, less attention has been
paid to the different degrees or forms of politicising and in different
contexts, even before the so-called post-Maastricht turn (Barth &
Bijsmans, 2018; Sternberg, 2013). If we look at politicisation as a form
of political activity (Wiesner et al., 2017), the dynamics of politics
becomes more tangible.
This book suggests to conceptualise the European controversies
and discontents through a reappraisal of politicisation as a key feature
of the European project. Against the background of previous
scholarship on politicisation (e.g. De Wilde et al., 2018; Hutter et al.,
2016), which often departs from a clear-cut definition of politicisation
which is then applied to ‘prove’ its existence and degree empirically, we
are aiming to encompass different approaches. Rather than striving for
a ‘solid foundation’ on which to conduct empirical research about it
(Wiesner, 2021) with any pre-set question, the goal here is to show a
plurality of interpretations and thus provide new ways to discuss and
understand the phenomenon of politicisation in the EU context. The
reason for choosing this approach is to mirror the state of affairs in
European politics. In the same way that ‘politicisation’ takes place in
different ways across European countries, we embrace similar
fragmentation and plurality in the approaches to study it. We do not
aim for a precise definition, but rather seek to show a multi-faceted
approach to politicisation. In our view, this fits with the pluralism and
complexity of the EU as a polity (cf. Eriksen, 1999).
We argue, following Wiesner (2021), that scholarly discussion about
politicisation has largely neglected the conceptual aspect of it. The way
in which EU politicisation is conceptualised depends on how European
politics is interpreted (Kauppi et al., 2016). For example, to interpret
politicisation as a negative dynamic is often the consequence of
conceptualising EU politicisation as contributing to the construction of
a cleavage between proponents and opponents of European
integration. If one looks rather at politicisation from the opposite angle,
controversies appear indispensable for revealing the opposing
arguments, as well as making them available for debate to wider
publics. This in turn might prove useful for European debates in the
long run, as it can expand the range of actors involved in the political
debates. The approach proposed here is to conceptualise politicisation
in terms of political activity through conflicts in the public sphere,
which might be described as negative or positive, depending on actors
and their contexts of acting.
The book aims to trace a variety of understanding EU politicisation
before and beyond the 2019 European elections. The core argument of
the book is that politicisation, in contrast to most of the current
scholarship about the EU, can also be beneficial for European
integration. Various actors, including political parties, trade unions,
civil society actors (Oleart & Bouza, 2018), individual politicians as well
as EU scholars, are politicising issues and bringing them to the fore
through, for example, the social media and movements. Thus,
politicisation can contribute to introducing European politics to wider
publics, further intertwining European and national politics, as well as
familiarising citizens with EU institutions. This dynamic is not
politically neutral. It is, in fact, embedded in the supranational politics
bringing new actors to the increasingly Europeanised political arena.
EU politicisation, therefore, benefits especially those actors able to
mobilise large amounts of people on EU issues, at the expense of highly
professionalised Brussels-based ‘stakeholders’, the traditional
constituency of EU policy-making. Regardless of the ways in which
politicisation takes place, it certainly produces awareness of EU affairs.
Even nationalists, such as Matteo Salvini, are contributing to the
Europeanisation of public spheres by introducing ‘Europe’ in the
national political debate, and by cooperating with far-right politicians
in other EU member states, and thus helping to connect debates
transnationally. To put it simply, inadvertently, even Eurosceptic
politicians are contributing to the Europeanisation of EU politics
through their political activities, situating the EU front and centre of
national politics.

1 EU Politicisation (Re)interpreted
In this book, we analyse politicisation in the European context in a
heterogenous way, bringing together different disciplinary approaches
from political sociology, political science, political theory as well as
media and communication studies. Our starting point is that
politicisation is a constitutive element of European integration
requiring deeper academic analysis (Kauppi et al., 2016). In current
scholarly debates, the post-Maastricht EU is the reference point of
politicisation (Barth & Bijsmans, 2018; Sternberg, 2013). In the post-
Maastricht context, EU member states have been increasingly expected
to transfer more sovereignty to supranational institutions. Since then, it
is argued, the transfer of competences from the national to the
European level has led to publicly voiced redefinitions of sovereignty in
Europe. Against the background of an intergovernmental reading of the
EU (Bellamy, 2013; Moravcsik, 2002), constructivist approaches have
suggested that we need to look at sovereignty in the EU beyond its legal
content as a primarily discursive product (Aalberts, 2005; Saurugger,
2013). From this perspective, sovereignty continues to be an essential
value of politics, but it becomes visible only through its usage by
political actors in the European public sphere(s). Connected to the
definition of multi-level governance, the constructivist understanding
focuses on the assumption that, in the EU, state power is distributed
unequally between policy-making levels. That is why it requires
constant re-negotiation (Saurugger, 2013). In the field of discursive
interactions between the multiple actors active in the EU debating
arenas, the concept of sovereignty is always visible in its ‘strategic uses’
(Woll & Jacquot, 2010), adapted to various contexts. This standpoint
implies that it is impossible to understand sovereignty without taking
into account the usage that actors make of the concept (see also
Aalberts, 2012). It is, therefore, necessary to deal with sovereignty in
action.
Similar to the constructivist view, the conceptual approach to
European politics applied in this book focuses on the interactions
between individual actors and the strategic uses of concepts in context,
emphasising the controversial character of European politics. It
highlights that the conflicts in European debates, for example, on the
concept of sovereignty refer to primarily conceptual disagreements.
Hence, a renewed perspective is needed, because concepts and the
meanings they carry, as well as their use in political struggles, can be
important indicators of the transformations and changes in EU politics
(Wiesner, 2019, p. 59). The underlying assumption here is that there
are always a variety of understandings, due to the different
interpretations of concepts that form the essence of political activity,
and thus it is necessary to be sensitive to the context in which the
interpreted politicisation is taking place. In this regard, the
politicisation of the EU requires the reflection on the relevant actors’
interpretations of what constitutes ‘politics’ in the European arena. The
act of politicising implies a break with the current state of affairs
(Kauppi et al., 2016, p. 73). In that sense, politicisation can be
considered as an effort to introduce a new dimension, a novel way of
acting politically. Palonen (2019) has emphasised that politicisation is
an aspect of politics which can be viewed as causing disorder vis-à -vis
the status quo but, at the same time, it can be conceived as creating new
opportunities for political activity. This interpretation is particularly
useful in understanding the perspective of newcomers in the European
political arena, which are ultimately enabled to influence power
relations.
The politicisation of the EU takes place in various forms and degrees
in the different EU member states as there is no unified European
public sphere (e.g. Bee, 2014; Koopmans & Statham, 2010). The lack of
a common European language or mass media means that political
interaction comes largely by way of national political actors speaking to
their national publics in national languages, as reported by national
media and digested by national audiences. Nevertheless, the resulting
fragmentation of discourse may be somewhat attenuated by the
developing European ‘community of communities’ (Risse, 2010).
Despite this fragmentation, more citizens and politicians, especially
since the 2019 European elections, discuss similar EU-related topics
and are preoccupied with how the EU works. It coincides with, and is
perhaps driven by, a greater and deeper politicisation of EU affairs.
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic this tendency became
ever more accentuated.
In combination with the lack of a common European public sphere,
the very notion of a public sphere ought to be questioned in light of the
politicisation of the EU. In Nancy Fraser’s (1990) famous critique of the
Habermasian bourgeois public sphere, she argues that there is a need
for rethinking public spheres in terms of inclusiveness and parity.
Fraser’s main point of contention against the bourgeois public sphere
laid out by Habermas is that it separates state and civil society as two
distinct areas of action while it does not address democratic dilemmas.
According to her, there are ‘weak publics’ entailing deliberation
consisting ‘exclusively in opinion-formation’ without any decision-
making purpose. These, it is argued, do not provide enough tools for
promoting democracy and social equality. While considering the idea of
multiple publics in Europe, Eriksen, inspired by Fraser’s ideas, has
elaborated on how democratic legitimacy in the case of the European
Union includes both formal and informal institutions (Eriksen, 1999).
In that sense, what Fraser would call ‘weak’ publics, can be seen as
contributing to democracy in Europe. In contrast, the strong publics
combine both public debate and decision-making, i.e. sovereign
parliaments.
In the hybrid form of publics, that includes both weak and strong
publics, it is possible to think democratic possibilities anew (Fraser,
1990, p. 77). As the theory of the public sphere is based on Westphalian
framework where nation states with territorial boundaries remain the
key players, the introduction of a transnational polity, such as the EU,
breaks its previously underlying connections with political citizenship
(Fraser, 2007, p. 21). Fraser suggests that, in this case, inclusiveness
and parity need not be tied with citizenship at all, as all those who are
affected can participate as peers. In this sense, EU politicisation might
contribute to making the segmented European public spheres more
inclusive, bringing new actors to European politics. This might have a
positive influence on European democracy, yet there are important
challenges that come with it, which leads us to conceive politicisation
as both a potential virtue as well as a vice.
Complementing Fraser’s ideas about a more inclusive view of the
public sphere, the centrality of politicisation in this book encourages us
to also discuss the relation between conflict, democracy and the public
sphere. Public sphere theoreticians have often placed emphasis on
rational deliberation and consensus, as they have implied the need for
participants in the public sphere ‘to arrive at a rationally motivated
consensus’ (Cohen, 1997, pp. 74–75). In contrast to this view, authors
such as Duchesne and Haegel (2004) and Mouffe (2000, 2013) have
argued that conflict is inherent to politics, and therefore there is no
politics without conflict. In this line, previous research has conceptually
distinguished different types of politicisation that can take place over
EU issues: agonism and antagonism (Oleart, 2021). The distinction
between agonistic and antagonistic conflict in the EU is made on the
basis of what is being challenged, what is at stake. Agonistic
politicisation of the EU takes place, it is argued, if conflict is constructed
on the basis of an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ that are recognised as part of the
same political community, but with fundamentally different political
projects (e.g. social democracy vs neoliberalism). Instead, antagonistic
politicisation takes place when conflict is framed in such a way that the
‘us’ and ‘them’ are not legitimate actors in the same political
community. This would take place, for example, when the EU is
discursively constructed as being in opposition to nation states (e.g. the
national sovereignty of France vs the EU). Instead, agonistic conflict
emerges out of a politicisation that is framed between different political
projects but accepts the ‘other’ as a legitimate rival, rather than an
enemy (cf. antagonism).
The contention of the book is that the politicisation is not
‘constraining’ European integration, but rather empowering it by
bringing in new actors into European politics, thereby enlarging the
political arena beyond the national level, connecting transnational
struggles and potentially contributing to the democratisation of the EU.
This book takes a fresh look at conceptual struggles over the meanings
and understandings of politicisation of the EU. It is understood as an
underlying feature, and since the ‘permissive consensus’ era of
European integration seems to be fading away, it has been re-emerging
with the increasing intertwining between national and European
politics.
The claim of post-Maastricht EU politicisation also suggests that the
pre-Maastricht era of neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism as
well as elitist behind-closed-doors politics of the ‘permissive
consensus’ were the defining features of European integration. They
could also be viewed as the successful efforts by powerful political
actors to depoliticise European integration. Through reducing
European integration to mere technocracy and intergovernmental
diplomacy, depoliticising the supranational elements were also one of
the main problems regarding the legitimacy of the EU. Instead, the
politicisation of EU issues in national contexts across its member states
establishes the EU as a legitimate polity by contributing to the
emergence of a European public sphere (De Wilde & Lord, 2016).
Previous research has emphasised the absence of ‘politics’ when
discussing EU ‘policies’, conceptualised by Vivien Schmidt (2006) as the
EU’s ‘policy without politics’. The mismatch between ‘policy’ and
‘politics’ lies at the centre of this volume, as the depoliticisation of
European politics has encouraged an EU policy-making process in
which ‘major political decisions are made in executive networks
relatively detached from democratic control’ (Kauppi, 2018, p. 20).
From this perspective, the politicisation of the EU could be understood
as contributing to matching ‘policy with politics’. Rather than a
traditional institutionalist approach, this book views the ‘democratic
deficit’ of the EU as being primarily based on the lack of both
Europeanisation and recognition of the underlying politicisation of the
European project. For this reason, the politicisation of EU affairs is
understood as a democratising force that empowers further European
integration. As argued by Trenz and Eder, ‘criticising the democratic
deficit means initiating the process of democratising the EU’ (Trenz &
Eder, 2004, p. 7). Conflict over EU affairs can just as well revitalise
democracy and debates over the ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU.

2 Tracing EU Politicisation: The Narrative and

Design of the Book
The aim of (re)interpreting EU politicisation is an essential aspect vis-
à -vis the Future of Europe debate, that was launched institutionally,
coinciding with the 2019 EU elections and the Conference on the Future
of Europe that was due to start in 2020, and that ultimately began in
May 2021. The way in which the Future of Europe debate takes place
will shape the future of European integration. The aim of this book is to
provide conceptual and historical insights to inform and contribute to
the debates. The book also has a normative component that is
important to highlight. When questioning much of the EU politicisation
literature, which tends to argue that politicisation ‘constrains’
integration by the structural opposition between supporters and
opponents of integration, we acknowledge that our argument that
politicisation empowers European integration is a normative claim. Far
from being a ‘descriptive’ and only ‘empirical’ approach, the book aims
to re-conceptualise the understanding of EU politicisation by shifting
the attention away from the traditional consensus-oriented
understanding of European integration. The book can therefore be seen
as an innovative and politically aware attempt to conceive politicisation
in a multi-faceted and heterogenous way.
Previous research on politicisation in the EU has in itself been
largely depoliticised. Burnham (2001, p. 128) portrayed
depoliticisation as a process by which political decisions are presented
as if they are unquestionable, removing ‘the political character of
decision-making’. Buller and Flinders (2005) further developed the
concept, understanding depoliticisation as arena shifting, a mechanism
by which political responsibility is moved away from ‘politics’, as a
process by which a political decision is presented as unchallengeable,
technical and/or apolitical. Applied to academic research, this
‘depoliticisation of politicisation’ type of approach would refer to
present such research as if there is no alternative to its ‘objective’
reflection. Against this background, in this book we take a conceptually
engaged position on EU politicisation, not only assuming a diversity of
approaches but also accepting that there is an important normative
aspect to it. We are not merely describing an empirical phenomenon.
We are instead suggesting new conceptual ways to understand EU
politics and how politicisation might contribute to matching ‘policy
with politics’.
Despite the above mentioned national fragmentation of the national
public spheres, increasingly more citizens, journalists and politicians
discuss about similar EU-related topics and are preoccupied with how
the EU works, a process that is partially fuelled by the politicisation of
EU affairs. Notable examples are the Brexit debate, which largely
introduced the EU as a central pillar in the national political debate of
the United Kingdom; the emergence of Emmanuel Macron in France,
which also situated the European project at the centre of the political
debate; or EU trade policy, which has been widely politicised across
Europe through trade agreements such as TTIP (Conrad & Oleart,
2020). Episodes of politicisation have also appeared more recently in
response to COVID-19, as the European Commission was in charge of
negotiating the vaccines with pharmaceutical companies, and several
actors, both at the national and European level, criticised Commission
President Ursula Von der Leyen for its management.
 In this book, we explore the politicisation of the EU by means of
case studies and trace the debates around ‘politicisation’ back to
constituting an essential feature of European integration. We ask: What
were the terms of the debate before and after the European elections in
2019? And, what were the concepts and meanings created for EU
politicisation through various debates? The book is not structured
along the traditional division of theoretical and empirical chapters.
Instead, it is presented in three thematic clusters of chapters based on
how closely they speak to each other in addressing the politicisation of
the EU from different perspectives. In the first thematic cluster, the
contributions address the question of how to conceptually analyse the
EU as a political system and the role that politicisation plays in it. The
second thematic cluster scrutinises the role of social media in the
politicisation of the EU, as well as the European Commission’s
responses to the perceived increase in EU contestation. The third
thematic cluster traces different narratives of EU politicisation,
covering institutional as well as individual responses, including the use
of related concepts, such as ‘sovereignty’, in European politics.
The first part of the book departs from Claudia Wiesner’s chapter,
in which she problematises the politicisation of the EU, proposing a
redefinition of politicisation as a multi-level and multi-stage concept.
The chapter sketches a new analytical framework for empirical
analyses of EU politicisation, providing examples of how it is not only a
top-down process, but also bottom-up, as the politicisation regarding
climate change illustrates. Therefore, it provides new analytical glasses
to look at phenomena related to the increasing politicisation of Europe
during the past decade, which in turn helps to make sense of the Future
of Europe debate.
In the next chapter, Elena García-Guitián addresses the academic
discussion surrounding the ‘permissive consensus’ and the democratic
deficit of the EU, and the role of politicisation given in it. The chapter
argues that the academic literature on European integration has
developed a narrative on the progressive politicisation of the EU
involving an assessment about the democratic quality derived from
assumed public support and citizen involvement. However, the
standard description of the permissive consensus requires rethinking
and a more complex theoretical approach, focusing on the multi-level
system of representation, for a more nuanced assessment of EU
politicisation.
Kari Palonen offers an alternative outline of how to approach
politicisation. The starting point is that politicisation can be viewed as a
speech act, or rhetorical move, that introduces reinterpretations of
political activity. The chapter provides historical examples of how
parliamentarians in Europe have talked about politicisation and thus
provides a broader parliamentary perspective to current populist
parties’ exertions of politicisation of the EU. Palonen’s chapter provides
an analytical frame to better understand the politicisation of Europe, an
important conceptual contribution to improve our analysis of the
Future of Europe debate.
Finally for the first thematic cluster, Niilo Kauppi’s chapter traces
the relevance of European elections in the evolution and success of the
French extreme right party Front/Rassemblement national, arguing that
EP elections have been, since the beginning of direct elections in 1979,
first order elections. The argument is that the increasing popularity and
politics of Rassemblement national led by Marine Le Pen are inherently
connected with European elections and the institutional structure of
European elections. In this way, the party has greatly benefited from its
political footing in ‘Europe’. While being an example of the politicisation
of European integration, the case of Front national also shows that
politicisation can present itself in unexpected, contingent ways. In this
way, the politicisation of Europe can be considered a national resource
used by national political actors to improve their positioning. The
chapter highlights the inherent intertwining between national and
European politics, which is central for the Future of Europe debate.
The second thematic cluster of the book introduces the role of social
media in the politicisation of the EU. In her chapter, Taru Haapala
examines the political procedures of European public debate with a
focus on the dynamics between parliamentary rhetoric and
Twittersphere. The chapter approaches politicisation in terms of
procedures of debating and asks how the Twittersphere might support
the legitimacy of parliamentary rhetoric in the European context. In the
context of the emerging literature about the role of social media in
democracy, the chapter makes a hybrid conceptualisation of the public
sphere in which both parliamentary procedures and social media are
part of, even though they operate with different logics. The chapter
contributes to better understanding of the role of Twitter in relation to
parliamentary procedures in advancing the Future of Europe debate.
The chapter by Stergios Fotopoulos and Luciano Morganti
focuses on the European Commission’s presidency candidate
(Spitzenkandidaten) competitions in 2014 and 2019 European elections
on Twitter. They seek to identify the Spitzenkandidaten process’
visibility on Twitter across member states and present the main topics
discussed, under which aspects, as well as through which lingua franca.
They approach politicisation as a political innovation arguing that,
while not producing a lot of results, it was nonetheless a demonstration
of new dynamism in the European public sphere. The chapter
concludes that Twitter can increase the politicisation of the EU and
facilitate transnational, adhoc, and online spheres diminishing the
constraints of national borders and mass-mediated communication.
The next chapter by Luis Bouza García and Jorge Tuñón Navarro
analyses one aspect of the debate on the future of Europe, namely, the
link between national leaders’ debates in the European Parliament and
the European elections in order to analyse commonalities and
differences in forms of politicisation, circulation of frames and
personalisation. The chapter asks whether the involvement of national
leaders in the multi-stream debate on the future of Europe contributed
to increasing the personalisation and political framing of the
Twittersphere debates during the EU election campaign of 2019,
tracing the resonance of European debates in the European
‘Twittersphere’. As political debates are increasingly taking place
beyond institutional settings and traditional media, the chapter builds a
rich conceptual framework connecting the speeches of national leaders
in the European parliament and the discussion on Europe on Twitter.
The empirical analysis illustrates the different visions of Europe
discussed both at the institutional European level and on Twitter, which
form of politicisation is taking place and which contentious and protest
frames are being mobilised.
The third thematic cluster addresses the different narratives that
articulate EU politicisation. In their chapter, Ana Andguladze, Jan
Beyer, Ramona Coman and Julie Vander Meulen examine
politicisation in terms of polarisation and salience as being determined
by the political opportunity structures, including national narratives,
media receptiveness, competitive party politics, referenda, and crisis.
The chapter traces patterns of politicisation in the media coverage of
the EU prior to the 2019 European elections. Scrutinising the coverage
of EU issues in 16 newspapers of seven Eastern and Western EU
Member States, they show the salience of EU-related topics and the way
in which they are framed, with a particular attention to polarisation
and lines of conflict which shape the integration process. They discuss
the different lines of conflict and politicisation of Europe present in the
media, and whether it enhances or hinders further European
integration. The chapter is conceived as an empirical test to
theoretically bridge the concept of politicisation to the EU’s theories of
integration and types of conflict over European integration:
intergovernmental conflict, national vs. supranational, government vs.
opposition, supporters of democracy vs. threats to democracy,
supporters of immigration vs. anti-immigration and integration vs.
disintegration. As such, it is a meaningful contribution ahead of the
Future of Europe debate, which is likely to attract media scrutiny.
In the following chapter the controversies over interpretations of
sovereignty in the context of the Future of Europe debates is taken up
by Miruna Butnaru-Troncotă and Dragoș Ioniță. They propose that a
group of ‘discursive entrepreneurs’ (EU and member state officials both
at the EU and the national level) instrumentalised the concept of
‘sovereignty’ for promoting their own vision on the EU. They propose
the perspective of ‘supranational politicisation’ to analyse transnational
cleavages in discursive performances. In their view, the Future of
Europe debate is a form of supranational politicisation, creating a
platform for various actors to express their views on Europe in the
public sphere.
In the following chapter, María-Isabel Soldevila and Julie Vander
Meulen analyse the European Commission’s responses to the perceived
increase in EU contestation. The chapter explores the rhetorical
techniques as the ‘hearts and minds’ approach by the Commission, and
analyses which arguments or images the Commission uses to augment
and/or maintain its authority over EU debates in the midst of
controversies. The analysis focuses on the Juncker Commission’s
Communication Strategy as well as the seven short films of the 2019 EU
and Me Campaign. Given the prevailing argument of the increasing
politicisation of the EU, the chapter provides an insightful analysis as to
how the Commission reacts to the revitalisation of public debate
surrounding Europe, a perspective that is particularly relevant ahead of
the Future of Europe debate, in which the Commission plays a central
role.
In the last chapter of the third cluster, Luis Bouza García and
Álvaro Oleart take up the French President Emmanuel Macron’s vision
of the future of Europe. They discuss the initiatives presented in
Macron’s speeches between 2016 and 2019. The main argument put
forward is that Macron has managed to lay out a new discursive
framework favourable to him and his allies while portraying those who
disagree as ‘anti-European’, a narrative that is conceived as ‘Make
Europe Great Again’. Macron’s narrative obscures alternative pro-
European narratives by situating them as outside his European
narrative, considered to be the pro-European blueprint. This is
problematic from a democratic pluralism perspective, since Macron’s
narrative delegitimises other options that suggest an alternative pro-
European narrative, in what could be conceived as antagonistic
politicisation. From this perspective, Le Pen and Macron are two sides
of the same coin: both push a pro vs anti-EU politicisation.
Lastly, in the epilogue of the edited volume, Taru Haapala, Álvaro
Oleart, and Jan Beyer reflect on the previous chapters, bridging the
different ways of approaching, analysing, and interpreting politicisation
and looking beyond to discuss about the Future of Europe debates.
They mobilise the findings of the book to synthesise its contribution to
the Future of Europe debates in light of post-COVID-19 Europe and
politicisation of the EU literature. Thus, the chapter aims at linking the
discourse on visions for Europe to the scholarship on the ‘crisis of
democracy’ and politicisation. The epilogue also draws lessons for the
future of EU politicisation, putting forward a research agenda that
opens avenues for interesting unanswered questions of how the EU
gets politicised and what are its empirical and normative implications.

References
Aalberts, T. E. (2005). Future of sovereignty in multilevel governance Europe—A
constructivist reading. Journal of Common Market Studies, 42(1), 23–46.
[Crossref]

Aalberts, T. E. (2012). Constructing sovereignty between politics and law. Routledge.

Barth, C., & Bijsmans, P. (2018). The Maastricht Treaty and public debates about
European integration: The emergence of a European public sphere? Journal of
Contemporary European Studies, 26(2), 215–231.
[Crossref]

Bee, C. (2014). Transnationalisation, public communication and active citizenship.

The emergence of a fragmented and fluid European public sphere. Sociology Compass,
8(8), 1018–1032.

Bellamy, R. (2013). ‘An ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’: Republican
Intergovernmentalism and Demoicratic Representation within the EU. Journal of
European Integration, 35(5), 499–516.
[Crossref]

Bouza, L., & Oleart, A. (2018). From the 2005 constitution’s ‘permissive consensus’ to
TTIP’s ‘empowering dissensus’: The EU as a playing field for Spanish civil society.
Journal of Contemporary European Research, 14(2), 87–104.
[Crossref]

Bouza García, L. (2017). The ‘new narrative project’ and the politicisation of the EU.
Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 25(3), 340–353.

Buller, J., & Flinders, M. (2005). The domestic origins of depoliticisation in the area of
British economic policy. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations,
7(4), 526–543.
[Crossref]

Burnham, P. (2001). New labour and the politics of depoliticisation. The British
Journal of Politics & International Relations, 3(2), 127–149.
[Crossref]

Cohen, J. (1997). Deliberation and democratic legitimacy. In J. Bohman & W. Rehg

(Eds.), Deliberative democracy: Essays on reason and politics (pp. 67–91). MIT Press.

Conrad, M., & Oleart, A. (2020). Framing TTIP in the wake of the greenpeace leaks:
Agonistic and deliberative perspectives on frame resonance and communicative
power. Journal of European Integration, 42(4), 527–545.
[Crossref]
Council of the European Union. (2020, June 24). Conference on the future of Europe:
Council position. 24 June 2020. Retrieved March 15, 2021, from https://​www.​
consilium.​europa.​eu/​media/​44679/​st09102-en20.​pdf.

De Wilde, P., Leupold, A., & Schmidtke, H. (Eds.). (2018). The differentiated
politicization of European governance. Routledge.

De Wilde, P., & Lord, C. (2016). Assessing actually-existing trajectories of EU

politicisation. West European Politics, 39(1), 145–163.
[Crossref]

Duchesne, S., & Haegel, F. (2004). La politisation des discussions, au croisement des
logiques de spécialisation et de conflictualisation. Revue Française De Science
Politique, 54(6), 877–909.
[Crossref]

Eriksen, E. O. (1999). The question of deliberative supranationalism in the EU (ARENA

Working Papers WP 99/4). Retrieved June 15, 2020, from http://​www.​arena.​uio.​no/​
publications/​wp99_​4.​htm.

Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of

actually existing democracy. Social Text, 25(26), 56–80.
[Crossref]

Fraser, N. (2007). Special section: Transnational public sphere: Transnationalizing the

public sphere: On the legitimacy and efficacy of public opinion in a post-Westphalian
world. Theory, Culture & Society, 24(4), 7–30.
[Crossref]

Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2009). A postfunctionalist theory of European integration:

From permissive consensus to constraining dissensus. British Journal of Political
Science, 39(1), 1–23.
[Crossref]

Hutter, S., Grande, E., & Kriesi, H. (Eds.). (2016). Politicising Europe. Cambridge
University Press.

Kauppi, N. (2018). Toward a reflexive political sociology of the European Union: Fields,
intellectuals and politicians. Palgrave Macmillan.

Kauppi, N., Palonen, K., & Wiesner, C. (2016). The Politification and politicisation of
the EU. Redescriptions, 19(1), 72–90.
Koopmans, R., & Statham, P. (Eds.). (2010). The making of a European public sphere:
Media discourse and political contention. Cambridge University Press.

Moravcsik, A. (2002). In defence of the ‘democratic deficit’: Reassessing legitimacy in

the European Union. Journal of Common Market Studies, 40(4), 603–624.
[Crossref]

Mouffe, C. (2000). The democratic paradox. Verso.

Mouffe, C. (2013). Agonistics: Thinking the world politically. Verso.

Oleart, A. (2021). Framing TTIP in the European public spheres: Towards an

empowering dissensus for EU integration. Palgrave Macmillan.

Oleart, A., & Bouza, L. (2018). Democracy at stake: Multipositional actors and
politicization in the EU civil society field. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies,
56(4), 870–887.

Palonen, K. (2019). Politicisation: Disorder or chance? From literary to

parliamentary debates. Contemporary Political Theory, 18(2), 248–281.
[Crossref]

Risse, T. (2010). A community of Europeans? Transnational identities and public

spheres? Cornell University Press.

Saurugger, S. (2013). Is there a sovereignty problem in the EU? Sciencespo Grenoble

Centre de Documentation. Retrieved June 3, 2021, from https://​tel.​archives-ouvertes.​
fr/​SCPO-GRENOBLE/​halshs-00911482v1.

Schmidt, V. A. (2006). Democracy in Europe: The EU and national polities. Oxford

University Press.

Skinner, Q. (2007). Paradiastole: Redescribing the vices as virtues. In S. Adamson, G.

Alexander, & K. Ettenhuber (Eds.), Renaissance figures of speech (pp. 149–164).
Cambridge University Press.

Statham, P., & Trenz, H.-J. (2015). Understanding the mechanisms of EU politicization:
Lessons from the Eurozone crisis. Comparative European Politics, 13(3), 287–306.
[Crossref]

Sternberg, C. (2013). The struggle for EU legitimacy: Public contestation, 1950–2005.

Palgrave Macmillan.
Trenz, H.-J., & Eder, K. (2004). The democratizing dynamics of a European public
sphere: Towards a theory of democratic functionalism. European Journal of Social
Theory, 7(1), 5–25.
[Crossref]

Wiesner, C. (2019). Inventing the EU as a democratic polity: Concepts, actors and

controversies. Palgrave Macmillan.

Wiesner, C. (Ed.). (2021). Rethinking politicisation in politics, sociology and

international relations. Palgrave Macmillan.

Wiesner, C., Haapala, T., & Palonen, K. (2017). Debates, rhetoric and political action.
Practices of textual interpretation and analysis. Rhetoric, politics and society. Palgrave
Macmillan.

Woll, C., & Jacquot, S. (2010). Using Europe: Strategic action in multi-level politics.
Comparative European Politics, 8(1), 110–126.
[Crossref]
Part I
Politicisation of the EU as a Polity
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
T. Haapala, Á . Oleart (eds.), Tracing the Politicisation of the EU, Palgrave Studies in
European Political Sociology
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82700-7_2

2. Between Optimism and Pessimism:

Rethinking EU Politicisation in Theory,
Conceptualisation, and Research
Claudia Wiesner1
(1) Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Fulda, Germany

Claudia Wiesner
Email: claudia.wiesner@sk.hs-fulda.de

Keywords Politicisation – European Union – Parties – Party politics –

Permissive consensus – Constraining dissensus – Neofunctionalism –
Referendum – EP elections

1 Introduction
The concept of politicisation is increasingly used and discussed in
current theoretical and empirical research on democracy, more
generally, and on the European Union (EU), more particularly—be it in
critical ways or in more positive tones (see the contributions in
Wiesner, 2019c, 2021d). The first crucial question in this respect is
what politicisation is about in the EU context (Kauppi & Wiesner, 2018)
—is it EU politics? European politics? Europe (Hutter et al., 2016;
Statham & Trenz, 2013)? European integration (De Wilde, 2011; De
Wilde & Zü rn, 2012; Hoeglinger, 2016)? European governance (De
Wilde et al., 2015), or maybe European issues? The choice of words is
meaningful here, as the concepts refer to different phenomena or
entities. Second, and equally decisive, is to ask what exactly is meant
and understood as politicisation in the EU context? How is
politicisation theorised, conceptualised and operationalised? What are
the opportunities and what are the limitations that are linked to the
different respective definitions and understandings of politicisation?
The aim of this chapter is to rethink the theoretical background and
the operationalisation of EU politicisation. The first goal is to outline
and sum up crucial questions and key points that are related to the
understanding and usage of politicisation as a theoretical and empirical
concept in the debate on the EU. Second, I will further develop these
theoretical and conceptual reflections by discussing the EU referendum
debate in France in 2005 and the European Parliament (EP) elections in
2019. On this basis, I will conclude with some suggestions on how EU
politicisation can be further theorised and operationalised.
The paper has the following structure. First, it will sketch two
different concepts of politicisation and the underlying conceptions of
politics (by Schattschneider and Palonen), and introduce politicisation
as a multi-level concept. Second, the state of the art in the academic
debate on EU politicisation and the theoretical premises underlying this
debate will be resumed. The third part will focus on politicisation and
the role of political parties, and the fourth part will further develop the
argument by discussing the EU referendum debate in France in 2005
and the EP elections in 2019. In the fifth and final part, I will argue in
favour of including the analysis of bottom-up politicisation into EU
politicisation research, getting towards a multi-stage and multi-level
concept of politicisation.

2 Theorising and Conceptualising Politicisation

What is it that happens when politicisation takes place? There are
various understandings and theories behind different current
conceptualisations of politicisation (see the contributions in Wiesner,
2019c, 2021d) that cannot be fully elaborated here. I will focus on two
key steps of conceptualising politicisation. First, it is decisive to
mention that the respective conceptualisation of politicisation crucially
depends on the concept of politics that grounds it (see Wiesner, 2020,
2021c). One understanding that is behind most of the current empirical
models of measuring politicisation of the EU or EU affairs has been
coined by Elmer Schattschneider in his discussion of the sub-
dimensions of the concept of politics (Schattschneider, 1957). He uses a
conflict-oriented understanding of politics, arguing that politics is
based on ‘millions of conflicts’, and further argues that ‘strategy is the
heart of politics’ (Ibid., 1957, pp. 933, 935). On this basis, he introduces
four dimensions that characterise political conflicts: intensity, visibility,
direction and scope. These dimensions are applied in order to
understand and analyse when and how conflicts enter the political
system in an Eastonian understanding with a focus on institutions that
was developed in the same era (Easton, 1953).
In some cases, it is explicitly mentioned (Hutter et al., 2016) but
sometimes it happens more implicitly. These are also dimensions and
criteria that are used in a number of empirical accounts on
politicisation and its relation to the EU and/or European integration
that focus on the salience of EU issues, an increase of actor involvement,
and an increase in party-political polarisation (e.g. Hoeglinger, 2015;
Statham & Trenz, 2013, see the discussion in Kauppi, 2018). An
assumption that is implicitly made in many accounts on EU
politicisation is the one that is used by Schattschneider as well. It is that
an issue only becomes politicised when it makes it into the political
system in an Eastonian sense, when it is remarkable there, and when it
creates an effect. This also means that in EU politicisation research the
predominant understanding regards politics as a system, and hence a
sphere or area into which subjects and issues can be pushed or taken
out of. In other words, a spatial concept of politics has been the
paradigm. In such an understanding politicisation means to push
something into the system, space, or arena of politics (see e.g. Zü rn,
2015; for further discussion, see Kauppi et al., 2016).
The path for conceptualising politicisation that I propose instead of
such a system or spatial approach is based on the work of Finnish
political scientist Kari Palonen (see in detail Wiesner, 2019b, 2020,
2021b, as well as the discussion in Wiesner et al., 2017). It departs from
the idea that politics is activity (rather than a space or arena) and is
based on Palonen’s disctinction of four sub-dimensions of politics:
policy, polity, politicisation and politicking (Palonen, 2003, p. 171). In
this conceptual classification, policy refers to the regulating aspect of
politics, politicking means the activity of doing politics, and
politicisation is understood as the act of marking an issue as political
within a polity. A core example of such an understanding is the famous
dictum of the modern women’s movement, the claim that ‘the personal
is political’. This act of marking what formerly was ‘personal’, or
‘private’, as ‘political’ in reality aimed at a major questioning of social
structures such as marriage and family, and also a potential shift in
power relations by questioning institutions that were not to be
questioned beforehand because they had been considered as ‘private’,
and hence as non-debatable, by a dominant social discourse. But a
decisive question that follows from understanding politicisation as the
act of marking an issue as political within a polity is how to study the
early stages of politicisation: when is a politicisation process
sufficiently far advanced to allow for empirical analysis?1
In order to rethink politicisation as a concept, it is furthermore
useful to recapitulate and underline that it is a multi-level concept. As
Matthew Wood put it, ‘a “multilevel concept” is one that can be applied
in multiple contexts, and can have both a deep critical theoretical and
even philosophical meaning, but also refers quite legitimately to
concrete acts that can be usefully measured in empirical research’
(Wood, 2015, p. 527). It follows that such a concept can be employed at
‘a theoretical level, a “mid-range” conceptual level and a “micro”
empirical level’ (Ibid., p. 522).
To use politicisation as a multi-level concept means to clarify the
theoretical and analytical levels that are studied or discussed
(macro/meso/micro). Moreover, it is important to distinguish in the
research process (a) philosophical and/or normative claims and
judgements (macro) from (b) the operationalisation of the concept
(meso), and (c) the analysis or measurement of concretely
operationalised items and research dimensions (micro). Wood (2015)
gives some hints on what this concretely means, even if he focuses on
the concept of depoliticisation rather than politicisation. Accordingly,
his examples all revolve around neoliberal, or strongly market-liberal
reforms of the welfare state and state institutions. His discussion,
however, gives some useful hints on conceptualising multi-level
concepts in general and the concept of politicisation in particular. At the
theoretical and normative level, the question would be for the
researcher to theorise neoliberalism and its relation to the public
sphere. On the meso level, the question would be to ask how different
processes and practices influence political institutions and behaviour.
At the micro level, finally, the question then is to examine concrete
shifts, for instance in bureaucracies and policies (Wood, 2015, p. 528).

3 Politicisation and European Integration

As discussed above, quite a broad set of literature on the politicisation
of Europe/European integration has been written in recent years.
Regarding the object of politicisation, it is soon obvious that most
accounts do not refer to Europe (as a continent) or the EU (as a polity),
but to the process of European integration and the effects politicisation
has on it. Accordingly, many of these accounts explicitly recur on
European integration theory (e.g. Hooghe & Marks, 2009). A closer look
at the underlying source texts in EU integration theory again indicates
different conceptualisations and models of politics and, in consequence,
EU politicisation.

3.1 The Classics

Three classical neofunctionalist texts on the politicisation of integration
by Schmitter (1969), Haas (1968) and Lindberg and Scheingold (1970)
raise the crucial concepts for the debate, namely ‘spillover’, ‘integration’,
‘politicisation’,and ‘permissive consensus’. The texts, furthermore, hint
at slightly different understandings of the politicisation of European
integration and its effects, and in particular they indicate different
pathways for politicisation.
The accounts by both Lindberg and Scheingold (1970) and Haas
(1968) depict the process of European integration as driven by political
elites. They carry out the EU integration process, and citizens agree to it
in what has famously been termed ‘permissive consensus’ by Lindberg
and Scheingold (1970, p. 41). The permissive consensus is largely
nourished by citizens’ ignorance and disinterest of the integration
process, coupled with silent acceptance. If citizens start to get
interested in integration and/or support declines, this is not to say (and
this is important to underline) that this will cause problems for
integration. As Lindberg and Scheingold explictly state: ‘Consequently,
significant opposition and persistent social cleavage does not mean that
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“I freed Hano, chief. I had a good reason for it. You must trust me,”
replied Sid, as stoutly as he could in the face of that towering
passion.
“Yes?” said Honanta, craftily, controlling himself. “Why?” He was
speaking in Apache now, and so was Sid, the subterfuge that he did
not understand it being abandoned by both.
“You shall learn, soon, chief. I am acting for the good of us all,” said
Sid earnestly.
Honanta studied him awhile in silence. “My son, because your name
is Col-vin I have persuaded my old men to spare your life. My heart
tells me that you may be the son of that officer who spared my
mother and me—whose name also was Colvin. In freeing Hano I
believe that you meant well. But it is dark to me why my son, Hano,
consented to run away! His honor required him to await the judgment
of my old men, even if not a thong bound him.”
“He, too, did it for the sake of the tribe, Honanta,” declared Sid with
profound conviction.
Honanta knitted his brows, puzzled. “My son,” said he gently, “is not
the truth best? No—you do not lie!” he added hastily as a frown
gathered in Sid’s face, “but you know more than we do. I must tell
what you do know to my old men, for they are very wise and their
decision is final. You have told me nothing that gray hairs can listen
to, so far,” he concluded persuasively.
Sid reflected. Would it not be better to tell the whole truth now and
trust in Honanta’s judgment? He decided to tell part of it anyhow, for
Big John and Scotty might be led here by Ruler to-morrow, he felt,
and he might as well explain them now.
“I sent Hano to bring my friends here,” he replied. “They have a
tracking dog—a hound—and could trace me here in any event, so I
wanted to avoid a fight. The dog would lead them to Red Mesa,
chief.”
“And so you sent Hano!” laughed Honanta. “My son Hano would kill
that dog, kill those friends of yours, too, sooner than permit them to
reach our home! Did you not think of that?”
Sid attempted to show his surprise at this Indian point of view on his
action, but the idea was not new to him and the chief saw it.
“Come! There is more back of it, yet, my son!” prompted Honanta.
“The truth—and I will do what I can for you with the elders.”
“There’s a party of Mexicans coming along the border,” replied Sid
desperately. “They will find our tracks and trace us all to this place. I
felt that we needed my friends to help you defend it, Honanta. That’s
the whole truth.”
“Ha!—No! There is more!” exclaimed Honanta, his choler rising.
“Why are the Mexicanos coming? And why is your party down here?
Do you think I do not know why? Somehow, the tale of our mine has
gotten out! Don’t I know what white men will do to possess
themselves of a mine? What won’t they do!” he exclaimed bitterly.
“You are all our enemies!”
“Not I!” retorted Sid, stoutly. “I am an ethnologist—no miner! The
study of your people is my lifework, chief. Sympathy for them has
become my ruling passion. Since I came here, my one idea has
been to preserve this place forever as your home. I’ll seal my friend’s
lips forever about this mine——”
Sid stopped hastily, for he had made a slip that he had not intended.
It did not escape Honanta, however.
“No! we shall do that!” he said grimly. “My son, you are an enemy to
us. You cannot help yourself. But, because of him who saved my
mother and you who represent him, I have vowed to give a Sun
Dance to-morrow. You must be present at it, for you are the physical
evidence of my deliverer. According to our laws of hospitality you
have one sun of immunity among us. But to-morrow, when his
shadow reaches there,” the Chief pointed to a great crack on the
inside of the west wall—“you must go forth—if you can.... As for your
friends, we shall take care of them if Hano does not!”
He turned and motioned to two of his braves. “Bind him!” he
commanded. “Medicine lodge!”
They stepped forward and seized Sid. In a very few minutes he
found himself seated, firmly bound to the very post from which he
had freed Hano but recently. The food Nahla had brought for Hano
was fed him; then the door was shut and he was left in the darkness
of the lodge.
Sid reflected over it all as he sat, awaiting the long vigil until morning.
Escape was impossible. Not only was he bound cunningly to the
post so that any movement of even his hands was impossible, but
two Apache guards squatted near him, silent as specters but
watching him fixedly.
“Go forth—if you can!” had been Honanta’s last words. In them Sid
found his sole hope. Honanta was still his friend, but the logic of the
situation had been too strong even for him. But Honanta was more
than his friend. It was true, then, that Colonel Colvin was that white
officer! Honanta had said so at last. Through his father he owed a
debt that to an Indian is never paid. Honanta, too, was torn between
two duties—that to his tribe and that to Sid as the Colonel’s son. In
the subtle workings of the Indian mind there would surely be a
loophole for him, somewhere, by Honanta, Sid felt. It was for him to
find and utilize that loophole of escape. It would be something that
would clear Honanta’s conscience as regards his tribe, yet fulfill his
obligation to him as the son of the man who had saved his life.
What it would be, Sid could not imagine. He decided to keep his
eyes open to-morrow, alert to seize the opportunity whatever it
should be. Then, with the ability of youth to sleep anywhere and in
any impossible posture, his head fell forward on his chest and he
was soon oblivious of his and any one else’s troubles.
Next morning as he was led from the lodge, a notable change in the
village greeted him. A high Sun Dance pole had been erected during
the night, with a cross bar secured near its top. From the bar
dangled two effigies; the figure of a man and of a mountain sheep.
Sid recognized the symbol of it. The figure represented Honanta,
dead but for the intervention of the Great Mystery in the person of
that white officer who had spared his mother. The mountain sheep
represented man’s physical life, his principal means of sustenance,
the gift of Mother Earth, replacing the buffalo of plains ceremonies.
After a time Honanta appeared, nude save for his moccasins and
breech clout; his hair was disheveled, his body daubed with clay. He
dragged after him the skull of a mountain sheep, symbolizing the
grave from which he had escaped by divine intervention. As the
eastern sun flamed over the wall of Red Mesa, an old priest cut and
scarified Honanta’s chest, signifying the natural accompaniments of
a physical death.
The rest of the tribe now formed in a line under the east wall and
faced him. Sid himself was placed opposite Honanta, standing alone.
He felt awed at the part he was taking—for he obviously represented
the instrument through which the Great Mystery had shown His
favor.
Looking with fixed eyes on the sun, Honanta began the Sun Dance,
dragging the skull after him and blowing from time to time on a
sacred whistle which he kept pointed at the sun as it rose toward the
zenith.
Sid watched him, fascinated. He was seeing the original Sun Dance,
the Indian symbol of death and resurrection, as it was before later
changes degraded it into a meaningless exhibition of endurance
under torture—about on the level with our own bull-ring and prize-
fight arena. How long the dance would keep up depended solely
upon Honanta’s physical endurance. He was not much over forty
years of age, so he would be yet in his prime, and his fervor would
lead him to dance before the Great Mystery until his sinews could
work no longer.
Sid’s prayers went out to aid him. He liked to see a man give his
best! This humbling of the body was nothing repulsive, when one
thought of the exalted mood of that soul, engaged in an act of Indian
worship so far above our own milder and, let us say, more self-
indulgent and vanity-ridden forms of ritual.
An hour passed; two hours, while still the devoted Honanta
maintained the peculiar syncopated rhythmic dance of the Indian.
Occasionally his voice rose in a wild, high chant, relating the story of
his rescue by that white officer of long ago. He called on the soul of
his mother to witness; poured out prayers in thankful chants to the
Great Mystery.
Sid watched, himself entirely in sympathy, the whole band of
Apaches gradually working themselves to higher and higher
exaltation of religious feeling. He hardly noted the passage of time
until a glance over to the west wall brought home to him with a
sudden shock that the shadow of the east wall had nearly reached
that crack in the granite. His time was coming soon!
Others had noticed it, too, for one of the elders spoke a word. With a
final invocation to the Great Mystery, Honanta slowly brought his
dance to a close. He tottered toward Sid, his eyes sightless, his hand
groping until it gripped Sid’s.
Sid felt a renewed fervor in that grip, but all Honanta said was: “My
son, guide me—for you must now go forth from us.”
One of the braves pressed Sid’s rifle into his hands. Leading
Honanta, Sid started for the medicine lodge. Young bucks and elders
surrounded them. They were fully armed and their faces expressed
the grim determination of the executioner. Sid guided Honanta to the
outlet of the tunnel and himself raised the medicine sheepskin.
“Careful, my father!” he warned courteously, putting Honanta’s hands
on the ladder post.
They descended, the tunnel filled with creeping warriors, ahead and
behind them. Sid could not see what chance there was for his life in
this! To whirl and shoot the instant his foot left the cave?—before he
could move, a flight of arrows would feather themselves in him! If
Honanta had a loophole in mind it must be provided soon!
But the party crept on down steadily. Then along each side of the
cave entrance the bucks parted and lined up with arrow on string.
Sid drew a long breath and stepped steadily to the entrance. Beyond
that he could not go, without death. Bows creaked as he turned
slowly, to find arrows drawn to the head upon him.
But Honanta was close behind him. “You must go forth, now, my
son,” he pronounced gravely.
Sid tensed every muscle in his body, intending to throw himself down
the lava crevice and then turn and shoot for his life. It was a forlorn
hope, but——
Two long, fringed, buckskinned arms closed slowly around him as
his foot lifted for the first step. Sid halted wonderingly—but the push
of Honanta urged him on:
“Go forth, my son—and I will go with thee!” whispered the chief’s
voice in his ear. “I cannot see thee slain! Let them shoot!”
Honanta’s own arms were around him now, his body protectingly
between him and the Apaches. That was the way he had solved his
dilemma!
Sid backed rebelliously. “No, chief! No! You must not!” he protested,
attempting to turn in the chief’s arms. The utter silence of
astonishment was all around them, the Apaches hesitating, arrow on
bow, utterly disconcerted at this sudden development.
“On! While there is time!” grated the chief’s voice. “We shall escape
to your people. They must never find Red Mesa. I trust you, my son,
to keep silence!” urged Honanta.
Sid nodded. Honanta had found the best way out of it all. They were
about to go on, letting the tribe decide as it would, when the distant
Rrrraammp! Rrrraammp! Rrrraammp! of rifle shots coming from over
the mountain arrested them.
“Halt! It is too late, Honanta!” barked Sid. “Listen!”
A fusillade of distant rifle shots broke out; then the rapid, continuous
discharge of a repeating rifle.
“Ten shots!” said Sid. “That’s the Navaho’s Winchester, chief. Ours
hold only five. Those other shots are Mausers—not hunting rifles!
The Mexicans are here!”
He pushed Honanta back in the cave and then faced the Apaches.
“Warriors of the Apache, I must stay and fight with you!” his voice
rang out. “Those rifles are of Mexicanos, coming to take your home.
After it is all over you can do what you will with me. Is it peace?”
The Apaches nodded sullenly and lowered their bows. Without
Honanta they were leaderless.
“Let no one go out!” ordered Sid. “We need every man right here!”
 CHAPTER X
THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA
AS the Mexican rifles whipped and sang in the crags sheep after
sheep staggered and fell. Hano’s eyes blazed with indignation. At
least six of these white-clad Mexicanos were up there and three of
the sheep were killed, a noble ram and two ewes, but still the
slaughter went on unceasingly. That band of big horns and a few
others like it around Pinacate were almost the sole meat supply of
Hano’s tribe. A few each year had been plenty to keep them all in
meat. One ram would have been more than enough to feed all this
band of white men all they could carry away, yet nothing less than
the slaughter of them all—brutal, thoughtless, insensate killing for
the mere pleasure of shooting seemed their purpose. Higher and
higher the Mexican hunters climbed, following the doomed sheep up
to the ridges. Once over them and——
With a great bitter cry of rage at the sickening insatiate greed of it,
Hano rose to his feet, snatched Niltci’s rifle from his hands and
emptied it in rapid shots. He sent bullets whistling among the hunters
up in the crags, then shot down horses among that group closely
packed in the Pass below them. Dashing down the empty weapon
with a curse of rage, he bounded down through the mesquite and
was lost to sight. Niltci, himself overwhelmed with indignant
sympathy over this useless slaughter of wild life, had not interfered
with Hano and he now picked up the rifle and reloaded it.
“Good hunch, Injun! Shootin’ them hosses is our best bet arter all!”
muttered Big John to himself raising the meat gun to his shoulder.
He aimed full at the serapé-clad rider who sat his horse, yelling up at
the hunters above and signaling urgently to them to return.
“Greaser, I could kill you now, an’ end all this to onct,” he muttered,
“but ontil you shoots at me fust, I cayn’t do it.” He lowered the sights
a trifle and pulled trigger. Instantly the horse which the Mexican rode
collapsed and fell kicking on the sands. Vasquez jumped free.
“Gringoes! Enemigos! Tira! Tira!” he yelled, shaking his fists and
pointing wildly.
Big John went on shooting, picking off horse after horse. Niltci’s rifle
was thundering in his ears, for the indignant Navaho had turned his
fire on the sheep slaughterers now scrambling madly down the hill. A
wild commotion had broken out in the confused knot of horses and
men that were left of the cavalcade. Presently a band of five of them
mounted and rode swiftly toward their position. Then down below a
single war whoop rang out and Big John saw a lone Indian rider
dash out into the Pass. It was Hano, making his sacrifice of leading
as many as possible of the enemy after him away into the desert. A
fusillade of shots greeted him; then the rapid clatter of hoofs as the
whole band swept by, Hano far in the lead on Sid’s pony. Big John
dropped the foremost horse as they passed below him; the rest
swept by quirting their mounts furiously as Hano disappeared over a
swale in the sand dunes.
“Now we got to settle with Mister Vasquez!” exclaimed Big John
grimly. “Thar’s still half a dozen of them with him, against the two of
us up yonder.”
But Niltci did not hear for he had crept up to a better position. He had
seen nothing of Hano’s race as he was too hotly engaged with the
Mexicans on the hillside.
Big John peered out of his rocky lair, looking for “that ornery
Vasquez.” A glimpse of him showed high among the rocks; then his
rifle barked and the bullet spanged the rocks near by. The other
Mexicans were now well concealed in the crags and the crack of
their rifles and the whine and smash of Mausers about Big John’s
position told him that the battle was on in dead earnest. For a time
the fight remained stationary, both sides so well concealed that no
quickness of sight could register a direct hit. Then a shot rang out,
much nearer to the left.
“Bad business, Niltci,” called out Big John, “they’re working down this
way an’ hev got us cornered on this little knoll. We gotto do a sneak
around this point and git above them somehow.”
Niltci had already foreseen the danger, for he was now creeping
snakelike through the rocks around the right flank of the knoll.
Big John grunted whimsically as he followed after: “Gosh dern it, I
ain’t even goin’ to act civilized, pronto, if these hyar doin’s keeps up!
I don’t like that party in the barber-pole poncho, none, an’ I’ll get
careless and drill daylight through him ef I don’t watch myself!” he
soliloquized.
Then he came out on the right flank of the knoll, where all that vast
interior angle of the mountain range burst at once into full view. For a
moment he peered out and just stared! A huge black apron of lava
fell out of the high lap of the mountains and spread far and wide
down the slope until lost in the sands. But, dominating the gap where
this lava flowed out, he saw two immense red walls, cast up like
opening trap doors of granite. From his position the whole formation
could be grasped in its entirety and its resemblance to a mesa struck
Big John at once.
“She looks jest like Thunder Mountain up near Zuñi to me,” he
muttered wonderingly, “only she’s red. Red Mesa, by gum!” he
exploded, as the conviction smote upon him. “An’ that pesky Sid’s
been and gone an’ found it! Thar’s whar he is, now, with them
Apaches, I’ll bet my hoss! Wouldn’t that knock ye dead?”
Silent, majestic, imposing, Red Mesa shimmered in the morning sun,
high above all. That it held the secret of Sid’s disappearance and
explained the mystery of these Apaches was a conclusion that Big
John jumped to instinctively.
And then a shrill squall of triumph rang out high on the mountain side
above him! Big John crawled to a better outlook and gazed upward.
Exposed on a ragged pinnacle, Vasquez stood waving a rifle
triumphantly over his head and screaming in Spanish unintelligibly.
That he had seen Red Mesa, too, and was calling to himself all his
guerrillas there was no doubt at all!
Big John raised his rifle carefully, its tall front sight rising high above
the rear bar. “Four hundred, five hundred; no, more’n six hundred
yards!” he muttered. “It’ll be some stretch for the ole meat gun, but,
greaser, you’ve looked at this parteekler scenery all you’re entitled
to!”
He held the bead steady, resting his elbow on a rock. Gradually his
muscles cramped in a rigid pose while the tiny dot up there in the
crags hovered motionless over the tip of his front sight.
“Sho! greaser,” said Big John, lowering the rifle. “Y’ain’t done
nawthin’ yit what I orter kill ye fer! Yore int’rested, jist now—it’s our
chanct to make a run for it an’ git between you an’ th’ home plate, I’m
thinkin’. Siddy boy, I aims to reach ye this trip!”
He crept rapidly down to where Niltci lay concealed and touched him
on the shoulder. Together they wormed swiftly down the mountain
and reached the sands. Here the high flanks concealed them from
the view of those above. After one sharp glance around by Niltci,
both ran at full speed along the base. Up and up at a gentle slant for
some half a mile the sand drift led them, until they had arrived at the
foot of the lava flow where it dipped down below the sands. Along its
vitrified surface they sped—and then Big John stopped and gripped
Niltci’s arm, breathing heavily. Above them on the lava slope an
apparition had appeared. A man crouched in a sort of cave mouth up
there, and he bore a rifle in his hands. He waved energetically to Big
John to get under cover at once.
“Ef that ain’t Sid you can call me a tin-horn gent!” gasped Big John.
“Whoopee, Sid! Keep down!—Look out, watch yourself!” he yelled
out alarmedly.
His outcry was fatal. A rifle whanged out up in the cliffs above and
instantly came the sharp thud of a bullet. Big John coughed, groaned
in the inflectionless cry of the unconscious, and tumbled in a heap on
the rocks. Niltci gave one swift glance upward at the man in the
serapé who had fired, then grabbed Big John and dragged his huge
shape under the shelter of a crag. Sid had disappeared as if struck
flat, but the whip of his army carbine rang out sharply. A volley of
shots replied, coming from all over the hillside. Bullets struck the lava
apron and went whining off into space; more of them plunged down
around Niltci’s position.
Bits of granite flew in a sharp dust about him. The place was utterly
untenable. Niltci looked for a better lair, noted a little hollow in the
crags and then jumped out and exposed himself to draw their fire for
an instant. He heard shot after shot whipping out from where Sid lay,
felt the terrific smash of Mausers all around him, then he picked up
Big John and raced with him for cover. A sharp touch seared his
arm. He felt it grow paralyzed in spite of him and it let the cowman
drop violently against the rough scoriated boulders. A groan came
from Big John, showing that he still lived, then the Navaho flung
himself into the lair and rolled the great limp body in after him.
But this could not last! It was as hot a corner as man ever got into.
Sooner or later flankers from the guerrillas above would find a
position from which it could be fired into, and then nothing could
save them. Niltci raised his voice in a low Navaho’s death chant,
watching the rocks above him from a crevice in his lair, rifle poised
for instant use. He needed help badly. Finally he sent out the word
for it in a ringing call that would be understood by the Apaches, if any
were near. It would be upon their honor to respond.
An occasional desultory shot now came from Sid, up there on the
lava apron. Above on the mountain was silence, sinister, and
foreboding. The Mexicans were creeping carefully, silently downward
toward him. Presently there would be a rush of overwhelming
numbers—then death!
Niltci waited, finger on trigger, eyes alert. A slight sound and the
rolling of a stone came from somewhere above, but he could see
nothing without exposing himself to he knew not what danger. It had
been Big John who had rescued him from his own kinsmen, during
those fanatical disturbances caused by the Black Panther of the
Navaho, and Niltci would never desert him now! Coolly, resignedly,
he awaited that final rush that would be the end of them both.
A rapid movement and the flinging of a body down behind some
rocks sounded above him, right close now. Sid’s rifle sang out but its
bullet was too late. Relentlessly they were closing in!
A low groan sounded below Niltci. He glanced back out of the corner
of his eye and saw that Big John’s eyes were open. His face was
livid, drawn and gray, but he was turning feebly on his side and
fumbling at the big revolver strapped to his thigh.
“Watch yoreself—Injun—I’m gyardin’—yore rear,” muttered the
cowman hoarsely.
Niltci felt better. Big John was alive and could shoot, anyhow! He
moved to a new position where he could command more of the rocks
above. White-clad figures dodged instantly out of sight behind rocks
as he appeared. They were all quite near him, not over forty yards
off. All that was needed was some signal to precipitate a concerted
rush. Niltci looked about him for help again. Only the silent lava wall
and the surety that Sid was on watch up there gave him any hope at
all. Well, it would soon come! All he hoped for was the chance of a
few shots from the repeater before one of these buzzing Mauser
bullets brought final oblivion.
And then, far above on the mountain side, sounded the rapid belling
of a hound!
Ruler! Scotty was coming, and he would take them all in the rear!
Niltci fingered his trigger eagerly as the musical notes floated nearer
and nearer: “Come, white boy! Come!” he sang, in urgent Navaho
chanting.
A heavy repeating rifle opened up, its familiar cannonlike roars
sounding sweet in the Indian lad’s ears. That .405 could outrange
anything on the mountain, and Scotty was a dead shot!
Yells and cries broke out all around him above. Men rose bewildered
while Niltci emptied his repeater and Sid’s rifle spoke rapidly, shot
after shot from the lava. The guerrillas were breaking, running. Like
snakes they were creeping off to new points, out of reach of that
heavy .405 whose bullets split the granite where they struck!
Niltci felt that the psychological moment for attack had come. This
whole movement was bearing off to the left now, the only place
where the guerrillas could be safe from fire above and below. He
leaped forward, darting from cover to cover and firing at every sight
of a white figure among the rocks. Behind him he heard ringing
Apache war whoops, and, looking back, saw the whole lava slope
covered with buckskin-clad figures that had come from he knew not
where. In a moment more his own mountain flank had swallowed
them all up. Niltci gave a single answering cry and pressed on.
Then he stopped, his heart stricken dead with sudden alarm, for a
whirl of objurgations in Spanish raged below him and he saw a
serapé-clad figure racing along under the crags of the base, headed
straight for where Big John lay concealed! Niltci turned and flung
himself down the mountain, exposing himself recklessly. To get to
the wounded Big John before this demon could finish him—ah, might
the Great Mystery lend him wings! In three leaps he had reached the
rocks above the lair. He jumped out, rifle at shoulder, unmindful of
anything but not to be too late. Niltci got one glimpse of Vasquez,
standing with rifle poised, his eyes glaring with surprise, for instead
of Sid—the boy with the Red Mesa plaque—Big John lay facing him,
lying on his side, cool resolution shining steadfastly in his eyes, the
big revolver poised in a hand that nevertheless shook with
weakness.
But before either of them could pull trigger a war bow twanged
resonantly and the swift flash of an arrow swept across Niltci’s face.
He saw Vasquez tottering, faltering, and crumpling slackly; heard the
rifle and the revolver bellow out together—and then a tall Apache
chief stood before him, breathing laboredly, his eyes flashing the wild
fire of war. Niltci held his ground and his rifle half raised. Peace or
war with this chief, the Navaho boy faced him undaunted and Niltci
was going to defend that place to the last! Below him was the little
rocky lair where lay Big John, silent, face downward.
The Apache raised his hand in the peace sign. “Navaho, thou art a
brave man! He that risks his life for a friend!” he dropped his arm
significantly as if to say that no higher test of character existed.
“Come; my young men pursue them, and none shall escape. Let us
take this white man where his wounds can be cared for, my brother.”
Just at that instant Sid came around the rocks about the lava lair. For
a moment he stood looking, first at Big John lying silent as death,
then at Niltci sitting dazedly and weak on the ground. His eyes
glanced only once at the huddled figure of Vasquez.
“Oh! oh!—Big John! Is he dead!” he cried, the sudden catch of a sob
in his voice.
He went over quickly to Big John and felt under his shirt. Then he
looked up, worried, anxious, but hope shone in his eyes. “He’s alive,
Chief! But we must act quickly, for he’s losing blood fast. Help me,
Honanta,” cried Sid urgently.
Together they got at the wound. That Mauser had plunged
downward, smashing through the shoulder at a slant; tipped a lung,
as the red froth on Big John’s lips showed, and had come out in a
jagged tear below the big muscle on his chest. He breathed
laboredly and his eyes were still closed. Sid shook his head and
there were tears in his own eyes. To lose Big John, that faithful,
devoted old friend who had raised him and Scotty from cubdom, had
been with them on a dozen expeditions, a thousand hunts—it was
unbelievable!
“I’ve seen worse. My medicine men can cure him!” said Honanta
cheerily. “We shall bring him to our village, and all will be well. My
son, your friends are our friends! They have done well!”
“Thank you, Honanta,” said Sid, simply. “I have yet one more thing to
ask you to do, and then this whole business will come out all right.”
“And that is?” asked the chief, smiling.
“To come with me and meet my father,” said Sid earnestly.
“Ai!—I shall go with you soon! But first, where is my son, Hano? Not
yet have I heard his war cry,” replied Honanta anxiously.
Niltci turned from his guard of the place and approached the chief.
“He came to us, Apache. He led us to these mountains. Then came
the Mexicanos. We were to run them a race away into the desert
with our fast horses. But they saw sheep on the mountain. They
started killing them—ugh, but it was a slaughter sickening to see!
More than many, many white men could eat, they shot! Then rose up
your son, Hano, out of ambush and cursed them, as I too would
have done. He fired my rifle at them, killing many horses. When the
shells were all gone he left us. That is all I know.”
“Who does know what became of Hano, then, Niltci?” inquired Sid
eagerly.
The Navaho pointed to the silent figure of Big John.
“Hai!” breathed Honanta’s deep voice. “He must live! I must know
what has happened to my son! If he died, it was as a great chief
should die, for his people. If he lives, this white man shall tell us and
my best trackers shall seek for him. Come!”
They all picked up the inanimate form of Big John and carried him
slowly along the lava apron brink. From afar came the occasional
crack of a rifle. The chase had gone a long distance to the westward.
Once they heard the bellow of Scotty’s .405 from far down beyond
the knoll. The peculiar volume of it was unmistakable, easily told
from the sharper whip of the Mausers. Sid would have liked to join
him, but his duty now was to see Big John under competent care. He
had great faith in those Apache medicine bundles. There were
healing herbs in them that the Indians alone knew; not all their
“medicine” was sorcery and meaningless medicine dances, for in the
treatment of wounds they were wonderful.
Up the steep ascent and through the sulphur-fumed reaches of the
cave tunnel they bore Big John. When he had been laid on a couch
in the medicine lodge and the old men had set to work at his
wounds, Sid called Niltci to him.
“I want to show you this Red Mesa, Niltci,” he said, “for my heart is
heavy within me. We can do no further good here.”
Together they went out into the little valley, Niltci’s cries of pleasure
over its isolation and peace as detail after detail of it was grasped by
his keen Indian mind singing in Sid’s ears. It made him even more
depressed. What would Scotty’s reaction to all this be? Scotty, the
practical, hard-headed engineer, who would no doubt hop on this
mine with a howl of delight and pooh-pooh any suggestion of
abandoning it to the Apaches as their home. The first white man who
staked out a claim here owned it. These Indians had no rights. How
could he reconcile Gold with Nature in Scotty’s mind—dissuade him
from taking his civic rights, for the sake of this people?
Sid wanted to have his mind made up before they set out to join
Scotty. He watched Niltci as they came opposite the mine fissure.
The Navaho boy stopped with another exclamation of pleasure. He
was an expert silversmith himself, and he recognized the metal
instantly amid the dull copper. But in Niltci’s eyes there showed no
hint of possessing it, of taking this whole mine for himself. This metal
was for all, the gift of Mother Earth to the whole tribe, according to
his training. He would be just as welcome to set up his forge here
and smelt all the silver he wanted as the Apaches were to make
arrow tips of the copper. He told Sid this artless viewpoint as the
latter questioned him, seeking light in his perplexity.
Sid shook his head. How different from Scotty’s idea! A claim that
gave exclusive ownership; vast engineering works; ships; an
organization that would take all this metal for one man’s enrichment
—that was the white man’s way!
“Come, we must go find Scotty, Niltci,” said Sid despondently,
leading him away.
Honanta bid them good-by, assuring them that Big John was doing
well. Sid went down the cave tunnel feeling like a traitor. His worst
problem was still ahead of him, he thought.
But the Great Mystery had planned otherwise, in His inscrutable
ways. For, when they reached the lair where Big John had fallen,
Vasquez was gone! Honanta’s arrow had not killed him; he had been
simply feigning death while they were working over Big John!
 CHAPTER XI
GOLD VERSUS NATURE
“HOW goes it, Big John?” asked Sid cheerily, coming into the
medicine lodge the morning after the big fight.
“Bad breath, worse feet—I’m mostly carrion, I reckon,” smiled Big
John weakly from his bandages. “All-same turkey-buzzard.”
Sid laughed gayly. There was no quenching the giant Montanian’s
humor so long as the breath of life existed in him! “Guess you’re
better, all right!” he answered, relieved.
“Whar’s my dear friend, Mister Spigotty?” inquired Big John with
elaborate sarcasm. “Last I seen of him, he was fixin’ to turn loose a
machine-gun onto me.”
“We’re still worrying about him, John,” replied Sid seriously. “He got
away. The chief’s arrow took him just as he was about to pull trigger
on you, but I think that loose serapé he wore saved him. An arrow
just loses its punch in it. Anyway, he was only playing ’possum while
we were fixing you up, thinking he was done for. We haven’t seen
the last of him by a long shot. Ever hear the fate of the Enchanted
Mesa, John? That’s what’s worrying me now.”
“Yaas,” said Big John, slowly. “Earthquake shook down the trail up to
her, didn’t it? Then the hull tribe up thar jest nat’rally starved to
death.”
“That’s what the ethnologists proved when they finally got up on
Enchanted Mesa,” agreed Sid. “The Indian legend persisted that a
tribe had once been marooned up on that sheer-walled stronghold.
No one believed it was more than a legend until the mesa was
visited by an aeroplane or something and then they found the ruins
of an old pueblo. Did you ever think, John, that this cave of ours is
the only gate to Red Mesa? If Vasquez blows that up with dynamite
we’re all doomed to starve here—another Enchanted Mesa!”
“Yaas,” sighed Big John, wearily. “But Vasquez shuts hisself out’n his
own mine, that way, though. An’ whar’s yore dynamite?”
“He’ll have some. Sure about that,” said Sid, confidently. “A man
doesn’t go mining without it nowadays. And then, here’s the dickens
of it: he can’t do anything about this mine with us around, see? But, if
he can shut us up here, all he’s got to do then is to hang around—
and let Nature do the rest! We’ll all starve. See? Diabolical idea, eh?
But that’s the cold, cruel, Spanish logic of it, see?”
“Nice hombre!” growled Big John. “Take me out thar, boys, whar I kin
see thet cave mouth, and lay the old meat gun beside me—he won’t
do no sech thing.”
“You lie still!” Sid soothed him. “Honanta knows about it. He’s got
scouts outlying all around the cave mouth.”
“Take me out thar!” insisted Big John. “I ain’t trustin’ no Injuns whar
you boys is concerned! Hyar! Put me under a brush shade at the top
of that lava dam, whar I can see the cave mouth. ’Twill do me good
and give me a job of work!” he urged.
Sid quieted him. “You couldn’t even lift a six-gun, now, old settler! Lie
still. Just as soon as you can be moved we’ll set you out there, if it
will ease your mind.”
Big John sank back, satisfied, as most sick men are, with a promise.
After a time he raised his head again.
“Whar’s Scotty, Sid?”
“I don’t know,” replied Sid, shortly. He shrugged his shoulders and
remained silent, his eyes averted.
Big John regarded him keenly for some time. “You boys been
quarrelin’, without yore old unkel to go settin’ in the game?” he
asked, trenchantly.
“Yes. You see it’s this way,” broke out Sid impulsively. “Scotty’s all for
staking out this mine and filing a government claim on it. I couldn’t
get him to see it my way, so we—well, we had a row over it,” said
Sid. His voice told Big John how it hurt him to have anything come
up between himself and such an old chum as Scotty.
“What’s yore idee, son?” asked Big John curiously.
“Haven’t these Indians any rights?” burst out Sid impetuously.
“Whose mine is it if not theirs? It’s common property with them,
though, just as are the beans they raise and the game they shoot.
Along comes Scotty and thinks because he’s a white man he has a
right to stake a claim and take the whole thing for himself. And our
government will give it to him, too—that’s the pity of it! Did he find it?
I guess not! And it’s their home, too! Are we going to turn them out?”
The fire in Sid’s voice told Big John how hot had been that argument
between the friends. All this was, no doubt, Sid’s side of it.
“If Honanta knew what Scotty was really set on doing not one of us
would leave here alive,” went on Sid, bitterly. “I’ve a good mind to tell
him! Anything, sooner than be a party to rank treachery like that!”
“Scotty’s mother’s pretty hard up, ain’t she, Sid?” asked Big John
softly.
“Ye-es; a little discomfort, maybe, until he can land a good job. But
for that he’s going to turn this whole tribe out, to wander at the mercy
of our government—and you know what that is!”
“Sho! The mine’d pay enough to buy them a reservation big enough
to support them all in the style in which they is accustomed to!”
laughed Big John, weakly, “nawthin’ to it, son.”
“That’s what Scotty says,” replied Sid. “Some day it will pay enough,
maybe—if the promoters don’t skin him out of all his rights in the
mine first. But meanwhile, what about these Indians and those white
miners who will surely come here? Whisky, debauchery of their
women, degradation of their young men—isn’t it always the story
when our two races come together? How can you prevent it?” he
demanded.
Big John shook his head. It was all too perplexing to him, in his
present weakened state.