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SoSe 19: Politicizing European Integration: from Latent Potentials to Manifest Conflicts

Swen Hutter

Kommentar

Nowadays, public contestation and controversy – not a silent permissive consensus – seem to be constant features of the European integration process. As some scholars claim, we can only understand the future direction of European integration if we consider societal divisions and political conflict in our theoretical models. The seminar takes stock of these changes by focusing on the emerging dynamics and structure of conflicts over Europe. The students will get to know key concepts and theories used to empirically grasp and explain the new conflict constellations in an integrated Europe. Following the tradition of political sociology, the seminar considers both structuralist and strategic theories of political conflict. That is, the seminar will familiarize students with research (a) on the emerging potentials and divisions in European societies, as well as (b) on how these potentials are mobilized and articulated by collective political actors in different arenas (ranging from national and European elections via protest politics to referendums on EU matters). We will search for answers to questions such as: Which social groups support or oppose European integration? How prominently do European issues figure in national election campaigns, and are they articulated in protest events? Do attitudes toward Europe make a difference when people cast a vote or decide to get politically active by other means? And who is mobilized by whom? Schließen

Literaturhinweise

de Vries, Catherine (2018). Euroscepticism and the future of European Integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Hooghe, Liesbet and Gary Marks (2009). ‘A postfunctionalist theory of European integration: From permissive consensus to constraining dissensus.’ British Journal of Political Science 39(1): 1-23.
Swen Hutter, Edgar Grande, and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds.). Politicising Europe: Integration and mass politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 3-31. Schließen