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Books by Pieter de Wilde

Investigates the way politicians and citizens evaluated the European Union and the process of Eur... more Investigates the way politicians and citizens evaluated the European Union and the process of European integration in public debates during the 2009 European Parliament elections. The authors present detailed, rigorous analysis of citizens' online response to news stories, and reveal new evidence about the dynamic nature of online contestation of Europe and the degree of convergence towards Euroscepticism.
Such convergence provides new challenges for democratic representation in the EU, and insight into the public basis for a legitimate European Union.

This book offers a wealth of original empirical data on how online media shape EU contestation. T... more This book offers a wealth of original empirical data on how online media shape EU contestation. Taking a public sphere perspective, the authors highlight the myths and truths about the nature of audience-driven online media content and show how public demands for legitimacy are at the heart of the much-analyzed politicization of European integration. What EU citizens most intensely debate online are the fundamental questions of what the European institutions stand for and how they can be held accountable.

Drawing on innovative and rigorous analysis of online media ownership, journalistic content and online readers’ inputs, the authors piece together the components of the dynamic nature of EU contestation and the degree of convergence towards Euroscepticism across EU member states in the first years of the Eurocrisis. There is no doubt that EU citizens have strong opinions about the EU and interactive online media allow these opinions to come to the fore, to be challenged and amplified both within and beyond national public spheres. Yet, for all its potential to unite European publics, online EU contestation remains firmly anchored in offline news media frames, while citizens and journalists alike struggle to put forward a clear vision of the future EU polity.

Papers by Pieter de Wilde

Economic, cultural, and political systems formerly bounded by the borders of nation-states are in... more Economic, cultural, and political systems formerly bounded by the borders of nation-states are increasingly globalized. Politicians, civil society and other societal actors engage in publically debating issues related to globalization. Whether conflicts consolidate to form a stable cleavage depends among other factors on the extent to which they become ideologically underpinned. As the basis for such an underpinning, we identify philosophical debates about justice between globalists and statists and between universalists and contextualists as raw material that political entrepreneurs active in the public sphere can draw upon. On this basis, we identify four major bones of contention that could provide the core of such ideological underpinning: the permeability of borders; the allocation of authority between levels; the normative dignity of communities; and the patterns of justification. One ideal typical combination of those four components can be labeled cosmopolitanism – combining arguments from globalists and universalists; another communitarianism, combining statist and contextualist arguments. The more these two ideal types feature as political ideologies in public debate, the more debates about globalization solidify into a new cleavage. We develop a conceptual framework which can subsequently be used in support of empirical research analyzing the ideological foundations of globalization conflicts.

Comparative European Politics, 2015

While national parliaments in the European Union have learned to internalize new opportunities fo... more While national parliaments in the European Union have learned to internalize new opportunities for influence given to them by the Lisbon Treaty, European integration has evolved and places ever more serious demands and constraints on domestic legislatures. Following the euro crisis, key decisions about national macro-economic policies are taken in the European Council and the European Semester. These are the issues traditionally at the heart of both democratic governance and citizens’ concerns. Relating these developments to the key functions national parliaments ought to perform, we develop the normative argument that a redirection of national parliaments’ resources away from less salient matters and particularly the Early Warning Mechanism toward the European Council and European economic governance would be welcome.

This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU ... more This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU legitimacy contestation. Support of and opposition to European integration have so far been mainly measured through the positions of political parties or citizens' attitudes through public opinion polls. Against this reliance on static indicators, we focus on dynamic contestation, mediation and formation of public opinion in the public sphere. Our survey delivers original data on EU legitimacy contestation as unfolding on frequently visited political websites and blogs in 12 EU Member States and transnational websites during the European Parliament election campaign of 2009. The results are, first, that intensity of contestation varies across Member States unrelated to the amount of coverage of the elections. Secondly, the majority of contestation focuses on the current institutional set-up of the EU, rather than the principle or future project of European integration. A majority of evaluations made, particularly those by citizens, are negative in all countries included in our study. However, as these Eurosceptical contributions remain relatively underspecified, it is unclear what would alleviate citizens' discontent. Thirdly, we find that a primary concern in EU legitimacy contestation is democracy, especially for those evaluating EU legitimacy negatively.

Theoretical debate about the effects of politicisation on the democratic legitimacy of the Europe... more Theoretical debate about the effects of politicisation on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union has tended to focus on the potential of conflict between European political parties or member state governments. At the same time,
empirical sociological studies demonstrate that controversy about Europe continues to unfold primarily within national public spheres. There is as yet no genuine Europe-wide party system or public debate. This reveals a gap between the normative theoretical assessment of EU politicisation and empirical sociological analysis of this phenomenon. To reconcile this discrepancy, this paper develops three actually-existing trajectories of politicisation: the remote conflict, the international conflict and the domestic conflict. Each trajectory
carries unique challenges and opportunities to the democratic legitimacy of the Union. It is argued that the domestic conflict trajectory is most promising from a normative democratic perspective. Paradoxically, this does not necessarily imply
a renationalisation of the EU.

The politicisation of European governance has become an important subject in debates about the in... more The politicisation of European governance has become an important subject in debates about the institutional design, day-to-day decision-making and democratic legitimacy of the European Union. This special issue takes stock of this development of politicisation research, including the theoretical development as well as the rapidly expanding body of empirical evidence. It synergises the various perspectives on politicisation of European governance, building on a common understanding of politicisation as a three-dimensional process involving increasing salience, polarisation of opinion and the expansion of actors and audiences involved in EU issues. The introduction outlines the central theoretical and conceptual questions concerning the politicisation of European governance
and provides a guiding framework for the contributions to this special issue. The contributions document that a differentiated Europe leads to differentiated politicisation across times, countries and settings. The differentiated patterns, particularly across countries, present profound challenges to the future trajectory of European integration and its democratic legitimacy.

This contribution assesses the explanatory power of European integration theory for the politiciz... more This contribution assesses the explanatory power of European integration theory for the politicization of specific EU issues in mass media and national parliaments. By comparing debates on the EU budget in The Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland, on three different budget negotiations, in newspapers and in plenary parliamentary sessions, a rich picture is presented of how visible the EU is, who communicates and how EU issues are made sense of. The comparative framework allows for the isolation of the effects of different national interests, increasing authority of the EU and institutional operating logics. The findings are that authority best explains the visibility of EU issues as the quantity of communication rises in correspondence to the increased powers of the EU. Institutional operating logics explain best which actors dominate the debates and how EU issues are made sense of. The importance of operating logics in explaining communication patterns draws attention to both parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms and media logics of news value criteria. Yet, national interests, authority and operating logics combined provide the best explanation. Theoretically, it is thus demonstrated that different European integration theories can be fruitfully combined to increase our understanding of how EU issues are politicized.

Advocates of a global democratic parliament have expressed hopes that this would not only legitim... more Advocates of a global democratic parliament have expressed hopes that this would not only legitimize global governance in procedural terms, but also bring about more cosmopolitan policies. They point to the European Parliament as an example of a successful real existing democratic parliament beyond the state with cosmopolitan intent. We analyse plenary debates in the United Nations General Assembly and the European Parliament about the issues of climate change, human rights, migration, trade and European integration between 2004 and 2011 to study the nature of opposition to cosmopolitanism within these two assemblies. We find more vocal and better-organized opposition to cosmopolitanism in the European Parliament than in the United Nations General Assembly. We demonstrate the plausibility that direct and more proportional mechanisms of delegation and accountability in the case of the European Parliament account for this observed difference. Should further research confirm these initial findings, advocates of a global democratic parliament may find that an empowered democratic World Parliament would support less cosmopolitan policies than the current United Nations General Assembly.

Following the failure of the Constitutional Treaty, executives of European Union (EU) Member Stat... more Following the failure of the Constitutional Treaty, executives of European Union (EU) Member States and the European Commission tried to take European integration as a political issue as much off the agenda as possible and limit involvement of citizens in EU decision-making. This article assesses the viability of this attempt to combat politicization of European integration and comes to the conclusion that it is unlikely to succeed in the long run. Politicization, it is argued, is a direct consequence of the increasing authority of the EU. The executive response to reverse this trend, however, does not address its cause, but rather the intermediating factors in the form of political opportunity structure. Since the cause of politicization remains intact and intermediating factors are unlikely to be controlled by executives, this attempt to reverse politicization is not viable.

This contribution presents a detailed methodological discussion on the empirical study of politic... more This contribution presents a detailed methodological discussion on the empirical study of political representation. It confronts Saward’s conceptualization of the representative claim with the method of claims analysis, developed by Koopmans and Statham. Drawing on Saward, the contribution emphasizes the theoretical need to study the act of representation in the form of claims through which connections between representatives and represented are made. Drawing on Koopmans and Statham, the contribution stresses an empirical focus on public spheres in which claims are located. While theory of representation so far remains overly complex in light of the reality of representation in the public sphere, the empirical analysis of claims ignores theoretically important aspects of representation. The theoretically informed and empirically viable methodological
approach of representative claims analysis (RCA) is therefore proposed to facilitate future inquiry.

The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism relates to particular discursive formations within the... more The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism relates to particular discursive formations within the battlefield of collective identities that is opened by European integration. This paper first aims to highlight the reactionary nature of Euroscepticism. Secondly, it argues for understanding Euroscepticism as a discursive formation in the public sphere rather than as a collection of party positions or characteristic of public opinion.

Investigates the way politicians and citizens evaluated the European Union and the process of Eur... more Investigates the way politicians and citizens evaluated the European Union and the process of European integration in public debates during the 2009 European Parliament elections. The authors present detailed, rigorous analysis of citizens' online response to news stories, and reveal new evidence about the dynamic nature of online contestation of Europe and the degree of convergence towards Euroscepticism. Such convergence provides new challenges for democratic representation in the EU, and insight into the public basis for a legitimate European Union.

This article empirically investigates how media coverage of European Union (EU) policy-formulatio... more This article empirically investigates how media coverage of European Union (EU) policy-formulation affects the involvement of national parliaments in these processes. The literature has variously argued that the involvement of national parliaments in EU policy-formulation is unrelated to media coverage, that media strengthen the hand of backbenchers and opposition or that media reinforce executive dominance. Using a mixed methodology research design for a longitudinal case study of debates on the EU budget in the Netherlands between 1992 and 2005, this article presents evidence for all three hypotheses, but with clear variations over time. Although institutional arrangements clearly structure parliamentary involvement limiting media effects, its explanatory power decreases as the intensity of debate increases. Limited media coverage reinforces executive dominance whereas extensive media coverage provides a weapon of the weak and strengthens the involvement of parliaments in general, and opposition parties in particular.

In the literature on European integration, politicization as concept is often attributed major im... more In the literature on European integration, politicization as concept is often attributed major importance. This article shows how the literature variously discusses the politicization of European Union (EU) institutions, the politicization of EU decisionmaking processes or the politicization of EU issues. Similarly, the literature attributes three different functions to politicization: it functions to crystallize opposing advocacy coalitions, to raise the question of legitimacy and to alter the course of European integration. Despite this diversity, this article argues we are in fact dealing with an encompassing
process. To further our understanding of politicization of European integration, politicization as process is defined as an increase in polarization of opinions, interests or values and the extent to which they are publicly advanced towards policy formulation within the EU. Furthermore, attention is directed to practices of representative claims-making in the public sphere through which relationships of delegation and accountability can be altered in discourse.

Comparative European Politics, 2015

Investigates the way politicians and citizens evaluated the European Union and the process of Eur... more Investigates the way politicians and citizens evaluated the European Union and the process of European integration in public debates during the 2009 European Parliament elections. The authors present detailed, rigorous analysis of citizens' online response to news stories, and reveal new evidence about the dynamic nature of online contestation of Europe and the degree of convergence towards Euroscepticism. Such convergence provides new challenges for democratic representation in the EU, and insight into the public basis for a legitimate European Union.

Zusammenfassung Dieses WZB Diskussionspapier befasst sich mit der im Rahmen des Brückenprojekts "... more Zusammenfassung Dieses WZB Diskussionspapier befasst sich mit der im Rahmen des Brückenprojekts "Die politische Soziologie des Kosmopolitismus und Kommunitarismus" durchgeführten representative claims analyis. Es dient als methodologische Grundlage für die Interpretation der hierbei entstandenen Datensammlung sowie den aus ihr folgenden Erkenntnissen. Darüber hinaus beinhaltet das Papier die theoretische Ziele mit dem der representative claims analyse durchgeführt werden ist, im Bezug zu das breitere Forschungsprojekt, Angaben zur Stichprobenziehung, das Codebuch mitsamt deskriptiver Statistiken aus der Datenbank, sowie die Testergebnisse der Intercoder-Reliabilität. Im Anhang befinden sich Beispiele kodierter Claims und eine Anleitung zur Verwendung der Datensammlung sowohl in qualitativer als auch quantitativer

This paper discusses the effects of the Early Warning Mechanism, introduced in the Treaty of Lisb... more This paper discusses the effects of the Early Warning Mechanism, introduced in the Treaty of Lisbon, on democracy in the European Union. It argues that the mechanism does not contribute to democracy in the EU for three reasons. First, it does not strengthen existing channels of delegation and accountability in the EU. Instead of contributing to the connection between national parliament and citizens or between parliaments and their governments, it bypasses governments and the European Parliament. Secondly, it does not reinforce either one of two core functions that parliaments ought to perform: the control of government or the communication with citizens. The constitutional oversight that it strengthens should not be a task for parliaments. Thirdly, it does not work. Though the first 'yellow card' was drawn in Summer 2012, there remain few activities within the mechanism and those existing come from a limited number of EU member states. The paper concludes with an argument for redirecting attention to the communicative function of national parliaments in the EU as a better alternative to the EWM for alleviating the democratic deficit.

ParlSpeech contains full-text vectors of more than 3.9 million plenary speeches in the key legisl... more ParlSpeech contains full-text vectors of more than 3.9 million plenary speeches in the key legislative chambers of the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, covering periods between 22 and 28 years. Speeches are annotated with date, speaker and party. This release note provides a more detailed guide to the data.

Debates about the EU's democratic legitimacy put national parliaments into the spotlight. Do they... more Debates about the EU's democratic legitimacy put national parliaments into the spotlight. Do they enhance democratic accountability by offering visible debates and electoral choice about multilevel governance? To support such accountability, we argue, saliency of EU affairs in the plenary ought to be responsive to developments in EU governance, has to be linked to decision-making moments, and should feature a balance between government and opposition. The recent literature discusses various partisan incentives that support or undermine these criteria, but analyses integrating these arguments are rare. We provide a novel comparative perspective by studying the patterns of public EU emphasis in more than 2.5 million plenary speeches from the German Bundestag, the British House of Commons, the Dutch Tweede Kamer and the Spanish Congreso de los Diputados over a prolonged period from 1991 to 2015. We document that parliamentary actors are by and large responsive to EU authority and its exercise where especially intergovernmental moments of decision-making spark plenary EU salience. But the salience of EU issues is mainly driven by government parties, decreases in election time and is negatively related to public Euroscepticism. We conclude that national parliaments have only partially succeeded in enhancing EU accountability and suffer from an opposition deficit in particular. Acknowledgements: This work profited from discussions with Pavel Šatra, Niklas Mäkinen, Alexandros Tokhi and Jan