Framing the European Integration Process: Country-, Party- or Issue-Specific?

Abstract

This paper proposes to study how the European integration process is framed. Such an analysis helps us better understand how the European Union is perceived and which arguments are mobilized to support or oppose it. We will test a series of hypotheses that have so far only been tested in individual countries. Drawing on Habermas’ typology of pragmatic-, identity- and value-related arguments we provide sophisticated frame categorizations to capture the complex structure of argumentation and to go beyond a simple dichotomization of economic and cul-tural frames. Relaying on a large media dataset for the period from 2004 to 2006 in six Western European countries we not only look at how political actors argue, but also whether framing strategies vary across countries and issues that are debated. We will come to the conclusion that the way the European Union is perceived de-pends a lot on the actors that are involved in the debate and the issues that are at stake