Luis Bouza Chair
Taru Haappala Discussant
The Catalan process as a populist movement
In the last years, we have witnessed a challenge to the Spanish constitutional system from the Catalan Regional Government. From September 2017 tensions have escalated between Catalan and Spanish Institutions as well as within Catalan society itself. Without ignoring poor policy choices from the Spanish government towards Catalonia in the past, the struggle needs to be situated in a European context where populist movements mobilise new understandings of sovereignty. The paper argues that the Catalan nationalist and independentists leaders have developed a political and communication strategy to, firstly, create and spread the idea of a non-democratic Spain, where Catalans were mistreated; secondly, have developed a propaganda system in Catalunya in order to convince their citizens that a) Catalunya is entitled with the right to self-determination; b) that such a right could lead Catalunya to the independence, no matter how; c) that a non-violent breach of the constitutional order and the basic principles of the European Union would not involve criminal consequences; d) and, consequently, the prisoners on remand of the process are political prisoners. All of these arguments have been set up against the consensus among constitutional lawyers and despite the support of the EU institutions to Spain. The paper concludes “process” may be analysed as a populist movement similar to those competing elsewhere in Europe to challenge existing understandings of sovereignty.
University of Barcelona
The latest events or "policrysis" (euro, refugees and Brexit) have also revealed, the failure of the EU Communication Policy. Therefore, the sphere of institutional communication at the supranational governmental level is currently at a crossroad or turning point in Europe. The next European Parliament elections are being framed both by pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics as a decisive moment for the future of Europe. Whereas past efforts of the Parliament to foster the interest of European public opinions via communication campaigns in 2009 and 2014 were unsuccessful, we expect a highly salient campaign because of the growing interest of media and political actors in the year of Brexit and the chance that forces challenging European integration may become decisive. In the paper we explore the hypothesis that unlike previous framings in institutional campaigns by the EP of the election as an opportunity to choose among policies, the 2019 campaign will likely be dominated by broad references to the polity, values and a turning moment.
The paper will focus on the treatment of the most salient national leaders (May, Macron, Salvini) and candidates for office during the election campaign with particular attention to the usage of contentious and antagonistic frames through a mixed qualitative and quantitative content analysis methodology.
Universidad Carlos III Madrid
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Sovereignty at stake in the Brexit era: the battle in the British left to define who ‘the people’ is
European integration has often played a divisive role in British left-wing politics (Diez Medrano 2003). The Labour party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, campaigned for ‘Remain’ during the 2016 Brexit referendum, but after the referendum the leadership decided to ‘respect the will of the people’ and back Brexit. Labour party’s capacity to remain united despite its many internal contradictions in the face of an impending Brexit is both interesting and puzzling. The research question that drives this article is what are the different understandings of (popular) sovereignty in the Brexit era, and how do they influence the relations of cooperation and competition in the British left? The hypothesis is that different understandings of popular sovereignty are anchored in different views on the role of the nation-state in global governance processes and different definitions of ‘the people’, something that is reshaping to a great extent the alliances within the British left. I will apply discourse analysis to a data set composed of press releases, media reports, pamphlets and semi-structured interviews, coming from different organisations that are broadly part of the British left. I will also use network analysis to map the left-wing constellation of actors depending on their understanding of ‘sovereignty’ and the relations of both cooperation and competition between them, paying particular attention to the connection between parliamentary and extrapaliamentary actors (Crespy and Parks 2017).
Université Libre de Bruxelles
EU Parliament elections: Brexit’s leftovers leading fight for European sovereignty
To what extent is the EU able and willing to interfere in the sovereignty owned by its member states? Reaching the end of a complex process of negotiations derived from the Brexit, which implies regaining from 29th March 2019 the competencies ceased to Brussels during the periods of five decades UK belonged to the Group of Twenty-seven; the EU ought to focus now on facing the new landscape, where eurosceptists herald immigration as the main concern for member States. Within this framework, the next EU Parliament elections on 2019 seem to be a crucial milestone to reframe the EU stakeholders’ positions in the current competition context. Through a mixed qualitative and quantitative content analysis methodology we will look for verifying the most successful EU related actors re-framing and settling the next EU elections main topics agenda. Undoubtedly, it will be essential to observe and to crumble the speech analysis and European political parties’ programmes, carried out by the multiple candidates along the European running campaign. It may be the only solution to conquer the goal of checking if the EU is capable to redirect the citizenship’s ambitions towards a unique European sovereignty that stands by the relevance of democracy and human rights of minorities, meanwhile Hungarian PM, Viktor Orbán, and the Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, are heading the antimigrant coalition for the regain the most protectionist States sovereignty never seen.
Universidad Carlos III Madrid
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Jorge Tuñón
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
European integration has fundamentally transformed the relevance of national borders, the exercise of sovereignty, and the notion of self-determination in Europe. In recent years, internal EU crises such as Brexit, populism and euro -scepticism have brought the theme of national sovereignty back to the centre of the debate. In the new EU context there is a need for a re-evaluation of the main “narratives of sovereignty” at the level of the most vocal EU member-states, with a particular focus on the new vs. old member-states divide. Thus, the main aim of the article is to explore through methods of narrative analysis how fragmented the European public sphere is with regard to the issue of deepening or widening the EU. We will analyse the debates on the “future of Europe” especially with direct reference to the prospect of the enlargement policy. Following the works of Saurugger (2013) we will theoretically explore the concept of sovereignty as it its publicly displayed in EU narratives not as a legal concept, but as one whose importance varies according to the perception and construction by social agents. As such, the empirical part of the paper focuses on the usage of sovereignty by members state officials both at the EU and the national level when referring to the discussions on enlargement and in the context of the debates on the ‘future of Europe’ prior to the Summit in Sibiu during Romania’s Presidency for the Council of the EU.
National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA)
National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA)
Political representation as a form of constructing of the democratic sovereign
As pointed out by Rosanvallon (1998), the permanent challenge of the institutionalised model of political representation in our democracies reflects the fact that its decision-making incarnates the unity of the citizen body as much as social differences that must be considered in the articulation of collective will.
This assumption present in contemporary discourses on representation (Disch, Saward), challenges what these authors define as the "metaphysics of presence" which is implied in the recognition that the sovereign is constructed via representation. As argued by Näström (2006), representation is the essence of democracy because it considers people as political agents and defines and redefines a demos.
The paper reviews the literature on the subject for the purpose of analysing the appeals to the existence of a single people in contemporary populist movements such as the Catalan independence movement and Brexit partisans.
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Integration, sovereignty and democracy in political competition on Europe
Category
Paper Panel
Description
June 21
9:00 AM - 10:45 AM
1.A.08
Abstract: As the May European elections approach, incentives loom for actors on both sides of the fence to frame them as a decisive clash between partisans of national sovereignty – often depicted by their critics as populists – and partisans of further European integration – often depicted by their critics as international elites. However, the return of sovereignty as a concept, frame and or narrative is much more complex than what this opposition entails. This is exemplified by the ongoing effort of French president Emmanuel Macron to resignify the very idea of sovereignty at EU level.
This interdisciplinary panel will bild upon the OpenEUdebate Jean Monnet network legal, communication and political science scholarship to discuss how political actors use the notions of integration, sovereignty and democracy when competing for office (political parties and leaders) or influence (interest groups or social movement) in the fragmented European public sphere. It invites contributions from a wide range of analytical and methodological approaches to agenda-setting, framing and political of political discourse with a focus on ongoing national or transnational struggles on the European Union. Contributions relating these argumentative struggles with political strategies and collective action and contention are particularly encouraged. These agenda, discursive and narrative analyses will feed into the OpenEUdebate Jean Monnet network analyses of the campaign for the European elections and the policy issues emerging from the election results.
Disciplines: Political Science
Media Studies
Substantive Tags: Elections and Electoral Politics, European Union and Integration, Political Communication, Political Parties and Party Systems, Populism
Research Networks: None of the Above
