Principled Politicization: When citizens debate the EU and its regime principles

In this article, building on de Wilde (2011) and Schattschneider (1960), we elaborate on the notion of principled politicization, a process of politicization by which regime principles become salient in public debate in a way that also articulates or implies structural alternatives. First, we argue that in contrast to other conceptualizations of politicization, which focus on policy issues, or “issue-based politicization”, principled politicization concerns another type of political conflict that differs in terms of topic (regime principes) and content (alternatives). As such, this type of debate is inherently related to the concept of democracy. Second, adopting an applied political theory approach, we put to an empirical test the notion of principled politicization by studying citizen discussions about the EU. We examine whether they draw on EU regime principles and discuss alternatives. To do so, we conduct a qualitative secondary analysis of four datasets, consisting of interviews and focus groups with participants from different socio-economic backgrounds and political leanings. They were collected in Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom at four different points in time (1995-2019). We report that some citizens do engage with EU regime principles and consider alternatives to the principles they observe being implemented. This article suggests that politicization can strengthen EU democratization when debates include and, in fact, reflect the challenges to democratic principles themselves.

Affiliations

UCLouvainSSH/SPLE - Institut de sciences politiques Louvain-Europe

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Arens, N., Dupuy, C., & Van Ingelgom, V. (2025). Principled Politicization: When citizens debate the EU and its regime principles. Politics and Governance, 13. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/273358 (Original work published 2025)