In the wake of the financial crisis, ‘Europe’ has become a structurally contested and salient topic in the Member States of the European Union. Questions of redistribution between rich and poorer Member States or between tax payers and banks are intertwined with questions regarding the powers of EU institutions and the extent to which EU citizens want a common overarching polity. This issue appears idiosyncratic yet may be part of a broader emerging cleavage in response to denationalization. Increased international interdependence is not restricted to fiscal policies in the Eurozone, but also includes issues of migration, trade and climate change to name but a few. Whether such issues affect each other by providing common themes, narratives and coalitions pitting cosmopolitan arguments against communitarian arguments or remain independent from each other is a question of empirical sociological research. This paper analyzes public debates on a range of issues related to denationalization investigating differences and commonalities in the discussion of regional integration, migration, trade, climate change and human rights across countries and at the international level. It asks to what extent the politicization of Europe is embedded within a broader societal cleavage that might be labeled cosmopolitanism vs. communitarianism.
