From Punctuation to Stabilisation? (Re-)Assessing the EU Politicisation in the Aftermath of Multiple Crises

After the outbreak of several external shocks (Euro crisis and refugee crisis), the study of EU politicisation has received an increasing attention from the scholars. Many works have showed that this politicisation has been ‘limited’ or ‘punctuated’, being likely to be ephemeral. However, this literature has consistently defined politicisation as a phenomenon occurring when non-political issues become salient, being emphasised and polarised by political actors. The latter overviews have provided with findings on the patterns of party systems politicisation, but overriding to investigate those laypeople populating the overall political system. To fill this gap, we identify the EU party-voter proximity as a compounding element of this political system politicisation. By linking the supply-side and the demand-side of politics, we posit that the EU politicisation has shifted from a punctuation towards a stabilisation after the outbreak of multiple crises. Thus, the following hypotheses are hereby advanced: (H1): In the aftermath of multiple crises, political parties have been increasingly entrepreneurial on the EU issues, stabilising the EU politicisation in the West European party systems. (H2): In the aftermath of the multiple crises, the EU proximity has increasingly conditioned voting preferences, stabilising the EU politicisation in the West European political systems. This work analyses twelve Western European democracies, observing party entrepreneurial and voting preference variations along the pro-/-anti-EU dimension. By theoretically refining the politicisation notion and looking at new empirical results, the core objective is to assess the current extent of EU politicisation process in Western Europe. .