Under which conditions do populist (parties in) government use ‘unpolitics’ in EU Decision-Making

This paper aims to theorise the concept of ‘unpolitics’ in EU decision-making. Through the ‘crucial case’ of refugee distribution in the EU, we have demonstrated that the behaviour of populist governments is ruled by ‘unpolitics’ in the Council. However, we do not know much about their behaviour in other policy areas and in other decision-making institutions. The aim of this paper is to compare the behaviour of populist (parties in) governments in different policy fields and across EU decision-making institutions in order to better understand under which conditions ‘unpolitics’ is a more or less successful strategy in EU decision-making. We expect ‘unpolitics’ to be more present and successful in areas of ‘low risk’ and ‘high gain’ like climate politics or development but we want to account for variation in the use/absence of ‘unpolitics’ as well as better understand the types of strategies they use to practice ‘unpolitics’.