Under which conditions do populist governments use ‘unpolitics’ in EU policy-making

This paper aims to better understand the concept of ‘unpolitics’ in EU policy-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 in order to better understand under which conditions ‘unpolitics’ is more likely to occur. We expect that two conditions contribute to the use of ‘unpolitics’ by populist governments: first, the framing of the issue, i.e. whether it can be defined as a ‘low risk’ issue where nothing is lost by using unpolitics and a lot can be gained by perpetuating crises (high gain); second, the type of venue, which might make it easier to politicise issues and also publicise the use of ‘unpolitics’. Our argument is that these conditions target the linkage between the EU and the domestic arena and to what extent populist governments can mobilise the use of ‘unpolitics’ to remain in power.