Ideology, Strategy or Events? Politicisation of European Integration on Politicians’ Social Media Accounts

Most research on the politicisation of European integration (EU politicisation) deals with politicisation in Western, Northern and Southern European countries and often leaves out countries in Central and Eastern Europe. It is also a common approach, albeit not exclusive, to focus on EU politicisation by political party actors based on either media data or manifestos, usually covering snapshot periods ahead of EP or national parliamentary elections. In this paper, we aim to complement the existing body of research on EU politicisation by examining it in six EU member states, including five Central and Eastern Europe countries (Czechia, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), over a prolonged period of time in an unmediated, direct communication channel of politicians, namely their Twitter accounts. We cover the period between 2006 and 2022, during which Twitter has been gradually established as an important channel of politicians’ communication. Based on a quantitative content analysis (N = 183,256), we detail the descriptive trends in EU politicisation across the analysed period and countries. Using cross-sectional time- series data and within estimator regression analysis, we show that EU politicisation is accounted for by (a) politicians’ placement on the GAL-TAN and European integration dimensions, (b) other political party characteristics, such as belonging to government or intra-party unity, and (c) institutionalised political events, such as European Council summits, EU Council presidencies, and EP and national parliamentary elections.