„Unpolitics“ in EU policymaking: The role of Austria, Czechia, Italy and Poland in policymaking around the European Green Deal and the Asylum and Migration Pact

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that populist governments, in particular, engage in ‘unpolitics, i.e., ‘transgressive behaviour’ to undermine the traditional political process as well as the adoption of policies that could bring solutions to pressing issues and perceived ‘crises’, often with the aim to sustain such crises and capitalise on them. They do this primarily for mobilisation purposes, even if the non-adoption of a policy has detrimental effects on their constituencies. This behaviour has been termed ‘unpolitics’, as it is neither political nor apolitical, but engages with politics in a way that is meant to undermine traditional politics. It involves undermining political compromise and adopting uncompromising maximum positions, violating formal and informal norms of decision-making and engaging in bad-faith behaviour where previously made decisions and promises are not honoured. Focusing on four countries which had populist governments in place at different times (Austria, Czechia, Poland, and Italy), we analyse how their governments chose or chose not to engage in unpolitics in EU policymaking. We trace their decisions on two broader policy initiatives (the Green Deal and the Asylum and Migration Pact) on which populist actors can be generally expected to mobilise, although the likelihood for mobilisation will likely vary across dossiers. We argue that the likelihood to engage in unpolitics depends on whether a specific issue is considered ‘high gain’ and ‘low costs’ and if the venue where it is discussed allows for easy politicisation (e.g., European Council, European Parliament, domestic arena) or not (Council).