Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Atikcan, Ece Ozlem

Titel

‘Framing’ the European Union: Explaining the 2005 constitutional referenda results

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The 2005 European Union (EU) constitutional referenda results reflected growing Euroscepticism. While the referenda in Spain and Luxembourg approved the European Constitution (TCE), the ones in France and the Netherlands rejected it. Polls show that public opinion in all four countries originally favored the TCE several months before the referenda. Why could this initial positive public opinion not be sustained in the French and Dutch cases? I argue that the stronger a state’s No campaign relative to its Yes campaign—that is, the better the No campaigners linked existing contentious issues to the European Constitution—the greater the increase in the magnitude of the No vote. Based on 96 in-depth interviews with campaigners, media content analyses and public opinion data from all cases, I show that the initial favorable public opinion in the French and Dutch cases fell dramatically due to strong No campaigns because the French and Dutch No campaigners framed the issue effectively. The framing literature argues that politicians encourage voters to think along particular lines, by using frames that emphasize certain features of the subject. Vivid, concrete, image-provoking, emotionally compelling frames that contain negative information are more successful in influencing individuals’ opinions. In the French and Dutch cases, the No frames argued that the TCE would increase immigration, lead to market-friendly reforms, and cause rising unemployment. In contrast, the Yes campaign frames sounded overly technical, presenting the TCE as an institutional step towards a better Europe. Negative, immediate linkages to existing problems won over abstract, non-immediate benefits. Strong No campaigns successfully countered the initial favorable public opinion in these referenda. Nevertheless, I also argue that the temporal sequencing of the referenda could affect the relative strength of the No campaign in second-mover states; all campaigns were therefore not created equal. The later a state held its referendum, the more the previous referenda campaigns could influence campaign dynamics. However, this diffusion effect was not automatic and depended on channels such as shared language/culture, common media sources, and collaborative networks/transnational linkages. Where these channels were present and the campaign of the first-mover state was intense, diffusion amplified the strength of referenda campaigns in second-mover states.