Emphasizing European Integration in Party Communication

This paper presents the results of an ongoing research aiming at analysing the politicization of European integration in political parties’ communications. I am interested in the active role that political actors may play in the dynamic process of (de)politicization. Particularly, the public communication of national parties on European integration may follow a (de)politicization strategy. Indeed, some parties may prefer the EU issue to be highly salient and politicized in the national debate, while others may prefer the opposite. Therefore, they will try to emphasize or de-emphasize the EU in their communication. This paper focuses on the measurement of party emphasis of European integration