Alter-Europeans: Towards a Politicization of Attitudes Towards Europe?

European integration reorganizes economic and political forces that were priory centered on the national arena. Despite this reconfiguration of interests, for decades, European studies have been unanimous about the absence of political conflict between pro-integration elites and silent publics. However, over the past few years, the deep economic crisis has both drastically increased the European issue’s salience in public opinion and stirred up protests throughout member-states. Citizens appear to be increasingly concerned about the direction of the European project and the political choices that come with it.

This paper goes beyond the traditional dichotomy Eurosceptic v. Euro-enthusiast to provide an empirical test of the politicization thesis by investigating what kind of European project citizens are supporting/opposing (ie. what policy priority they favor at the European level for the next years), how clearly can we identify the anti- versus alter-Europeans, and the economic and ideological logics at work here. The study relies on a comparison of 3 case-studies at the time of the 2014 European elections: Germany, Spain and France, using the MEDW (Making Electoral Democracy Work) survey data.