The fracture in the European Union during the Iraq war of 2003 threw into relief the fragile nature of the integration process, certainly so far as foreign and defence questions are concerned, and exposed once again the complexity of the EU as a communicative space. Although cultural-linguistic...

The emergence of a pan-European public sphere as a correlate of democratic governance in the EU is held to be difficult, if not impossible. This has shifted the research agenda to the Europeanisation of public and media communication. The “European public sphere light” is observed by...

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between media coverage of EU policy-formulation and the involvement of national parliaments in these processes. The literature has variously argued that the activity of national parliaments in EU policy-formulation is unrelated to media...

The attempt to pin down the constitutive elements of the European public sphere is typically marked by ambivalence between normative and descriptive elements. In normative terms, the European public sphere is identified through the standards which should be used to assess the legitimacy of...

The paper argues that European integration from above must be accompanied by a Europeanisation of public communication in order to overcome its lack of legitimacy and popular involvement. It relates to the emerging scientific discussion on the Europeanisation of public spheres as a start for...

This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU legitimacy contestation. Support of and opposition to European integration have so far been mainly measured through the positions of political parties or citizens’ attitudes through public opinion...

This paper analyses the prominence, content and justifications of Euroscepticism as a form of EU legitimacy contestation. Support of and opposition to European integration have so far been mainly measured through the positions of political parties or citizens’ attitudes through public opinion...

The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism relates to particular discursive formations within the battlefield of collective identities that is opened by European integration. This paper first aims to highlight the reactionary nature of Euroscepticism. Secondly, it argues for understanding...

This article addresses the critical issue of how constitutional designing of the EU is related to the expression of collective identities. A European collective identity is perceived in terms of the discursive representation of the underlying demos of a European democracy. Against the common...

This paper evaluates the mediatizing potential of the internet on the politics of European integration and the process of enhancing the democratic legitimacy of the European Union (EU), i.e. the ways in which online media participate or interfere with the democratization of the EU by either...