This open access book focuses on the importance that EU politicization has gained in European democracies and the consequences for voting behaviour in six countries of the EU: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

Chapter 1: Holding Europe Accountable Nationally.- Chapter 2: News vs. Opinion Articles on the European Union. The politicization of the EU in the mainstream press.- Chapter 3: Parties acting Strategically: National Parliaments’ role in holding the EU Accountable.- Chapter 4: Polity or Policies? The European Union in Parliamentary debates and the media.- Chapter 5: Experimental Evidence of EU issue voting.- Chapter 6: The Left-Right dimension, Europe and Voting in Bailout Europe.- Chapter 7: EU issue voting in simultaneous elections: The case of Belgium.- Chapter 8: The importance of EU issues in German elections.- Chapter 9: After the crisis: EU issue voting in Greece.- Chapter 10: Salient but not polarized: The role of the EU in the Irish electoral arena.- Chapter 11: Portugal: EU issue voting in Mainstream and Challenger Parties.- Chapter 12: A broken national consensus? EU issue voting and the radical right in Spain.- Chapter 13: Consequences of EU Politicisation for Voting in National Elections. 

“This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of how the European Union influences national politics and how the national response to Europe can serve as a channel of accountability in the European Union. The authors engage fundamental questions relating to national elections and European issues with an eye to explaining the dynamics of EU political support and opposition in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The authors come to grips with these questions using extensive original data on EU coverage in the national media, parliamentary debates, and online surveys. In short, this volume is a signal contribution to our understanding of EU politicization.” -- Gary Marks, Burton Craige Professor, UNC Chapel Hill, USA, and Professor, Robert Schuman Centre, EUI, Italy.This open access book focuses on the importance that EU politicization has gained in European democracies and the consequences for voting behaviour in six countries of the EU: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Most of the studies which research the way the EU is being legitimised focus on the European Parliament elections. In this book we argue that to understand how EU accountability works, it is necessary to focus instead on national elections and the national political environment. Through a detailed, multimethod analysis this book establishes rigorously the paths of European accountability at the national level, its propitious contexts in the media and parliamentary debates, and whether the paths are similar from Greece to Germany. The findings have implications for both national and European Union democracy, underlining the importance that national institutions have in enabling citizens to hold the EU accountable.Marina Costa Lobo is Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon in Portugal, and Director of the European Political Science Review.

“This book makes a major contribution to our understanding of how the European Union influences national politics and how the national response to Europe can serve as a channel of accountability in the European Union. The authors engage fundamental questions relating to national elections and European issues with an eye to explaining the dynamics of EU political support and opposition in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The authors come to grips with these questions using extensive original data on EU coverage in the national media, parliamentary debates, and online surveys. In short, this volume is a signal contribution to our understanding of EU politicization.” (Gary Marks, Burton Craige Professor, UNC Chapel Hill, USA, and Professor, Robert Schuman Centre, EUI, Italy)

Argues to focus on national elections and the national political environment to understand how EU accountability works Establishes EU issue voting using a simultaneous online survey experiment in six EU countries Shows the EU issue matters for voting in challenger as well as mainstream parties across Europe Is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access

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