Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research invites researchers to submit their papers for the special issue “New Wave of Europeanism as a Counterreaction to EU Crises”.
Multiple EU crises of the last fifteen years brought the rise of Eurosceptic and populist actors all over the EU. The crises and the Eurosceptic wave also led to the repositioning of mainstream parties, not only in adopting challengers' narratives but also in giving new emphasis on European values. This also brought the proliferation of new pro-European political and social actors in many EU member states, creating a sort of ‘Europhile backlash’ (Carrieri, 2020). However, theoretical and empirical research has been predominantly focused on Eurosceptic actors and their reactions to crises. Most notable exceptions comparatively studied Eurosceptic and Europeanist parties and voters (Carrieri, 2020) and movements (Caiani and Weisskircher, 2022). This special issue focuses on Europeanist actors: individuals, political parties, social movements, NGOs and voters. We propose a working definition of Europeanism as a ‘thin-centred’ ideology with deeper European integration as its core concept and attempt to examine whether this definition is applicable to analyzed cases.
We are interested in finding out how the EU crises and the rise of Euroscepticism gave new impetus to Europeanist actors. For instance, public opinion data showed that during the last decade a sharp rise in the share of respondents identifying as primarily Europeans occurred in countries with the most Eurosceptic governments: the UK and Hungary (Eurobarometer 2012 (77.4) and 2018 (90.3)). The Brexit debate resulted in splits from mainstream parties and the creation of pro-European parties and NGOs such as Change UK and Best for Britain. New social movement Pulse of Europe organized demonstrations in many EU capitals. Newly founded pan-European parties Volt and DiEM25 organized their branches or communities in many EU member states. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe joined forces with La République En Marche! to form a new pro-European political group Renew Europe. In recent elections, Viktor Orbán's challenger Peter Márki-Zay branded himself as a European federalist and the new German government, particularly the Green party, espoused federalist tendencies. In Poland, a new political party Poland 2050 is calling for the Polish entrance into the Eurozone, contrary to the ruling economic nationalism. Also, the EU institutions and leaders pushed forward new initiatives such as the Conference on the Future of Europe and the European Political Community to promote Europeanist ideas.
We invite theoretical and empirical papers dealing with case studies or comparisons of Europeanist actors acting in different arenas. The papers should try to answer some of the following questions:
- How and why did new pro-European actors emerge or were transformed?
- What is their relation to EU crises and Eurosceptic actors?
- What is their impact on national politics and on European politics?
- Are these new pro-Europeans embedded in their national contexts or are they trying to surpass them?
- What is new and what is old in these pro-European reactions?
