On framing the EU: A plea for the relaunch of frame analysis in the study of elite and mass attitudes on European integration

Abstract

This article makes the case for conceptualisation of attitudes towards the EU as interpretative ‘frames’, to be employed as analytical tools for comparison within and between European countries. At present, this move is all the more necessary. In fact, multiple asymmetrical crises and the entrenchment of ‘differentiated integration’ have compounded the contested, open-ended nature of European integration; in parallel, EU studies have increasingly acknowledged the context dependence, heterogeneity and ambivalence of such attitudes, moving beyond the presumption of stable support or opposition. The article leverages a variety of extant works and the empirical outcomes of a deductive-cum-inductive research endeavour to craft a comprehensive inventory of 16 interpretative frames. Then, it highlights a fundamental application, discussing practices that enable the construction of a frame-based approach to mass-elite congruence on European integration. Further suggested developments entail the study of Euroscepticism, national ‘issue cultures’ and ‘issue fields’, and mass-level attitudes towards the EU.