European Solidarity: An Analysis of Debates on Redistributive Policies in France and Germany (Contributions to Political Science) 3030761746, 9783030761745

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Contributions to Political Science

Raphaela Hobbach

European Solidarity An Analysis of Debates on Redistributive Policies in France and Germany

Contributions to Political Science

The series Contributions to Political Science contains publications in all areas of political science, such as public policy and administration, political economy, comparative politics, European politics and European integration, electoral systems and voting behavior, international relations and others. Publications are primarily monographs and multiple author works containing new research results, but conference and congress reports are also considered. The series covers both theoretical and empirical aspects and is addressed to researchers and policy makers.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11829

Raphaela Hobbach

European Solidarity An Analysis of Debates on Redistributive Policies in France and Germany

Raphaela Hobbach Das Progressive Zentrum e.V., Berlin, Germany

ISSN 2198-7289 ISSN 2198-7297 (electronic) Contributions to Political Science ISBN 978-3-030-76174-5 ISBN 978-3-030-76175-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76175-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface and Acknowledgements

This book is based on my dissertation, which I submitted to the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich in November 2019. Between then and when this book was published, the topic of European solidarity has steadily gained in importance due to the broad societal debate on European cooperation and mutual support among the member states of the European Union (EU) during the COVID-19 crisis. In this context, the introduction of policies such as the Next Generation EU recovery plan is often understood as an expression of European solidarity. Although this book does not cover recent debates during the COVID-19 crisis within the EU, it contributes to the understanding of these debates by revealing rhetorical reflexes and dominant perceptions of redistribution and solidarity in France and Germany that are unlikely to disappear any time soon. I would like to take the opportunity to thank a number of people who have supported me over the years and helped make my dissertation and this book possible. A big thank you to my first Ph.D. supervisor Bernhard Zangl and my second Ph.D. supervisor Berthold Rittberger, who always gave me constructive feedback, showed me possible solutions when I had problems along the way, and supported me in various ways. Furthermore, I would also like to thank all the staff and students at the Geschwister Scholl Institute for Political Science at the LMU. Whether it was warm welcomes at the entrance gate, daily chats at the canteen counter, help from the administrative staff in solving everyday problems or our professional exchanges overall, I will always think fondly of my time there. Regarding substantive exchange, I would like to thank the entire team of the Chair of Global Governance and Public Policy for enriching my daily work, as well as all participants of the IR Colloquium for the patience and feedback they provided me over the years. Special thanks to Tim Heinkelmann-Wild and Benjamin Daßler for our collaboration over all these years, our lunch and coffee break exchanges, and your constant and helpful feedback on my work. Thanks also to Hilde van Meegdenburg and Andreas Kruck for your helpful advice on how to proceed, which comments to implement and which to disregard, and for your general support. Thanks also to Felix Biermann, Ronny Patz, Veronika Ohliger and many more who gave me guidance on how to get to the finish line. v

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Preface and Acknowledgements

Many thanks also to Alex, Ella and Sarah, who always supported and believed in me and proofread large parts of my work. And last but not least, many thanks to my parents who have always supported me. Berlin, Germany March 2021

Raphaela Hobbach

Contents

1 Introduction: On the Relevance of European Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The Rise of Redistributive Policies and Its Linkage to European Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Existing Research and Its Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Theoretical Focus and Analytical Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Case Selection and Introduction of the Four Cases of Interest . . . . . 1.4.1 Policy Context: Euro Crisis and Migration Crisis . . . . . . . . . 1.4.2 National Context: France and Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Summary of the Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 Structure of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Conceptualisation and Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 European Solidarity: Defining a Contested Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Introducing Public Justifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Theoretical Approaches to Analysing Public Debates . . . . . . 2.2.2 Frame Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Analysing Public Justifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Analysing Parliamentary Debates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Conceptualisation: Mapping Public Justifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Explaining the Relevance of European Solidarity with Five Influencing Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Political Culture: The Openness Towards Solidarity . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Material Benefit: Cheap Talk by Receiving Countries . . . . . 2.5.3 Political Support: The Share of Supportive Statements in a Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.4 Party Ideology: The Involvement of Left-Wing Actors in a Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.5 Policy Precision: Debating the Broader Objective Versus Specific Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.6 Applicability of the Five Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 2 5 8 11 12 14 16 17 19 25 26 28 28 31 32 34 35 37 38 38 40 41 42 42

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Contents

2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43 44

3 Research Design and Data Basis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Objective and Methodological Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 Case Study Research: Paired Comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.2 Congruence Analysis: Beyond Covariation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.3 Case Selection and the Testing of Different Hypotheses . . . . 3.2 Measuring the Reference to European Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Qualitative Content Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Coding Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Data Basis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49 50 50 51 52 53 53 55 57 59 60

4 The Overall Pattern of Public Justifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Justifying Redistributive Policies in the EU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 European Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 European Political Argumentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 European Economic Argumentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.4 National Argumentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Relevance of European Solidarity in the Four Cases of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61 62 63 64 66 67 67 69

5 National Comparison I: The Relevance of European Solidarity in the French Versus the German Debate During the Euro Crisis . . . 5.1 The Argumentative Patterns in France and Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Political Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Material Benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Political Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Party Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71 72 74 80 82 87 90 91

6 National Comparison II: The Relevance of European Solidarity in the French Versus the German Debate During the Migration Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 The Argumentative Patterns in France and Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Political Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Material Benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Political Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Party Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95 96 98 103 106 108 111 113

Contents

7 Crisis Comparison: The Relevance of European Solidarity During the Euro Crisis Versus the Migration Crisis in France and Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Point of Departure: The Relevance of European Solidarity in the Four Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Material Benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Political Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Party Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Policy Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Summary and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Key Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.1 The Relevance of European Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.2 The Varying Patterns of European Solidarity in the Four Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1.3 Explaining the Relevance of European Solidarity . . . . . . . . . 8.1.4 The Discursive Struggle on Defining European Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Generalisation and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.1 Generalisation of the Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2.2 Limitations of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Political Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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115 116 117 119 120 122 124 126 127 128 128 130 132 136 138 138 139 142 144

Appendix A: Parliamentary Composition During the Investigation Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Appendix B: Coding Handbook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

About the Author

Dr. Raphaela Hobbach worked as Research Associate at the Geschwister Scholl Institute for Political Science at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich from 2015 to 2020, where she specialised in European politics and international relations. Currently, she works as Senior Project Manager in the field of European democracy and international dialogue at the independent think tank Das Progressive Zentrum in Berlin. This book is based on her dissertation, which she completed at the end of 2019.

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Abbreviations

AC AfD BU CDU CSU EC ECB EELV EFSF EFSM EMU ESM EU FDP FG FN GDP GDR GU IR LMU LV MoDem MP NC PCF PG PR PRG PS

Alliance centriste (eng. Central Alliance) Alternative für Deutschland (eng. Alternative for Germany) Banking Union Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (eng. Christian Democratic Union of Germany) Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern (eng. Christian Social Union in Bavaria) European Commission European Central Bank Europe Écologie Les Verts (eng. Europe Ecology The Greens) European Financial Stability Facility European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism European Monetary Union European Stability Mechanism European Union Freie Demokratische Partei (eng. Free Democratic Party) Front de gauche (eng. Left Front) Front National (eng. National Front) Gross Domestic Product Gauche démocrate et républicaine (eng. Democratic and Republican Left) Gauche unitaire (eng. United Left) International Relations Ludwig Maximilians University Les Verts (eng. The Greens) Mouvement démocrate (eng. Democratic Movement) Member of Parliament Nouveau Centre (eng. New Center ) Parti communiste français (eng. French Communist Party) Parti de gauche (eng. Left Party) Parti radical (eng. Radical Party) Parti radical de Gauche (eng. Radical Party of the Left) Parti socialiste (eng. Socialist Party) xiii

xiv

RRDP SPD SRC

SRM SSM UDI UK UMP

Abbreviations

Radical, républicain, démocrate et progressistes (eng. Radical, Republican, Democratic and Progressive) Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (eng. Social Democratic Party of Germany) Until 2012: Socialiste, radical, citoyen et divers gauche (eng. Socialist, radical, citizen and various left), after 2012: Socialiste, républicain et citoyen (eng. Socialist, republican and citizen) Single Resolution Mechanism Single Supervisory Mechanism Union des démocrates et indépendants (eng. Union of Democrats and Independents) United Kingdom Union pour un mouvement populaire (eng. Union for a Popular Movement)

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2

Basis and consequences of public justifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Factors expected to influence the relevance of European solidarity in a debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overall argumentative pattern: distribution of argumentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of justifications referring to European solidarity in the four cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of the spatial reference point during the euro crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of supportive and critical justifications in all justifications during the euro crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of European solidarity within supportive and critical justifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of the spatial reference point during the migration crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EU asylum applications: share of EU total in 2014 and per 1000 inhabitants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of European solidarity in the four cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . European solidarity in the overall argumentative pattern . . . . . . . . Share of European solidarity in the four cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33 43 63 68 79 83 84 102 104 116 129 130

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5 Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 6.5 Table 6.6 Table 6.7 Table 6.8 Table 6.9 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4

Four cases of interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Explaining the relevance of European solidarity in a debate . . . Conceptual framework to map public justifications . . . . . . . . . . Number of coded justifications for the four cases of interest . . . Overall pattern of justifications regarding redistributive policies in the EU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Argumentative pattern in the French debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Argumentative pattern in the German debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Political culture in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Material benefit in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Level of political support in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of justifications based on European solidarity per parliamentary group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of justifications in the debate per parliamentary group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of left-wing actors in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Argumentative pattern in the French debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Argumentative pattern in the German debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Political culture in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . First time asylum applicants in the EU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Material benefit in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Level of political support in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of justifications based on European solidarity per parliamentary group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of justifications in the debate per parliamentary group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of left-wing actors in the two cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Material benefit in the four cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Level of political support in the four cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Share of left-wing parties in the four cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Precision of the policies in the four cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11 12 36 59 62 72 73 80 82 87 88 89 89 96 97 103 105 106 108 109 110 111 118 119 121 124 xvii

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Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table A.1 Table A.2 Table B.1 Table B.2

List of Tables

Explanatory power of the four hypotheses for the country comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Explanatory power of the four hypotheses for the crisis comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Explaining the relevance of European solidarity in a national debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parliamentary composition in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parliamentary composition in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Selection of plenary debates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Four main categories of the coding system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

133 135 136 148 149 152 154

Chapter 1

Introduction: On the Relevance of European Solidarity

Abstract This chapter introduces the subject matter of the book and provides a comprehensive overview of the book’s argument and structure. The book is introduced as the first systematic analysis of national debates on redistributive EU policies and the relevance of European solidarity therein providing important insights into (1) domestic support for redistributive EU policies, (2) the general strength of European solidarity in a society and (3) the conditions under which reference to European solidarity is pronounced. The chapter begins with a discussion of the relevant literature and describes the research gap that is filled by the book. It further presents the theoretical foundations and analytical approach of the book and elaborates on the four cases selected to analyse the relevance of European solidarity: (1) the French debate during the euro crisis, (2) the German debate during the euro crisis, (3) the French debate during the migration crisis and (4) the German debate during the migration crisis. Finally, the chapter concludes with a summary of the main findings of the book and outlines the approach to be taken in the next chapters.

Solidarity is the glue that keeps our Union together. […] Our European budget is living proof of financial solidarity. […] The euro is an expression of solidarity. […] And when it comes to managing the refugee crisis, we have started to see solidarity. I am convinced much more solidarity is needed. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, in the State of the Union address in 2016 (Juncker, 2016, p. 16).

European solidarity is one of the fundamental principles and core values of the European Union (EU). It plays not only a central role in the European treaties but also in the public debate on European politics (Beutler, 2017, p. 21; Grimmel, 2017, p. 4). As many actors consider it to be a prerequisite for burden sharing and redistributive policies on the European level (Kontochristou & Mascha, 2014, p. 50; Rüger, 2014; Lamping, 2010, p. 64), the discussion of these topics during recent European crises has moved European solidarity into the focus of political attention (Lahusen & Grasso, 2018b, p. 1). This book understand European solidarity as the willingness to support other Europeans in need based on the feeling of community and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Hobbach, European Solidarity, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76175-2_1

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1 Introduction: On the Relevance of European Solidarity

the moral obligation to help and investigates the relevance1 of European solidarity in national debates on redistributive policies at the European level. It answers the question of how relevant European solidarity is when redistributive policies in the EU are discussed at the national level and examines the conditions under which it is more or less pronounced. In addition, the analysis reveals discursive struggles about the practical interpretation of European solidarity. Regarding the term redistributive policies, it has to be pointed out that almost all policies at the national level create winners and losers and therefore, in its broadest sense, “virtually all government policy can be termed redistributive” (Sefton, 2008, p. 1; see also Tullock, 1997). At the international level, it can therefore be argued that the further an international institution moves from intergovernmental to supranational polices and the more, previously national, policy fields are communitarised, the more likely and permanent redistributive effects between the member states of this institution become. In this book, redistributive policies at the European level are therefore understood as policy measures with potentially redistributive effects between different EU member states. This includes explicit redistributive policies such as structural funds and agricultural subsidies in the European budget, as well as implicit redistributive policies such as the granting of credits, the introduction of a common deposit protection and the establishment of a common management of external borders.

1.1 The Rise of Redistributive Policies and Its Linkage to European Solidarity While redistributive policies at the European level have historically focused on specific areas such as agricultural and regional policy, which have not typically been at the heart of the public debate, reactions to recent European crises have changed this fundamentally. Redistributive policies and questions of burden sharing between EU member states have not only grown in importance, they have also become more visible to and contested by the public (Börzel, 2016; Ferrera, 2017; Kullas et al., 2016; Statham & Trenz, 2014; Vilpišauskas, 2013). When financial transfers between euro zone countries were established during the euro crisis, conditions for supporting other EU member states were controversially debated in many EU member states. In the years to follow, the migration crisis fostered a debate about the fair redistribution of asylum seekers, the communitarisation of new policy fields and the corresponding financial burdens. More recently, the Brexit negotiations have revived the debate about the composition of the EU budget. This is illustrated by the debate on a common budget for the euro zone area and new redistributive instruments such as the European investment fund for infrastructure launched by French President Emmanuel Macron (2017). 1

When I speak of the “relevance” of European solidarity in the public debate, I refer to its discursive manifestation, i.e. the frequency with which it is mentioned in a debate.

1.1 The Rise of Redistributive Policies and Its Linkage …

3

These incidents point towards the growing importance of redistributive policies for the future of the European integration process. However, the implementation of redistributive policies is not without criticism and contradiction. Various scholars argue that conflicts between EU member states on redistributive policies and the related question of burden sharing and European solidarity are causing the recent rise in the politicisation of European integration issues at the national level, which makes them highly politically relevant (Börzel, 2016, p. 9; Statham & Trenz, 2014, p. 13; Vilpišauskas, 2013, p. 372). The issue of redistribution between member states goes to the essence of politics, compared to mostly very technical issues of regulatory policies. The public disapproval of financial transfers from their countries to other EMU [European Monetary Union] members or public protests in recipient countries against conditionality which links bail-out support to a set of domestic reforms has become a new and increasingly important constraint on further processes of European integration (Vilpišauskas, 2013, p. 363).

Since the rising influence of national debates on European politics is a wellestablished finding in research on politicisation in the EU, it seems promising to take a closer look at national debates on redistributive policies in the EU and the role of European solidarity therein. However, neither national debates on redistributive policies in the EU nor the discursive role of European solidarity in public debates have been explored so far. In politicisation research, one finds a consensus that the influence of national debates in shaping European politics has increased significantly in recent years (Börzel & Risse, 2018; Hutter et al., 2016; Rauh & Zürn, 2016; Zürn 2016a; Statham & Trenz et al., 2013, 2014; Wilde & Zürn, 2012; Wilde, 2011). Nevertheless, national debates on redistributive policies in the EU have not yet been systematically analysed. Current research on European solidarity (Federico & Lahusen, 2018; Genschel & Hemerijck, 2018; Gerhards et al., 2018; Giannakopoulos, 2017a; Grimmel & Giang, 2017; Ferrera, 2014) focuses largely on individual and societal attitudes or on actual policy practices. The discursive expression of European solidarity, which is probably most likely to be referred to in the debates on redistributive policies in the EU, has been largely neglected. Moreover, existing studies have not always clearly distinguished between the support for redistributive policies at the European level and the manifestation of European solidarity (see Sect. 1.2). Building on the above, this book argues that the analysis of national debates on redistribution in the EU and the discursive manifestation of European solidarity therein provides key insights into domestic support for redistributive EU policies and the general strength of European solidarity in a society. On the one hand, this book provides insight into the domestic perception of redistributive policies at the European level and offers a critical analysis of the common assumption that these policies are based on a feeling of European solidarity. On the other hand, it gives insight into the general relevance of European solidarity in a specific situation that attitudinal survey results or ex-post assessments of political outcomes cannot provide. Since debates on redistributive policies are cases in which the reference to European solidarity is expected to be most likely, they provide an insight into the manifestation of European solidarity in a particular situation. For if European solidarity is a relevant factor at all, it should be visible in these debates.

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1 Introduction: On the Relevance of European Solidarity

Against this backdrop, this book provides an in-depth investigation of the role of European solidarity in national debates on redistributive policies in the EU. Starting from the assumption that the relevance of European solidarity is likely to vary in the public debates of different EU member states (polity dimension) and in different issue areas (policy dimension), this book analyses four cases that differ either in their national context or in their policy context to reflect a wide range of debates. Moreover, the four selected debates are also interesting cases in their own right. The four cases under investigation are: (1) the French debate during the euro crisis, (2) the German debate during the euro crisis, (3) the French debate during the migration crisis and (4) the German debate during the migration crisis. The central research question of this book is: How relevant is European solidarity when redistributive policies in the EU are debated at the national level? Based on the assumption that the public exchange and discussion of arguments is a meaningful and consequential act in democratic politics, this book develops a conceptual framework to map public justifications. It examines how common the reference to European solidarity is when actors justify their support for or rejection of the redistributive policies under discussion. The empirical analysis reveals whether European solidarity is the main point of reference, or if other argumentations, such as economic benefits or political (dis)advantages, are more important in the selected debates. In this way, this book disproves the wide-spread assumption that the support for redistributive policies can be equated with the manifestation of European solidarity. In order to understand the context conditions for the relevance of European solidarity, the follow-up question after measuring the relevance of European solidarity is: Under what conditions is the relevance of European solidarity more or less pronounced? When comparing the four cases, the analysis is open to various theoretical explanations for the relevance of European solidarity in a debate. Different influencing factors along the two dimensions of case selection, the national context and the policy context, as well as additional within-case factors are investigated to understand the occurrence of European solidarity within the four cases. In total, five influencing factors are tested: (1) political culture, (2) material benefit, (3) political support, (4) party ideology and (5) policy precision. In the end, the empirical analysis reveals the importance of national political culture (1) for the public appeal to European solidarity. Combined with the precision of a policy (5), the cultural openness towards solidarity-based policies can explain the varying pattern of European solidarity found in the four cases. Since this book is the first study to explore national debates on redistributive policies in the EU systematically, it has an exploratory character. The main goal of the analysis is to gain in-depth knowledge about European solidarity and its context conditions. However, since this book not only describes an important feature of the cases under examination, the relevance of European solidarity therein, but also tests the explanatory power of five theoretical expectations assumed to influence it, it also has an explanatory intention. The case selection allows conclusions to be drawn about country- and policy field-specific commonalities and differences and is well suited for a paired comparison. As a result, the analysis draws a comprehensive picture of the relevance of European solidarity in the debates on redistributive policies during

1.1 The Rise of Redistributive Policies and Its Linkage …

5

the euro crisis and the migration crisis in France and Germany and shows, in addition, which factors influence the relevance of European solidarity in the analysed debates. This opening chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the book. Section 1.1 starts with a review of the relevant literature and describes the research gap targeted by this book. Then, Sect. 1.2 introduces the theoretical foundations and the analytical approach of the book. Subsequently, Sect. 1.3 presents the case selection and the four selected cases in more detail, Sect. 1.4 introduces the key findings of the book, before, finally, Sect. 1.5 outlines the structure of the book.

1.2 Existing Research and Its Limitations For a long time, “political science has not contributed very much to the study of solidarity” (Stjernø, 2009, p. 20). However, the outbreak of recent European crises has significantly increased interest in the issue. If we take a look at politicisation research, we see that the topic is salient in discourse while the assessments of the actual manifestation and influence of European solidarity varies widely. Michael Zürn is rather pessimistic about the prospects of a transnational solidarity enabling redistribution at the global or European level (Zürn, 2016b, p. 112) and Ram¯unas Vilpišauskas even postulates the “absence of solidarity among EU member states” (Vilpišauskas, 2013, p. 371) during the euro crisis. By contrast, Thomas Risse interprets the events during the euro crisis in an optimistic way arguing that “a majority of Europeans is prepared to pay at least some price for their European identity and to show solidarity with their fellow EU citizens” (Risse, 2014, p. 1210). Jürgen Gerhards et al. state that European citizens “display a notably higher level of solidarity with citizens of other EU countries and EU states than many politicians and social scientists have so far presumed” (Gerhards et al., 2018, p. 3). However, while the topic is often addressed, there is no systematic analysis of the topic in this strand of literature. If we take a look at current research on European solidarity, it is obvious that an emerging strand of literature is interested in the form and expression of solidarity in Europe (Genschel & Hemerijck, 2018; Gerhards et al., 2018; Lahusen & Grasso 2018a; Ciornei & Recchi, 2017; Bendiek and Neyer, 2016; Bast and Knodt, 2014; Ferrera, 2014; Calliess, 2013; Ross & Borgmann-Prebil, 2010). However, most of the studies focus on the analysis of individual or societal attitudes in relation to European solidarity (Gerhards et al., 2018; Lahusen & Grasso, 2018a; Ciornei & Recchi, 2017) or on actual policy practices in different EU countries or at the European level (Lahusen & Grasso, 2018a; Bast & Knodt, 2014). So far, scholars have largely neglected to look at societal debates on European solidarity and the actual statements of the involved actors. Despite the growing reference to European solidarity at the European and national level, references to European solidarity in the political discourse have so far mostly been used as illustrative examples of the general relevance of the issue and have not been systematically analysed (Wallaschek, 2016, pp. 104–105). Next to a recent contribution by Stefan Wallaschek (2017), who has analysed the German media

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discourse in the migration crisis by focusing on the discourse networks and the dominating understandings of solidarity in the debate, there are hardly any studies analysing public debates on European solidarity. This research gap on the discursive use of European solidarity is remarkable. It is not only surprising considering the growing debate on the role of solidarity in Europe, but also because of the crucial role attributed to the public in creating and strengthening solidarity. Solidarity is thought to be developed through communicative action and “conducted in, or mediated by, a public sphere” (Ross, 2010, p. 29). Direct communication and the constitutive power of discursive practices are assumed to play a central role in its creation, especially in the transnational sphere where European solidarity is indigenous (Calhoun, 2002, p. 164). The Linkage Between Redistributive Policies and European Solidarity Next to the lack of research on the manifestation of European solidarity in public debates, I want to focus on the linkage between European solidarity and redistributive policies at the European level. I argue that even if recent research in the field of political economy strengthens the assumption that the feeling of European solidarity contributes to the support of redistributive policies in the EU (Bechtel et al. 2014; Kuhn et al. 2017), it cannot be concluded that the support for redistributive policies can be equated with the manifestation of European solidarity. Yet, various statements found in the literature on European solidarity easily lead to such an assumption: Solidarity lies at the very heart of European society as a value and a guiding principle for numerous politics. Since the Eurozone was created, solidarity has functioned as one of the political parameters necessary for sharing responsibility for financial implications and austerity measures. Behind every financial assistance, measure and subsidy lies the solidarity principle (Kontochristou & Mascha, 2014, p. 50). The crisis has been accompanied by what may appear to have been an increase in crossborder solidarity, with the establishment of bail-out funds, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), and a debate about introducing euro bonds. On the other hand, there has been much talk about the supposedly „natural” limits to solidarity between EU countries (Watt, 2012, p. 46). In the wake of the sovereign-debt crisis, the European Union is confronted for the first time with the prospect of direct fiscal transfer of wealth from one group of citizens to another, on a scale that calls for a reappraisal of the ideal and impact of solidarity in this Union (Nicolaïdis & Viehoff, 2012, p. 24).

Similarly problematic are studies that claim to investigate European solidarity and then operationalise the phenomenon as the individual willingness to support (specific) redistributive policies in the EU (Ciornei & Recchi, 2017; Genschel & Hemerijck, 2018; Lengfeld & Kroh, 2016). In these cases, the authors speak of European solidarity when an individual affirms the questions “Do you think EU countries should be willing to offer financial aid to another member state in the following circumstances?” (Genschel & Hemerijck, 2018, p. 4) or when an individual confirms “the willingness to share (economic) risks across the EU” (Ciornei & Recchi, 2017, p. 3). The problem with such a procedure is that it does not take the reasons for supporting redistributive policies into account. These studies simply

1.2 Existing Research and Its Limitations

7

equate the support for redistributive policies in the EU with the manifestation of European solidarity. In this book, I argue that these approaches are problematic as they ignore the normative core of European solidarity. Understood as the willingness to support other Europeans in need based on the feeling of community and following a perceived moral obligation to help, European solidarity can be distinguished from philanthropy between individuals who are completely independent from each other (by its assumption of a collective identity) and from a functional cost-benefit calculation (by its normative basis). While the acceptance of redistributive policies can be an indicator for solidarity (Zürn, 2000, p. 199), this is not always the case. For example, such an acceptance might also be based on political or economic considerations. This means that even though the link between the support for redistributive policies and European solidarity might be strong in theory, one should not equate the two. It should therefore not be the assumption of an analysis that the support for redistributive policies in the EU is based on a sense of European solidarity, but a possible outcome. This view is supported by a study by Closa and Maatsch (2014) that examines the voting patterns in national plenary debates on the introduction of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) in 11 euro states in autumn 2011. While the study’s focus is on explaining the different voting patterns in national parliaments, the authors note that European solidarity as the legal basis of the EFSF “has been an important theme of much of the public discourse carried out among key political actors in Europe” (Closa & Maatsch, 2014, p. 827). Yet, the governing parties in support of the EFSF “did not refer to this principle in their speeches but rather to pragmatic considerations such as national economic interests” (Closa & Maatsch, 2014, p. 826). On this basis, I would like to stress that, even if a policy or its consequences are considered by outside observers as based on solidarity, this judgement of a political outcome does not inform us of the motivation for the adoption of this policy by the actors involved (or what is easier to investigate: the reasons given) and the relevance of the norm of European solidarity in this process. This book is, however, particularly interested in the process of public discussion before the adoption of a policy and thus the justification of redistributive policies in the EU and the relevance of European solidarity in this debate. Against the background of the current state of research, the focus on the relevance of European solidarity in debates on redistributive policies seems to be a promising research subject that contributes to current debates. Since the manifestation of European solidarity in public debates has been insufficiently researched, this book helps to close this gap. By developing a conceptualisation that measures the relevance of European solidarity in the debates on redistributive EU policies, this book allows a systematic analysis and comparison of different debates in which European solidarity plays a role. The application of the developed framework to various debates on redistributive policies in the EU contributes to a better understanding of the relevance of European solidarity in supporting (or rejecting) such policies. This is particularly true as this book compares not only the debates in two different countries but also the debates in two different policy contexts in which redistributive EU policies are

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discussed. The few relevant studies in this field have so far only focused on one policy area and have not systematically analysed the issue. In a nutshell, this book complements the existing but patchy knowledge of the relevance of European solidarity for the introduction of redistributive policies at the European level. By analysing national debates across the polity and policy dimension, this book is the first to comprehensively examine the relevance of European solidarity for the introduction of redistributive policies in the EU. In addition, it also investigates the context conditions for the reference to European solidarity in the public debate. The strength of the analysis is the focus on actual statements in the political debate and the justifications contained therein that cannot be obtained by attitudinal surveys that focus only at the support or rejection of redistributive policies. Why these public justifications are regarded as relevant in a national debate is explained in the next section.

1.3 Theoretical Focus and Analytical Approach To examine the relevance of European solidarity in the four selected debates, this book proceeds in two steps: in a first step, the book investigates the argumentative pattern in selected plenary debates in each parliament. To do so, all public justifications for the selected redistributive policies are collected and the share of justifications based on European solidarity is determined. In a second step, a congruence analysis digs deeper into the conditions that favour the reference to European solidarity and helps to make sense of the found patterns of the relevance of European solidarity. The following sections briefly introduce the analysis of public justification, discuss the advantages of analysing parliamentary debates and then present the two analytics steps. For a more detailed description of this process; see Chap. 2. Analysing Public Justifications The analytical focus on argumentative patterns in a debate, in particular on public justifications, is rooted in the rich tradition of research on language and political discourse. Following a “thin” constructivist approach, political discourse is understood and analysed as a “meaning in use” (Holzscheiter, 2014; Milliken, 1999). This means that actors are understood as, on the one hand, embedded in a specific social structure (discourse) which influences their perception of the world and their corresponding actions (speech acts) and are, on the other hand, influencing this structure through their actions. Due to this constitutive power of language, speech acts such as labelling, framing or justifying a policy are consequential and take part in constituting interests and identities, which underlie any political action. A constant reproduction of a given meaning over time can, if there are no successful attempts to challenge it, define what is seen as “natural” or “normal” in a given context. Therefore, a discursive community can define which reasons are seen as justified for the introduction of a redistributive policy, which members are part of a community of solidarity or what obligations the showing of solidarity implies.

1.3 Theoretical Focus and Analytical Approach

9

Public justifications are defined as justificatory statements actors make publicly to legitimise their views or actions in the eyes of others and are understood to be at the heart of every political debate in modern democracies (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017; Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006; Kornprobst, 2014; Lord, 2008). On the one hand, public justifications reveal how actors perceive a given situation and show what they regard as convincing reasons upon which to act (Kornprobst, 2014, p. 197). On the other hand, they also shape judgements about the legitimacy of an actor or a policy (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017, p. 9; Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006, p. 39; Steffek, 2003, p. 263) and do therefore enable political action. For this book, the first aspect of public justifications, their representation of the legitimate reasons for a particular action, is especially important. According to this understanding, the analysis of public justifications can show how relevant the moral obligation to show European solidarity is perceived in a given situation. Analysing Parliamentary Debates The decision to examine public justifications in parliamentary debates is based on three considerations. First, national parliaments are considered to have an important communicative function by providing complex information on European integration issues to national audiences. They can be understood as “the primary arena for the democratic legitimisation of and public debate about decisions in the context of European governance” (Wendler, 2014, p. 4). Second, political parties are, next to the government, the most important actors in the national political arena in representative democracies. And since the high level of politicisation in the selected debates is expected to lead to a strategic competition about these issues among national parties (Hooghe & Marks, 2009), a broad spectrum of national opinions should be represented in the parliamentary struggle over opinion leadership. This leads to the third reason: parliamentary debates provide rich data for an argumentative analysis that other comparable sources—such as media reports that have been edited and shortened—do not provide. While research on European solidarity, as argued above, has neglected the sphere of public debate in general, the majority of studies in politicisation research have so far relied on the analysis of media coverage. The analysis of parliamentary debates is quite rare (Rauh, 2015, p. 116; Wendler, 2014, p. 3). However, if scholars are interested in the process of legitimising and justifying national or European politics, a close look at plenary debates at the national level is the ideal starting point. First Analytical Step: Mapping the Argumentative Pattern in a Debate In a first step, the analysis maps all justifications for redistributive EU policies in the selected debates and measures the share of justifications based on European solidarity. In order to do this, a conceptual framework based on two dimensions has been developed. The two dimensions of interest are (1) the argumentative basis and (2) the spatial reference point. The argumentative basis describes the line of reasoning underlying the justification. Here, the main distinction is made between an argumentation referring to solidarity, defined as the moral obligation to support a specific community, and all other argumentations. The spatial reference point describes the

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point of reference that a justification is related to. It distinguishes between references to the European and the national sphere. The combination of the two dimensions into an analytical framework creates four possible categories in which justifications for and against redistributive policies within the EU can fall (see Table 2.1 on page 36). The most relevant category in this regard is that of European solidarity. A justification falling into this category is based on the moral obligation to help one’s community and is oriented towards the European dimension. Based on this conceptualisation, it is possible to investigate the share of justifications based on European solidarity in a debate and to compare this share to the share of other, rivalling justifications. On the one hand, this makes it possible to critically examine the equation of the support for redistributive policies with the manifestation of European solidarity. On the other hand, it provides a comparison of the share of justifications based on European solidarity between different cases. This allows the empirical analysis not only to show that European solidarity is only one out of many argumentative reference points in a debate, but also to reveal existing differences between the recourse to European solidarity in the four selected cases. The latter is particularly evident between the debates in the two countries and between the debates during the two crises. Second Analytical Step: Understanding the Relevance of European Solidarity In a second step, the analysis investigates under which conditions the reference to European solidarity is more or less pronounced in a debate. Due to the fact that the empirical analysis is open to various theoretical explanations for the relevance of European solidarity within the selected cases, five different influencing factors are investigated when comparing the national debates: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

the political culture of a country and its stance towards solidarity (political culture) the material benefit resulting from a redistributive policy for a country (material benefit) the level of political support for a redistributive policy in a debate (political support) the participation rate of left-wing actors in a debate (party ideology) the precision of a redistributive policy under discussion (policy precision).

These influencing factors are deduced from the literature and differ not only along the two dimensions for case selection but also take into account additional within-case characteristics to explain the relevance of European solidarity in a debate. The theoretical expectations associated with these factors (see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.4) are evaluated on the basis of a congruence analysis. By comparing the different propositions against the empirical observations, the explanatory merits of the five influencing factors are discussed in detail in the context of each paired comparison. In the end, the empirical analysis reveals the importance of national political culture for the public appeal to European solidarity. Combined with the precision of a policy, the cultural openness towards solidarity-based policies can explain the varying pattern of European solidarity found in the four selected national debates.

1.3 Theoretical Focus and Analytical Approach

11

In summary, this two-step approach allows an in-depth comparison of similarities and differences between the argumentative patterns of the four selected national debates. In addition to uncovering how widespread justifications based on European solidarity are in these debates (first step), the analysis shows the conditions under which the reference to European solidarity is more or less likely (second step). Therefore, this book expands our knowledge on the relevance of European solidarity in debates on redistributive policies in the EU as well as on the manifestation of European solidarity in public debates in general.

1.4 Case Selection and Introduction of the Four Cases of Interest Based on the explorative as well as explanatory research interest of this book, a qualitative analysis of a small number of case studies is considered the most appropriate form of investigation to accomplish this task. As mentioned before, the four selected cases differ in two dimensions that are expected to lead to variance of the relevance of European solidarity in national debates: (1) the policy context (euro crisis or migration crisis) and (2) the national context (France or Germany) (see Table 1.1). In the course of the analysis, this selection turns out to be fruitful, since the influencing factors that ultimately prove to be relevant are located along these two dimensions: national political culture and the precision of a policy measure. Apart from these two dimensions, the four cases have common characteristics that make them well suited for comparison. All four cases represent national debates in which redistributive policies in the EU were highly relevant and take place in influential EU countries where parliaments have a right of co-determination in European politics. Moreover, they are politically highly relevant and therefore interesting in Table 1.1 Four cases of interest

Policy context

National context France

Germany

Euro crisis

French debate during the euro crisis

German debate during the euro crisis

Migration crisis

French debate during the migration crisis

German debate during the migration crisis

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Table 1.2 Explaining the relevance of European solidarity in a debate

Policy precision

Political culture

High Unfavourable: Low Favourable: +

Open

Reserved

Favourable: +

Unfavourable: -

-+

--

Euro crisis / France

Euro crisis / Germany

++

+-

Migration crisis / France

Migration crisis / Germany

their own right; a fact that is not unimportant for an exploratory study with a small number of cases. Hence, the case selection enables this book, on the one hand, to provide an in-depth insight into a variety of influential debates on redistributive policies in the EU and, on the other hand, to examine the impact of different theoretical drivers for the relevance of European solidarity in, apart from two dimensions, quite similar cases.

1.4.1 Policy Context: Euro Crisis and Migration Crisis While the selected debates are located in different policy areas and certain theorised influencing factors (such as the material benefit for a country or the precision of the redistributive policies under discussion) might therefore differ, the selected debates otherwise show strong similarities. Both constitute political episodes in which redistributive policies in the EU are discussed publicly in great detail at the national level. During the euro crisis, a broad variety of redistributive policies has been discussed. On the one hand, countries most heavily hit by the crisis were offered financial assistance in the form of individual bailout programmes and temporary funding programmes such as the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) or the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM). Their permanent successor institution, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), has, over the years, provided financial assistance to Greece, Cyprus and Spain and has managed the joint fixing of conditionality as well as the financial conditions on loans (Zoppè & Gasparotti, 2018, p. 1). In addition, the European Central Bank (ECB) lowered the rate of interest in the EU and started limited purchasing programmes for government bonds to prevent a looming credit crunch. On the other hand, the EU developed its economic and fiscal

1.4 Case Selection and Introduction of the Four Cases of Interest

13

governance further by introducing new institutional instruments aimed at streamlining its member states’ policies. Initiated in 2012, the creation of a banking union that advanced the communitarisation of banking policy was executed in the subsequent years. While the creation of commonly guaranteed debt of all member states of the euro zone—mostly discussed under the term “Eurobonds”—was heavily debated at the European level during these years, it was in the end not implemented (Matthijs & McNamara, 2015). The involvement of national parliaments was especially important during the euro crisis due to the fact that some of the European policy proposals directly affected the budgetary sovereignty of national parliaments and reduced the leeway of the member states’ economic policy. Accordingly, the debates on the different policy instruments to tackle the euro crisis were regarded as highly relevant by parliamentarians, the government as well as the broader public in France and Germany (Grande & Kriesi, 2015). In particular, the topic of financial assistance programmes and the connected consequences for national budgets, especially of the ESM, were highly politicised as the views between government and opposition parties differed greatly in both countries. The fact that the heated plenary debates in both parliaments, the Assemblée nationale in France and the Bundestag in Germany, were covered extensively by national and European media outlets (Moschella, 2017, p. 254; Wonka, 2016, p. 140) underlines their importance. During the migration crisis, a broad variety of redistributive policies and burden sharing initiatives were discussed as well. Due to the highly unequal distribution of asylum burdens across the member states, questions of burden sharing, redistribution and European solidarity played an important role in the political debate (Genschel & Jachtenfuchs, 2018; Scipioni, 2018; Thielemann, 2018; Wallaschek, 2017). Since spring 2015, the European Commission (EC) proposed various action plans and measures to tackle the refugee crisis. Particularly relevant for easing the burden of the affected member states—and hence in the focus of this study—were policies targeted at the relocation of people, the sharing of resources as well as, slightly more implicit, the harmonisation of laws (Thielemann, 2018, p. 70). While some policies were introduced successfully, such as the introduction of hotspots in affected countries or the strengthening of the surveillance and control of the EU’s external border, others could not be implemented. In September 2015, the Council adopted an emergency response mechanism to support Italy and Greece by relocating 40,000 asylum seekers voluntarily to other EU member states (European Commission 2015a). Shortly afterwards, this scheme was increased by a further 120,000 persons also located in other affected member states and a mandatory distribution key was introduced (European Commission 2015b). Building upon that, the EC proposed a permanent quota-based relocation mechanism that would automatically be activated when a country received a disproportionate number of asylum seekers and would thus complement the traditional Dublin system’s rules with a “fairness mechanism”. Member states not taking part in this reallocation were expected to make a “solidarity contribution” for each non-admitted applicant (European Commission, 2016). Ultimately, however, such a permanent mechanism could not be introduced at the European level.

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The level of salience and politicisation was quite similar to the situation during the euro crisis. The proposed policies were highly debated throughout Europe and particularly contested by Eastern European countries as well as right-wing parties all over Europe. The newly founded Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany and the Front National (FN) in France took the opportunity to get votes by the use of antiimmigrant rhetoric and position taking and put pressure on the established parties (Geese, 2019, p. 9; Harteveld et al., 2018, p. 157). Against this background, refugee and asylum policies at the European level were repeatedly discussed–in particular before or after corresponding Council meetings—in both parliaments. In brief, it can be said that questions of burden sharing, the support for other member states and European solidarity were at the heart of both crises and contributed significantly to the politicisation of European politics (Biermann et al., 2019, p. 247). Despite different policy outcomes—during the euro crisis numerous legislative packages were adopted while a backlog of reforms during the migration crisis led to a very modest policy outcome—European and domestic publics debated various policies with redistributive consequences at the European level. The two crises are therefore seen as perfect cases “in which the principle of solidarity is the legal basis for the joint action of member states within the institutional and legal framework of the European Union” (Giannakopoulos, 2017b, p. 18). If at all relevant, the reference to European solidarity should therefore emerge in the debates during these two crises.

1.4.2 National Context: France and Germany While the selected debates take place in different national contexts and certain theorised influencing factors (such as the political culture or the material benefit of a country) are therefore likely to differ, the selected debates show otherwise strong similarities. Both countries are founding members and crucial players in the EU, and their parliaments play an important role in the direction of their respective European policies. Germany is the most populated country and has the largest economy in the EU. It is thus the largest contributor to the EU budget and corresponding policy measures. France, the second most populous country with the third strongest economy (after the United Kingdom [UK]) is, due to the British rebate, the second largest contributor to the EU budget (Kullas et al., 2016, p. 2). The two countries, often described as the “twin engine” of European integration, are commonly assumed to be the two crucial actors shaping the future of the European project (Krotz & Schild, 2018; Kr˘astev, 2017, p. 18). Their aspiration of shaping the EU’s future becomes visible not only in recurrent statements to “move further towards political union in Europe and invite the other Europeans to join us in this endeavour” (Ayrault & Steinmeier, 2016) but also in regular bilateral meetings and common reform proposals.2 2

Recent examples are the joint reform proposal „Renewing Europe’s promises of security and prosperity “ declared by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel

1.4 Case Selection and Introduction of the Four Cases of Interest

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The importance of their national parliaments in the field of European policy has increased considerably in recent years in both countries. While French European policy was traditionally dominated by the government due to “the Gaullist-inspired tradition of parliamentary non-intervention in the conduct of external relations” (Rizzuto, 1995: 46), the role of the parliament was for a long time very limited. In the last decade, however, the field of European policies monitored by the parliament has been progressively and continuously broadened. A constitutional act from 2009 provided that the French government submits to parliament every draft or proposal for a European Union instrument (Assemblée Nationale 2012b, p. 380). Accordingly, the European Affairs Committee of the Assemblée nationale examines all instruments and informs the plenary about the ones it judges most important. Since the communicative exchange between the actors in the plenary debate is a crucial part of the legitimation of politics in France (Rozenberg, 2013, p. 304), this represents an important change. While the Bundestag generally plays a significant role in the communication and legitimation of political decisions in Germany due to the parliament’s strong role enshrined in the German constitution (Abels, 2016, p. 115; Demesmay et al., 2013, p. 8), it could also noticeably expand its competences in the field of European policy in the last decade (Abels, 2016; Höing, 2015). In 2012, a decision of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court strengthened the co-determination rights of the Bundestag in European policy by requiring that the government not only inform parliament of agreements concluded, but also communicate interim results “at the earliest possible date” (Deutscher Bundestag 2012). During European crises, in which time pressure is often present, the plenary debates in the two parliaments were often the first place where the government informed the opposition and the public about current European policy projects and justified their stance towards them. Despite the fact that neither the Assemblée nationale nor the Bundestag haven taken part in the shaping of crisis measures during the euro and the migration crisis, they still had to adopt (or at least express their stance regarding) the new instruments of EU governance. All in all, the four selected cases do not only make sense against a theoretical background and are well-suited for comparison, but they are also empirically highly relevant. The euro crisis and the migration crisis are crucial European crises in which major weaknesses of the Union have been identified and their management has a lasting impact on the future of the EU. Moreover, they are characterised by a high level of politicisation. The national debates in France and Germany are the most important debates within the EU due to the political and economic power of the two countries and their special role in the EU. In terms of their policy relevance, the four cases can thus be understand as “crucial cases” (Tarrow, 2010, p. 249) of “intrinsic importance” (van Evera, 1997, p. 87).

after the Franco-German Council of Ministers in June 2018 in Meseberg (The Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, Germany, 2018) and the Franco-German memorandum “A strong Europe in a world of uncertainties” published by French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in June 2016 (Ayrault & Steinmeier, 2016).

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1.5 Summary of the Key Findings Four central results of this book shall be highlighted here. First, European solidarity is only one out of many argumentative reference points when debating redistributive policies at the national level. Second, the occurrence of European solidarity in a debate differs both between countries and between crises. It is more pronounced in France than in Germany and more pronounced during the migration crisis than during the euro crisis. Third, the combination of two influencing factors can explain the found pattern: while the national political culture can explain the difference between the two countries, the policy precision can explain the differences between the two crisis debates. Fourth, while the legitimacy of the norm of European solidarity is strengthened in the debates, the understanding of what European solidarity actually means in political practice is highly contested between different actors. I will now go into these findings in more detail. First, this book demonstrates that European solidarity, understood as a moral obligation to help other Europeans, is only one out of many possible motivations for supporting the introduction of redistributive policies in the EU. In the empirical analysis, it is shown that, in three of the four cases, European solidarity is not the main argumentative reference point in the national debates as argumentations based on economic or political considerations at the European level dominate the picture. Only in one of the four selected debates was European solidarity—very narrowly— the main point of reference when redistributive policies were debated. This finding underlines that the support for redistributive policies should not be equated with the manifestation of European solidarity, thereby challenging existing approaches measuring European solidarity. Second, the measurement of the relevance of European solidarity in the four cases supports the initial expectation that the relevance of European solidarity differs along two dimensions: the national context and the policy context. On the one hand, the comparison of the two countries shows that the reference to European solidarity is more than twice as pronounced in France as in Germany during both crises (increase of around 130%). On the other hand, the comparison of the two crises contexts shows that the reference to European solidarity is significantly more pronounced during the migration crisis than during the euro crisis in both countries (increase of around 50%). Third, while various explanatory factors per dimension were tested and explanatory factors within cases were also taken into account, the analysis shows that the combination of two influencing factors can explain the relevance of European solidarity in the four cases very well (see Table 1.2). The national political culture and its openness towards solidarity-based policies explain the different relevance of European solidarity in France and Germany (horizontal dimension), while the precision of the policies under discussion explains the differences between the debates during the euro crisis and the migration crisis (vertical dimension). Accordingly, the highest share of European solidarity is present in the French debate during the migration

1.5 Summary of the Key Findings

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crisis, and the lowest share of references is present in the German debate during the euro crisis. Based on the found argumentative pattern, it can be assumed that the two explanatory factors not only occur in parallel, but can also be combined to form a joint explanation. While the low precision of a policy can be understood as a favourable context condition for the relevance of European solidarity in a national debate, the use of this window of opportunity requires the action of political actors socialised in a solidarity-friendly culture. Overall, the reference to European solidarity in a national debate seems to follow a logic of appropriateness, rather than a logic of consequence. The material benefits of a redistributive policy for a country, which partly differ both between countries and between the two crises, do not provide a convincing explanation for the pattern of European solidarity found in the four debates. Moreover, neither the participation rate of left-wing actors nor the level of political support are able to convincingly explain the found pattern. Regarding the expectation of political support, the empirical analysis shows that the underlying assumption that supporters of redistributive policies refer more often to European solidarity than their critics is false. It turns out that the linguistic reference to European solidarity is not only used to support a redistributive policy but also to delegitimise it. Fourth, while the above finding contradicts certain theoretical expectations found in the literature on European solidarity, it means that the legitimacy and appropriateness of European solidarity are not denied but rather strengthened in the debates. Nobody wants to be perceived as lacking in European solidarity. At the same time, however, the analysis shows that the understanding of what European solidarity means in practice is often highly contested. In addition to divergent perspectives between supporters and critics, there are also national differences in the understanding of the concept of European solidarity. In the French society, an understanding of solidarity prevails under which conditions or quid pro quo for solidary assistance do not play a major role. Many actors in Germany, on the other hand, are only willing to take European responsibility in return for compliance with certain conditions. It seems that each political group constructs its own version of European solidarity and its practical implementation. This finding is of high political relevance. With regard to the future integration process, it can be argued that the concept of European solidarity needs to be more clearly defined in order to allow a joint debate on the conditions under which European member states are ready to support each other. Without such clarification, further misunderstandings will be encouraged and it will be more difficult to find common solutions (for a detailed discussion, see Chap. 8).

1.6 Structure of the Book This chapter showed that the analysis of national debates on redistributive policies in the EU and the relevance of European solidarity therein is a promising research subject. It helps to better understand the relevance of European solidarity for the

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support for (and the rejection of) redistributive policies in the EU and provides knowledge about the general manifestation of European solidarity in national debates. Therefore, the book at hand contributes not only to a variety of current debates and offers connecting points for different research strands but also speaks to current political developments in the EU. The further analysis is structured as follows: Chap. 2 presents the theoretical and conceptual foundation of this book. It introduces a working definition of European solidarity and presents this book’s approach to examine the relevance of European solidarity when redistributive policies are discussed, namely the analysis of public justifications in parliamentary debates. Building on this, a conceptual framework for mapping public justifications in national debates is introduced. Finally, the chapter presents a theoretical approach for explaining the relevance of European solidarity in a national debate. In this context, five potential influencing factors are introduced: (1) political culture, (2) material benefit, (3) political support, (4) party ideology and (5) policy precision. Based on these influencing factors, five theoretical expectations are formulated to structure the empirical analysis of the four cases. Chapter 3 introduces the research design and the data basis of the book. First, it describes the advantages of case study research, presents the method of paired comparison following a congruence analysis approach and underlines why the case selection is appropriate on theoretical and methodological grounds. Then, the methodology of qualitative content analysis including the category system and coding scheme is presented. The chapter ends with the presentation of the data basis— a selection of 12 plenary debates (six from each parliament)—and explains the consequences of data availability for the structure of the empirical analysis. The subsequent empirical analysis proceeds in four steps (Chaps. 4–7). Chapter 4 presents the overall pattern of public justifications found in the four analysed cases and introduces the categorisation for the types of justifications used. The analysis shows that European solidarity is far from being the main point of reference in the overall picture and, after clarifying the different lines of argumentation with concrete examples, it distinguishes the argumentative patterns in the four cases. Two dividing lines become clear: European solidarity is more pronounced in the French debates (compared to the German debates) and in the debates during the migration crisis (compared to the debates during the euro crisis). The pairwise comparisons carried out in the following three empirical chapters elaborate on this finding. Chapter 5 compares the French and German debates during the euro crisis; Chapter 6 compares the French and German debates during the migration crisis; and Chapter 7 compares the two crisis debates in each country. Each analysis is similarly structured: after the share of arguments based on European solidarity in the debates is presented, the debates are compared with each other and different theoretical expectations for the relevance of European solidarity are critically examined. While Chaps. 5 and 6 show that only national political culture can convincingly explain the observed differences in the relevance of European solidarity in the debates of both countries, Chapter 7 shows that only the precision of the policies discussed explains the differences in the relevance of European solidarity between the two crisis debates in both countries.

1.6 Structure of the Book

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Finally, Chap. 8 concludes with a summary of the book’s findings and discusses them both in context of existing research and current European politics. It begins with an overview of the main findings and their integration into the current literature. This is followed by a discussion of the finding’s generalisation potential and the existing limitations of this work. The end of the chapter reflects on the possible policy implications these findings have. Here, the author pleads for increased scholarly attention to two aspects: the existence of national differences in political culture and the existence of different conceptions of European solidarity, both of which complicate the debate on future cooperation within the EU.

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Steffek, J. (2003). The legitimation of international governance: A discourse approach. European Journal of International Relations, 9, 249–275. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066103009002004 Stjernø, S. (2009). Solidarity in Europe: The history of an idea. Cambridge University Press. Tarrow, S. (2010). The strategy of paired comparison: Toward a theory of practice. Comparative Political Studies, 43, 230–259. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414009350044 The Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, Germany. (2018). Meseberg Declaration. Renewing Europe’s promises of security and prosperity. https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/ bkin-en/news/meseberg-declaration-1140806. Accessed 11 August 2018. Thielemann, E. (2018). Why refugee burden-sharing initiatives fail: Public goods, free-riding and symbolic solidarity in the EU. Journal of Common Market Studies, 56, 63–82. https://doi.org/10. 1111/jcms.12662 Tullock, G. (1997). Economics of income redistribution (2nd ed., Studies in Public Choice). Springer. van Evera, S. (1997). Guide to methods for students of political science (Cornell paperbacks). Cornell University Press. Vilpišauskas, R. (2013). Eurozone crisis and European Integration: Functional spillover, political spillback? Journal of European Integration, 35, 361–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337. 2013.774785 Wallaschek, S. (2016). Solidarität in der Europäischen Union. Anmerkungen zur aktuellen Debatte. Widerspruch. Münchner Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 35(62), 97–114. Wallaschek, S. (2017). Notions of solidarity in Europe’s migration crisis: The case of Germany’s media discourse. EuropeNow, 11, Special feature: Governing the Migration Crisis. Watt, A. (2012). Solidarity and cohesion within and between countries in a Europe in Crisis. In Bertelsmann Stiftung (Ed.), Solidarity: For sale? The Social Dimension of the New European Economic Governance (pp. 45–72, Europe in Dialogue). Wendler, F. (2014). Debating Europe in national parliaments: Justification and political polarization in debates on the EU in Austria, France, Germany and the United Kingdom (OPAL Online Paper Series 17/2014). Wonka, A. (2016). The party politics of the Euro crisis in the German Bundestag: Frames, positions and salience. West European Politics, 39, 125–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2015.108 1512 Zoppè, A., & Gasparotti, A. (2018). European Stability Mechanism (ESM): Main features, instruments and accountability. Zürn, M. (2000). Democratic governance beyond the nation-state: The EU and other international institutions. European Journal of International Relations, 6, 183–221. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1354066100006002002 Zürn, M. (2016a). Opening up Europe: Next steps in politicisation research. West European Politics, 39, 164–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2015.1081513 Zürn, M. (2016b). Survey article: Four models of a global order with cosmopolitan intent: An empirical assessment. Journal of Political Philosophy, 24, 88–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp. 12070

Chapter 2

Conceptualisation and Theory

Abstract This chapter presents the theoretical and conceptual foundation of the book. It introduces a working definition of European solidarity and then presents the book’s approach to examine the relevance of European solidarity when redistributive policies are discussed, namely: the analysis of public justifications in parliamentary debates. Building on this, a conceptual framework for mapping public justifications in national debates is introduced. Finally, the chapter presents a theoretical approach for explaining the relevance of European solidarity in a national debate. In this context, five potential influencing factors are introduced: (1) political culture, (2) material benefit, (3) political support, (4) party ideology and (5) policy precision. Based on these influencing factors, five theoretical expectations are formulated to structure the empirical analysis of the four cases. Based on these influencing factors, five theoretical expectations are formulated to structure the empirical analysis of the four cases.

This book focuses on an understudied subject: the relevance of European solidarity in public debates. In this book, I critically examine the equation of the support for redistributive policies with the manifestation of European solidarity and investigate how relevant European solidarity is when redistributive policies in the EU are debated. Underlining the normative quality of European solidarity, I argue that the reasons given in public debates on the introduction of redistributive policies need to be systematically evaluated. In a first step, I measure the relevance of European solidarity in four selected cases by mapping all given justifications for the discussed redistributive policies in a debate. In a second step, I explore the scope conditions that influence the reference to European solidarity in a national debate. Based on the collected data on the relevance of European solidarity, I test different possible explanations for the varying relevance of European solidarity found in the four cases. This chapter lays the theoretical and conceptual foundations for the abovesketched endeavour. According to the twofold research question, it consists of two parts. The first part focuses on how the relevance of European solidarity can be conceptualised and measured, and the second part tackles the question of how the relevance of European solidarity can be explained. The chapter is structured as follows: Sect. 2.1 introduces the central concept of this book, European solidarity. After a © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Hobbach, European Solidarity, Contributions to Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76175-2_2

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brief discussion of the contested concept of solidarity, a working definition of European solidarity is introduced. Thereafter, Sect. 2.2 presents this book’s approach to examine the relevance of European solidarity when redistributive policies are discussed: the analysis of public justifications. Reviewing the literature on public debates on European integration, it is argued that the analysis of public justifications uncovers which reasons to act are judged as most appropriate in a given social context and can thus show to what extent redistributive policies in the EU are evaluated on the basis of European solidarity. Section 2.3 then briefly discusses why parliamentary debates are particularly suitable for analysing the argumentative patterns in public debates. Building on this, a conceptual framework for mapping public justifications for redistributive measures in the EU is introduced in Sect. 2.4. The two dimensions of interest, (1) the argumentative basis and (2) the spatial reference point, are clarified, and their integration into a 2 × 2 table is shown. Section 2.5 then presents a theoretical approach for explaining the relevance of European solidarity in a national debate. Here, five potential influencing factors are introduced: (1) political culture, (2) material benefit, (3) political support, (4) party ideology and (5) policy precision. Based on these influencing factors, five theoretical expectations are formulated that later guide the empirical analysis of the four cases. Finally, Sect. 2.6 summarises the main findings of this chapter and underlines the value added of this book.

2.1 European Solidarity: Defining a Contested Concept There is a broad debate in both political practice and academic literature on how to define the concept of solidarity. Put simply, solidarity can be defined as the willingness to share resources with people in need based on (1) the feeling of community and (2) a perceived moral obligation to help (Giannakopoulos, 2017b, pp. 11–12; Stjernø, 2009, p. 2). The first integral part of this widespread understanding of solidarity is its anchoring in the social construction of a political community which deserves (and returns) solidarity. The recognition of a “we-ness” (Dean, 1995, p. 115) between certain actors creates a group identity and defines who belongs to a community of solidarity (“us”) and who is excluded (“them”) (Dean, 1995; Ross, 2010). The second integral part of this general understanding of solidarity is its normative basis. As solidarity is understood to be a value or a social norm, the showing of solidarity is assumed to follow a normative logic of appropriateness instead of a functional logic of consequences. It is based on “political altruism” (Stjernø, 2009, p. 324) and “social empathy” (Gould, 2007, p. 149) and explicitly not just narrowly based upon self-interest (Stjernø, 2009, p. 2). Members of a community of solidarity perceive a moral obligation or responsibility to support other group members. Following the above, solidarity can be distinguished from philanthropic help between individuals completely independent from each other by its assumption of a collective identity and from functional cost–benefit calculation by its normative basis. Next to these two basic characteristics, solidarity is often linked to the expectation of mutuality and reciprocity (Genschel & Hemerijck, 2018; Lahusen, 2016;

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Habermas, 2013; Ross, 2010; Gould, 2007, p. 157). This expectation is, however, often only implicit (Gould, 2007, p. 157) and not expressed by actors in a political debate. In fact, if an actor would openly mention the expectation of reciprocity every time he or she acts solidary, this would suggest a strong linkage to a calculating logic of consequences. In addition, it would not fit to the imagined voluntariness of solidarity (Dean, 1995, p. 117) distinguishing it from being a binding legal obligation. Interestingly enough, Jodi Dean claims that (affective) solidarity cannot be demanded. She argues that “the demand itself reveals the lack of solidarity, a member’s failure to stand by and take responsibility for an other. Indeed, we don’t demand solidarity; we appeal to solidarity” (Dean, 1995, p. 117). However, it is important to underline that solidarity is a constantly contested concept with various meanings and connotations in social theory and in politics (Wallaschek, 2016, p. 104; Stjernø, 2009, p. 2). As Kalypso Nicolaïdis and Juri Viehoff have put it: “scholars have generally come to agree to disagree about the scope, proper usage, and normative significance of the concept of solidarity” (2012, p. 24). In his detailed historical analysis of the history of the idea of solidarity in Europe, Steinar Stjernø (2009, 2011) shows that different conceptions of (European) solidarity circulate in Europe and differ between political actors.1 With regard to the broad debate on the preconditions for the emergence of solidarity, it should be sufficient to note here that some voices state that the emergence of solidarity depends on a collective identity that is only imaginable at the national level. Others, however, stress that it can be extended beyond the nation state and can acquire a transnational scope (Gould, 2007; Calhoun, 2002). Assuming that solidarity can develop through communicative action in a public sphere (Calhoun, 2002; Dean, 1995; Ross, 2010), it is argued that transnational communication can lead to a collective identity enabling the formation of solidary attitudes at a transnational or European level (Gould, 2007: 159). Against the background of the controversial debate on the definition of (European) solidarity in the literature and political practice, I rely in this book on a general definition of solidarity that is open to many different conceptions. It assumes that solidarity is possible on a European level and excludes contested questions such as its conditionality or its practical implementation. European solidarity is simply understood as the willingness to share resources with other Europeans in need based on (1) the feeling of community and (2) a perceived moral obligation to help. As the conceptualisation shows, this definition is perfectly adequate to analyse public justifications given in a national debate on redistributive policies and to filter out the share of justifications that is based on a logic of European solidarity.

1

Regarding the conditionality of solidarity, Stjernø (2011, p. 173) shows that insisting on the strict adherence of several conditions by the recipients of “solidary contributions” fits only to a specific interpretation of solidarity, namely the Christian democratic concept that emphasises personal responsibility. It contradicts other understandings that emphasise the voluntary nature of solidarity. As this book makes clear in the course of the analysis, in practice this means that different political actors may understand the concept of European solidarity differently and may disagree about the preconditions for receiving solidarity or the practical consequences that result from it.

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As stated in the introduction, the concept of European solidarity is often linked to redistributive measures at the European level. While I consider it plausible that European solidarity can be an important explanation for the acceptance of redistributive policies on the European level (Closa & Maatsch, 2014, p. 827; Watt, 2012, p. 46; Zürn, 2000, p. 199), I criticise that the support for redistributive policies is often automatically judged as an expression of European solidarity. I strongly believe that the question of how common the reference to European solidarity actually is when redistributive policies are debated must be answered empirically.

2.2 Introducing Public Justifications To examine the relevance of European solidarity in public debates on redistributive policies, this book draws on the concept of public justifications. To introduce the concept, this section starts with a brief overview of research on (European) public debates. It introduces different forms of analyses and argues that the concept of public justifications is best suited for this book’s research objective. Since the analysis of public justifications uncovers which reasons for action are judged as appropriate in a given social context, it can show to what extent redistributive policies in the EU are evaluated on the basis of European solidarity. Based on this discussion, the following section introduces this book’s conceptual framework for mapping public justifications during the euro and the migration crisis.

2.2.1 Theoretical Approaches to Analysing Public Debates Studies interested in public debates can build on a vast literature on the relevance of language and communication in International Relations (IR) and related fields (Carta & Morin, 2014; Diez, 2014; Epstein, 2011; Gadinger et al., 2014; Hansen, 2006; Risse, 2000; Schmidt, 2008; Wodak, 2012). Researchers interested in European affairs analyse language or discourse,2 for example, in order to learn about concepts as diverse as the manifestation of European security identities (Wæver, 1996), the social construction of the EU (Diez, 1999), the national legitimisation of European integration (Schmidt, 2007) or the creation (or restriction) of European foreign policy options (Ayd n-Duzgit, 2014; Diez, 2014; Holland, 2013; Schimmelfennig, 2001). The common feature of this strand of literature is the assumption that the analysis of 2

The term discourse is commonly used to describe “communication in speech or writing” (Cambridge University Press 2014). In the scientific literature, discourse can be defined, broadly speaking, as the entity of speech acts in a given context (Sutherland, 2016: x). As I discuss in the next paragraphs, however, different social scientists do often mean very different things when using the term discourse (Keller, 2011: 13). This study understands discourse simply as a communicative exchange between different actors in a given context. Therefore, the terms discourse and debate are used interchangeably from time to time.

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social interactions between actors is important to understand the world we are living in and the social actors inhabiting it. Communication and language are understood not only as enabling coordination but also as reflecting and shaping our perception of the world. While approaches interested in the influence of language and communication can be rooted in various theoretical and empirical traditions (Holzscheiter, 2014; Hajer and Laws 2006; Milliken, 1999), this book stands in the tradition of constructivist research. Constructivist approaches focus on the social construction of reality through social practices and understand actors and structures as being co-constitutive of each other. Discourse is understood and analysed as a “meaning in use” (Holzscheiter, 2014; Milliken, 1999). This means that actors are, on the one hand, embedded in a specific social structure (discourse), which influences their perception of the world and their corresponding actions (speech acts), and are, on the other hand, influencing this very same structure through their actions. Talking or doing politics can thus challenge or (re-)produce a specific social interpretation of the world (Hurd, 2009). Due to the constitutive power of language, speech acts like labelling, framing or justifying a policy are consequential and take part in constituting interests and identities, which underlie any political action. A constant reproduction of a given meaning over time can therefore, if there are no successful attempts to challenge it, define what is seen as “natural” or “normal” in a given context. Thus, a discursive community can define which reasons are seen as justified for the introduction of a redistributive policy, which members are part of a community of solidarity or what the showing of solidarity implies. From an ontological point of view, constructivist approaches interested in language can be distinguished into two camps: approaches following a “thick” and a “thin” notion of constructivism (Holzscheiter, 2014; Kratochwil, 1989; Wendt, 1999). A “thick” form of constructivism emphasises the structural “stickiness” of discourse. It understands language as the constitutive element of intersubjectively created realities, meaning that there exist no social facts outside discourse and the ability of actors to use language strategically is very limited to non-existent. Approaches following this notion often have a macro-structural focus and analyse discourse as “structures of signification” (Holzscheiter, 2014, p. 148). This book, however, follows the “thin” tradition of micro-interactional approaches focusing on individual, pragmatic aspects of communication. Discourse is here understood as an “institutionalized communicative exchange […] where different logics of action can actually be observed and analysed and where argumentative justifications for behaviour manifest themselves” (Holzscheiter, 2014, p. 146). Following this understanding, the dominating logic of action—meaning if actors are engaging in interest-driven “bargaining” or norm-guided “arguing”3 —depends on the involved actors and the specific context conditions and is not predetermined (Kornprobst, 2014, p. 200). The strategic use of language by actors in a discourse, described as “rhetorical action” (Schimmelfennig, 3 This distinction is based on the deliberative theory by Jürgen Habermas (2011 [1995]) distinguishing between the strategic use (following a logic of consequences) and the communicative use (following a logic of appropriateness) of language.

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2001) or “rhetorical coercion” (Krebs & Jackson, 2007), is thus possible. Although this means that one cannot infer from a speech act of an actor to his or her sincere conviction, one can nonetheless learn what the actor perceives as an “appropriate” argument, either in the sense that it is legitimate or in the sense that it is purposeful. Since “even the most insincere justificatory statements tell us something about the normative environment in which actors operate” (Lord, 2008: 1006), the entirety of speech acts allows conclusions to be drawn about the discursive structure in which actors are embedded. Against this theoretical background, it becomes clear that the way actors frame and justify a policy is highly interesting. On the one hand, it reflects the dominating habits, norms and concepts in a given society and on the other hand, it helps to understand past and future policy decisions made by individual actors. Actors in a political debate can be understood to enter a struggle over interpretations of a given social setting, e.g. the justification of redistributive measures at the European level. The successful framing of a given policy as benefiting the national or the European sphere, the definition of a redistributive measure as legitimate or illegitimate, or the attribution of an actor belonging to “us” or “them” can thus be decisive for the perceived policy options and the consequent policy decisions. In such a manner, a problem can be defined, cause and effect linked, responsibility or blame assigned, actors enabled or excluded, a community created, the best strategy to tackle a problem found and so forth. Following this understanding, the public debate can, on the one hand, show us as how relevant the value of European solidarity is perceived for introducing redistributive policies and can, on the other hand, be understood as a crucial driver or obstacle for political processes such as the introduction of redistributive policies. The way in which domestic actors debate, frame and struggle over redistributive policies in the EU is thus both insightful and consequential as it delegitimises some points of view and strengthens others. To structure the analysis of policy debates, existing studies focus on specific aspects of discourse such as “frames” (Daviter, 2007; Díez Medrano, 2003; Entman, 1993; Vreese, 2012), “public justifications” (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017a; Kornprobst, 2014; Wendler, 2014c), “metaphors” (Carta, 2014; Hülsse & Spencer, 2008) or “narratives” (Gadinger et al., 2014; Krebs, 2015; Spencer, 2016). These concepts are closely linked, frequently overlap and can often supplement each other. Studies interested in political discourse often mention several of the above terms, although they focus on only one of them. In the following, I will take a closer look at two of these concepts: the widely used concept of framing and the less spread concept of public justifications. After a brief discussion, I argue that a public justification can be understood as a specific type of framing. The focus on public justifications seems to me particularly suited when reasons for supporting or rejecting a policy are to be investigated.

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2.2.2 Frame Analysis The analysis of “frames” or the “framing” of an issue was originally introduced in the field of psychology (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981) and is by now well established in social science. A frame is understood to be “a central organizing idea […] for making sense of relevant events, suggesting what is at issue” (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989, p. 3). As frames are not just “out there” but socially created (Rein & Schön, 1996), the analysis of frames examines the process of social meaning production via language. The act of framing describes the selection and emphasis of one aspect of an object, making it more salient than others “in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman, 1993, p. 52). Hence, by depicting or interpreting an object in a certain light and throwing shadow on some of its aspects, an interpretation and evaluation of what is important and what is not takes place. Because many different frames or framings (both designations are used interchangeably) of one object are possible, using a certain frame can be compared with taking a specific perspective on a visual scene. Hence, the concept emphasises the multiplicity of possible perspectives on a given object or situation. Facilitated by its rather vague definition, the concept of framing is open to many theoretical and methodological approaches (Vreese, 2012; Hajer & Laws, 2006). Frames can be understood “as expressed by individuals, but also rooted in and sustained by social interaction” (Hajer & Laws, 2006, p. 259). The origin of the concept lays in a micro-level approach where the use of a frame is conceptualised as an intentional, strategic act “associated with a particular choice” (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981, p. 453). Accordingly, many scholars use the concept to show how the existence of a specific problem definition influences policy outcomes or how political actors strategically circulate multiple definitions of a policy issue to block policy-making on an issue (Daviter, 2007). Yet, it is also possible to put a stronger focus on the stability of dominant frames and the fact that it can be very hard to change a widely accepted framing. As culture can be conceptualised as “the stock of commonly invoked frames” (Entman, 1993, p. 53), critical discourse approaches question the prevalence of dominant framings and examine the role of power in their contestation (Wodak & Meyer, 2001). In his influential study “Framing Europe”, Juan Díez Medrano (2003) understands frames very generally as different “perceptions”, “conceptions” or “representations” of an object. By conducting a frame analysis of a broad range of primary sources (e.g. newspaper articles, interviews, novels and history textbooks), he explains differences in support for European integration in Germany, Spain and the UK. Linking the micro-level of individual attitudes to the macro-level of political culture and “general beliefs”, he argues that the dominance of different framings of European integration is connected to different national attitudes towards the European project and, hence, “history and culture trump economics and geopolitics as the major forces behind European integration” (Díez Medrano, 2003, p. 3). Following this logic, variations in the national perception and framing of redistributive policies or European solidarity

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can, in the end, not only explain the use of different justifications for a policy at the national level but also help to understand and contextualise varying policy preferences between actors of different national origins.

2.2.3 Analysing Public Justifications Studies examining public justifications4 focus on justificatory processes in the public sphere, which they understand as being at the heart of today’s politics (Abulof & Kornprobst 2017a; Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006; Kornprobst, 2014; Lord, 2008). Being omnipresent in the political sphere, especially in modern liberal democracies (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017b, p. 130; Greenfeld, 2017, p. 5; Wendler, 2012; Steffek, 2003, p. 263), a public justification is defined as “a communicative process through which a political community converges on what it regards as compelling reasons upon which to act” (Kornprobst, 2014, p. 196). Public justifications shape judgements about the legitimacy of an actor or a policy (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017a, p. 9; Boltanski & Thévenot, 2006, p. 39; Steffek, 2003, p. 263) and therefore enable political action. Ontologically, these approaches proceed from a micro-foundation which emphasises “the relevance of communicative agency and, at the same time, the salience of communicative contexts that enable this agency” (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017a, p. 1). Uriel Abulof and Markus Kornprobst (2017a) argue in a special issue on public justifications that giving reasons for one’s opinions and actions lays in human nature and that humans can thus be described as “justificatory animals” (similar to scholars of narratives speaking of humans as born storytellers and narrators). Pointing out that humans are the only “why-asking animals”, they define justifications broadly as “answers to why-questions given and debated by social actors” (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017a, p. 1). Following the linguistic turn in IR, they aim to trace the public reasoning of politics, understood as “socially oriented and subjectively meaningful conduct” (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017a, p. 9), to examine the process through which justifications affect political decisions. As already stated above, the sincerity of a speaker is not the decisive criteria. On the one hand, a dishonest speaker expects to exercise a certain appeal by choosing a certain justification and is thus anticipating the universe of legitimate claims in a certain situation. On the other hand, “even insincere speech may shape future sincere discourse” as given justifications “both reflect and shape beliefs and practices” (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017a, p. 10). For guiding the study of public justifications, Abulof and Kornprobst identify four main features of public justification: (1) the logic underlying the giving of reasons, 4

Other scholars interested in the phenomenon defined as public justifications in this book might use different terms such as “arguments” (Wonka 2016), “argumentation patterns” (Oppermann 2014), “patterns of justification” (Closa and Maatsch 2014: 828) or “types of argumentative justification” (Wendler 2014: 550). Yet, all of these scholars are interested in the same phenomenon and the terms can be used interchangeably.

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(2) its communicative quality, (3) its social context and (4) the fact that giving a justification is always a challenge. For this book’s conceptualisation, the first feature is particularly important. In the literature, a variety of classifications for the underlying logic of a justification exists. Most often, scholars refer to Jürgen Habermas’ distinction between a pragmatic, an ethical and a moral reasoning (Habermas, 2011 [1995]) or simply distinguish between a normative and a pragmatic logic (Wendler, 2016). Since I am primarily interested in an argumentation based on European solidarity in this book, I distinguish this line of argumentation from all others. Moreover, by analysing different influential factors, I also consider the social context. The fourth characteristic, which emphasises that the giving of a justification “typically involves contestation” (Abulof & Kornprobst, 2017a, p. 10), reflects one of the central arguments of “On Justification” by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot (2006). In this standard work on justifications that belongs to the school of pragmatic sociology, the authors understand a justification as a “social test” about the perceived legitimacy of a claim. This reveals the close connection between justifications and questions of legitimacy. By justifying a specific policy, the responsibility of a certain actor or the fundamentals of a political order, legitimacy is (de)constructed. The analysis of public justifications can thus be understood to examine the communicative process of legitimation in the public sphere. This means that the analysis of the justifications given in the French and German debates during the euro crisis and migration crisis is well suited to examine the legitimation of redistributive policies at the European level and to demonstrate the importance and perceived legitimacy of European solidarity in this respect. Public Justifications: A Specific Type of Framing The line between the analysis of how political actors frame specific European issues and the analysis of how actors justify specific European policies is blurry and depends on the understanding of what constitutes a frame. Due to the broad nature of the framing approach, giving a public justification can be understood as a specific type of framing (Wonka, 2016, p. 134). As the act of giving a public justification puts a certain reason to act in the forefront, it makes it more salient than other reasons. It therefore stresses a certain policy goal and puts the light on a specific (dis)advantage of a policy. Put differently, while the term frame can be interpreted broadly, this book focuses on a specific type of framing—the public justification of a policy. In order to locate public justifications theoretically, it can be said that public justifications expressed by actors in the public sphere are, on the one hand, based on societal beliefs in a given society. On the other hand, they influence the actors’ policy preferences and thus enable or prevent certain policy outcomes (see Fig. 2.1). This

Societal beliefs

Public justifications

Policy preferences

Fig. 2.1 Basis and consequences of public justifications

Policy outcomes

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means that while the analysis of the justificatory process of redistributive policies in the EU reveals the societal basis for these redistributive policies and the relevance of European solidarity in this context, it can also help us understand the different political preferences of the actors involved that lead to certain policy outcomes. As mentioned before, this book focuses on the first aspect of public justifications: the representation of legitimate reasons for action. The analysis of public justifications in the selected debates aims to reveal how relevant the moral obligation to show European solidarity is perceived in the four cases.

2.3 Analysing Parliamentary Debates The decision to examine public justifications in parliamentary debates is based on three considerations. First, national parliaments are considered to have an important communicative function by providing complex information on European integration issues to national audiences. As national parliaments “represent the primary arena for the democratic legitimisation of and public debate about decisions in the context of European governance” (Wendler, 2014a, p. 4), their engagement with European integration is thought to “link the wider public to the procedures and products of supranational governance” (Rauh, 2015, p. 117). Debates in national parliaments are therefore “a more informative source on political contention about European integration than previously recognised in existing research” (Wendler, 2014a, p. 3). Second, political parties are, next to governments, the most important actors in national political arenas in representative democracies. As highly politicised debates on European integration issues are expected to lead to a strategic competition about these issues among political parties at the national level (Hooghe & Marks, 2009), a broad spectrum of national opinions should be represented in the parliamentary struggle over opinion leadership. Parliamentary debates constitute one of the most prominent genres of the domain of politics […] [They] are the site where the various ideological forces in society, in the form of the political parties that represent them, are confronting each other in the public sphere. Parliamentary debates are not only public, but also for the record, so that anything participants say is open for public inspection (usually through the mass media): Everything MPs say may indeed be used against them. For our purposes, as suggested, parliamentary debates are especially interesting because they exhibit, by definition, the social cognitions of political parties and their members (van Dijk, 2002, p. 25).

This detail is strongly connected to the third reason: parliamentary debates can be assumed to provide very rich data for an argumentative analysis that other comparable sources cannot provide. It is a clear advantage of the analysis of parliamentary debates that the public discourse of political elites “is not mediated through media reports and evolves through the direct interaction of speakers” (Wendler, 2014b, p. 447). The argumentations for supporting or rejecting a specific policy can thus be assumed to be significantly more detailed in plenary debates than in edited and abridged statements in media coverage. While research on European solidarity, as

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argued in the introduction, has generally neglected the area of public debate, the majority of studies in politicisation research have so far relied on the analysis of media coverage, while the analysis of public parliamentary debates is quite rare (Rauh, 2015, p. 116; Wendler, 2014a, p. 3). Yet, if scholars are interested in the legitimation and justification process of national or European politics, a closer look at plenary debates at the national level is the ideal starting point.

2.4 Conceptualisation: Mapping Public Justifications Building on the theoretical argumentation above, this section presents a conceptual framework for mapping public justifications directed at redistributive policies in the EU and the role of solidarity therein. It starts by defining the term public justification for this book’s purpose and introduces the two dimensions of interest of a given justification: (1) the argumentative basis and (2) the spatial reference point. Finally, it presents the resulting 2 × 2 table that enables the comparison of the patterns of justifications between different national debates, policy fields or political actors. A public justification is part of a “communicative process through which a political community converges on what it regards as compelling reasons upon which to act” (Kornprobst, 2014, p. 196). In this book, a public justification is defined as a justificatory statement an actor makes to either support or criticise a redistributive policy. Following a broad understanding, every argumentation—direct or indirect— that justifies the support or the rejection of a redistributive policy is understood as a public justification. This can be the direct reference to why a policy should (not) be adopted as well as the description of what would happen if a policy were (not) introduced. In order to map all given public justifications for the redistributive policies in the EU and measure the share of arguments based on European solidarity accordingly, a conceptual framework based on two dimensions has been developed: (1) the argumentative basis and (2) the spatial reference point.5 The argumentative basis describes the line of reasoning underlying the justification and is equivalent to the first main feature of justifications mentioned by Abulof and Kornprobst (2017a). It answers the question on which argumentative basis a policy is evaluated. In this book, the main distinction is made between an argumentation referring to solidarity and all other argumentations. A justification is mapped as following a logic of solidarity if it entails that there is a moral obligation to help one’s community, independent of its spatial reference point. Moreover, the analysis takes direct and indirect references to solidarity into account. It does not only consider justifications referring directly to solidarity (“We have to adopt a refugee quota to show European solidarity”) but also consider more implicit references following a logic of solidarity (“We have to install a safety net for the euro to help our Greek 5

More detailed information on the definition of the categories and the assignment of the public justifications found in the selected debates, including practical examples, can be found in Sect. 3.2.2 and in the codebook (see Appendix B).

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2 Conceptualisation and Theory

Table 2.1 Conceptual framework to map public justifications

Argumentative basis

Spatial reference point European orientation

National orientation

Moral obligation to support a community

European solidarity

National solidarity

Other arguments

Various European arguments

Various national arguments

friends”). Since the focus of this book is on the share of justifications based on (European) solidarity, the “other” argumentations are not further elaborated here and the different argumentative lines that were identified during the coding process are not included in the visual representation below. The spatial reference point describes the local level to which a justification refers. It answers the question of which political level is taken into account in the debate on a redistribution policy and thus indirectly reveals whose interest is taken into account. Due to the focus of this book, the framework distinguishes between references to the national and the European sphere.6 Table 2.1 shows the integration of these two dimensions into one analytical framework mapping all possible justifications referring to redistributive policies in the EU. A justification falls into our category of interest, European solidarity, when the stance towards a redistributive policy is justified based on the moral obligation to help (instead of other considerations) and refer to the European level (instead of the national level). When all justifications in a debate are classified into one of these subcategories, a look at this 2 × 2 table and the percentage distribution in each box allows to see at a glance how relevant an argumentation based on European solidarity is in a selected debate. This enables the measurement and comparison of the relevance of European solidarity in different cases. Regarding the universe of justifications classified into this framework, it is important to note that all kinds of justificatory statements, independent of their direction, can be sorted in here. This means that statements made in support for a redistributive policy as well as statements rejecting such a policy are included in this mapping. This is also valid for the category of solidarity. Justifications falling into this category can either be in support of a redistributive measure or reject it. In contrast to a supportive 6

A third category “international” has been included in the coding process in order to avoid distortions. However, since only a very small number of codings fell into this category (