Clement, Andrew A. (2017) An integration of discord : how national identity conceptions activate resistance to EU integration in the popular press discourses of Poland, Spain and Great Britain. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The EU has widened and deepened the single market over time according to a transactionalist discourse of common-interests in integration. This rationale holds that as amounts of cross-border movement increase, Member State populations should perceive the single market as beneficial, thus leading to the creation of an affective European identity. Instead, as consequences of integration have become more visible, resistance to the EU has become more pronounced, especially with relation to the Union's right of free movement of persons. This thesis argues that interest-based theories of integration ignore prospects for resilient national identities to influence the accordance of solidarity ties, so as to color interest perceptions within national public spheres. Combining the literature on European identity, moral panic and communication studies on news framing, it maintains that the popular news media provide a conduit through which these interest perceptions can be taken up through the tendency of news outlets to report events that deviantly threaten underlying identity conceptions. Through content analysis of 'popular' press in the UK, Spain and Poland, it seeks to show how the inane tendency of news to report events in terms of an identity-based narrative can serve to foment moral panic within national publics. Contrary to interest based theories of integration, the EU's discourse clashes with national identity. Disintegration may be posited as the 'proper stance' to be supported on the part of the public in news narrative, if threatening deviance caused by EU migration is to be resolved.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Group identity -- Public opinion -- European Union countries, European Union -- Public opinion, European Union -- Economic integration, Nationalism -- Press coverage -- Poland, Nationalism -- Press coverage -- Spain, Nationalism -- Press coverage -- Great Britain, Discourse analysis -- Political aspects -- European Union countries
Official Date:	September 2017
Dates:	Date Event September 2017 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Politics and International Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Watson, Matthew, 1969- ; Crespy, Amandine
Sponsors:	Erasmus Mundus (Program)
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	348 leaves : charts
Language:	eng

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