A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/98850 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications 3 An Integration of Discord: How National Identity Conceptions Activate Resistance to EU Integration in the Popular Press Discourses of Poland, Spain and Great Britain. A thesis submitted to: l'Université Libre de Bruxelles & The University of Warwick (PAIS) For the qualification of: PhD, Politics and International Studies by Andrew Anzur Clement September 2017 4 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. 5 Contents One: Introduction ............................................................................................. 11 From Eastern Expansion to 'Brexit': The EU fifteen years after Framing Europe .............................. 11 Main argument and aims of the research ...................................................................................... 12 Qualifying recent resistance to integration: What is anti-Europe? ................................................. 13 Popular press: The point of narrative access ................................................................................. 17 Brief overview of the thesis and contributions to the discipline ..................................................... 18 Two: State of the Art......................................................................................... 21 Introduction: Origins of the EU Supranational Discourse and resistance to EU integration.............. 21 Institutionalization of EU Discourse in the Common Market: From Interests to Identity ................. 22 Reasons behind initial inclusion of labor movement in the 1951 Treaty of Paris ................. 23 Entrenching the justification behind the character of common market integration ............ 25 The spillover of freedoms, institutions and integrative rationale into the Treaty of Rome . 27 The affection-creating rationale of common market integration ........................................ 29 The creeping expansion of supranational competencies and the movement of persons .... 32 From common to single market: Justifying EU citizenship’s right of free movement .......... 34 Free movement and national debates of ‘EU’ Issues: From identity to interests ............................. 39 Increased integration's interaction with national mediated debates and identities ........... 39 On visible consequences of integration: Resistance despite a viable integrative rationale . 42 Post-2004: The national politicization of free movement opposes the EU's discourse..................... 48 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 57 Three: Theoretical Framework .......................................................................... 59 Introduction: Free Movement, the Discourse/Identity Clash, and National Medias ........................ 59 The ‘Constraining Dissensus’ as a Clash between EU Discourse and National Identity ..................... 60 The sticky construction of national identities, versus the EU discourse on integration ....... 61 The interest-based rationale of the EU discourse: An appeal for identity formation ........... 65 Identity's influence on interest perceptions and their reinforcement in public discourse .... 67 The activation of EU resistance through identity conceptions of national societies ............ 71 Capturing the discourse/identity clash within the public discourse ..................................... 74 6 Role of Deviance in Moral Panic and the Crisis-Conflict-Resolution Narrative of News ................... 79 The Crisis – From beginning a story to constructing an ongoing issue ................................. 84 The Conflict – From driving the narrative of an event to defining the sides of the issue ..... 87 The ‘Resolution’ – From ending a report to incitement of 'Moral Panic'? ............................ 90 The 'Five W's and an H’: The Components of Storytelling within issue narrative............................. 92 What to report and Why - national identity and the assessment of event newsworthiness 95 When an issue is reported and How - National identity and the sides of a story ................. 96 'Where' an event occurs and Who is responsible - National identity and amelioration of deviance ................................................................................................................................ 98 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 100 Four: Methodological Choices and Overview of Findings ................................ 101 Framing Integration in News across National Contexts: Operationalization of the Study .............. 101 The selection of case-study methods and countries to be examined ................................. 102 The point of access: popular discourse and selection of low-quality news outlets ............ 107 Role of the selected press outlets in their respective national public spheres .............................. 112 Tabloidizing ‘Revolutionary Journalism’: Post-1989 developments in Polish media culture ............................................................................................................................................. 112 Rituals of objectivity: Journalists as a purveyors of truth in Anglo-Saxon media culture ... 116 Taking a stand on the meaning of Spanish nationalism: Media environment in Spain ..... 118 Selection of timeframe, type of sources to be analyzed and methodology of the study ................ 121 Methods to be used: Qualitative narrative-frame content analysis ................................... 123 Overview of the data: Differences in amounts of 'deviance' in Poland, UK and Spain. .................. 135 Is free movement worth it? The narrative of deviance in Poland ....................................... 136 State-based immigration and inferior EU policy: The narrative of deviance in the UK ...... 138 The contestability of Spanish nationalism: The narrative of deviance in Spain ................. 141 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 143 Five: The Crisis ................................................................................................ 145 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 145 'What' was considered newsworthy: Valenced narratives in popular news across cases .............. 147 A 'nation' of unwilling inferiors: 'What' was flagged as newsworthy in the Polish press .. 148 7 Events related to EU integration as creating topics of inequality with the West ............... 150 Events related to integration as creating topic narratives of foreign-dictated policy ........ 153 Events related to integration as creating topics of free movement as emigration ............ 154 The British 'Nation' as betters of Europe: Topics deviant from integration in UK press ..... 157 Events related to integration as creating threats of "sovereignty-sapping" 'dictation' ..... 160 Events related to integration as creating threats to British identity conception ............... 162 Events related to integration as constructing threatening topics about immigration ....... 164 Spain as a nation? What constituted deviant topics in the popular Spanish press ............ 168 Events related to integration