Institutions, policies, and arguments: context and strategy in EU policy framing

Rainer Eising*, Daniel Rasch, Patrycja Rozbicka

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Studies of framing in the EU political system are still a rarity and they suffer from a lack of systematic empirical analysis. Addressing this gap, we ask if institutional and policy contexts intertwined with the strategic side of framing can explain the number and types of frames employed by different stakeholders. We use a computer-assisted manual content analysis and develop a fourfold typology of frames to study the frames that were prevalent in the debates on four EU policy proposals within financial market regulation and environmental policy at the EU level and in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The main empirical finding is that both contexts and strategies exert a significant impact on the number and types of frames in EU policy debates. In conceptual terms, the article contributes to developing more fine-grained tools for studying frames and their underlying dimensions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)516-533
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of European public policy
Volume22
Issue number4
Early online date6 Feb 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2015

Bibliographical note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of European Public Policy on 6/2/15, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13501763.2015.1008552

Funding: German Science Foundation (grant no. EI 461/6-1) and the European Science Foundation (10-ECRP-008)

Keywords

  • context
  • EU multi-level political system
  • framing
  • interest groups
  • multi-level
  • strategic action

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