Talking back: policy justifications and counter-justifications
Konstantin Vössing
Humboldt University Berlin
[email protected]
Paper prepared for presentation at the conference
“Rejected Europe, beloved Europe, cleavage Europe?”
Robert Schuman Center
European University Institute
Florence, May 18-19
Abstract
The article investigates the effects of the politicization of European integration on
public opinion about integration policies and the approval ratings of politicians talking about
the issue. I argue that greater politicization is conducive to greater satisfaction with political
communication and the democratic process, which then translates into greater support for the
politicians that argue over policy as well as for the policy they argue about. I test this
expectation in experimental studies conducted in the laboratory with students and a group of
participants that reflects the entire variety of the German voting age population. Random
assignment in the experiment makes sure that the observed effects are in fact the result of
politicization and that they are independent of the political identity of the message source and
the content of his communication.
1
Facilitated by the considerable transfer of political authority from the member states of
the European Union (EU) to the supranational level, European integration has emerged as a
viable political cleavage that contributes to structure party competition as well as public
opinion and the political behavior of citizens (cf. Hooghe and Marks 2008). In most countries,
politicization of the European integration issue was asymmetric, depending predominantly on
political actors that are critical of integration. Full politicization, a scenario in which both
favorable and critical views are actively communicated, is only a fairly recent development,
for instance during the French presidential election. The era of the permissive consensus,
during which citizens tacitly support the efforts of political elites to pursue integration,
constitutes a scenario of low politicization. Different scenarios of politicization thus emerge
from the varying decisions of competing actors over whether to address an issue and
contribute to politicize it or not.
This article investigates how variation in the nature of politicization shapes public
support for the actors engaged in conflict over the European integration issue as well as
support for the integration policies they discuss. Does it matter for the popularity of a
politician and the policies she favors whether she finds herself in a scenario of low,
asymmetric or full politicization? Specifically, does the nature of politicization alone,
irrespective of the source and the content of political communication, contribute to shape
public opinion? And what are the implications of politicization for the strategic considerations
of political actors? What should these actors do, all else being equal, when they face the
decision of whether to contribute to the politicization of the European integration issue or not,
and what does this imply for the process of integration?
I argue that escalating politicization and the rise in political competition it entails
result from the extent to which political actors go public by explaining their positions on
European integration. Legislators who make choices about integration policies by casting
their votes cannot avoid becoming associated with a policy position. They can, however,
2
strategically decide whether to explain their position. Varying scenarios of politicization are
thus established by coinciding decisions of politicians about whether to explain their positions
on European integration or not. Building on existing research about political explanations
(Fenno 1978, McGraw et al 1993, Grose et al 2014), the article theorizes, and then discusses
the implications, of the way in which legislators state and explain their policy preferences
over European integration. I develop the theoretical expectation that higher degrees of
politicization, all else being equal, should create more favorable opinions in the mass public
about both the explaining politician and the explained policy.
The article thus connects the concerns of prior research about public opinion and
European integration to scholarship on political explanations (Bennett 1980, McGraw 2002,
McGraw 1991, Grose et al. 2014, Esaiasson et al 2016, Broockman and Butler 2015) and
studies of competing frames (Chong and Druckman 2007, 2012). I extend the scope of
existing research by combining the study of political communication and European
integration, by integrating the analysis of political communication into a model of elite
political behavior, and by investigating the impact of variation in politicization not only on
policy attitudes but also on the approval ratings of political elites. Existing research on
competitive political communication focuses mainly on the mechanism of framing (e.g.
Chong and Druckman 2007, 2012). This research on framing is naturally limited to the study
of policy attitudes, while the study of priming and candidate evaluations does not investigate
the role of competitiveness.
I test my expectation about the effect of escalating politicization in experimental
studies conducted during February 2015 with a group of students and a sample of participants
that reflects the entire variety of the German voting age population. The experiment
manipulates variation in politicization based on the way in which two Members of the
European Parliament (MEP) explain their positions in a (made up) parliamentary debate and
vote about the introduction of a Euro-tax. One MEP supported the policy, while the other one
3
voted against it. Participants are randomly assigned to one of the three conditions of
politicization. In the condition of low politicization, neither one of the two politicians explains
his position; in asymmetric politicization, only one of them explains it, and in the condition of
full politicization, both politicians explain their votes. The experiment focuses on the policyjustification-by-impact, which is a particular type of political explanation. Politicians using it
justify a policy they support on the basis of the normative claim that the policy helps to
achieve a desirable political goal.
Political explanations and competitiveness in political communication
Political actors use political explanations to justify their policy choices and
preferences. They do this by claiming that their choices and preferences were driven by an
underlying normative consideration (Bennett 1980). In policy-justifications-by-impact, the
underlying normative consideration that supposedly prompted the politician to support the
policy is the impact allegedly exercised by the policy on a desirable political goal. The policyjustification-by-impact thus constitutes a type of political explanation that consists of two
components, illustrated in figure 1, namely a policy that is being justified and a desirable goal
that is used to justify the policy.1 The distinctive feature of the policy-justification-by-impact
1
The policy-justification-by-impact is the most common political message in conflicts over
policies and issues. As a unique species in the class of political messages, it belongs to the
order of persuasive political messages, the family of political explanations, and the genus of
justifications. In this taxonomy, other political explanations are concessions, excuses, and
denials (cf. McGraw 2002). Other species of justifications are based on “normative”,
“benefits”, “hypothetical comparison”, and “loyalty” considerations (McGraw et al. 1995) as
opposed to the “impact” consideration that defines the policy-justification-by-impact.
4
is the issue-linkage it establishes in the form of a causal relation between the policy and the
goal. Politicians using policy-justifications-by-impact justify their support for a policy by
claiming that the policy has a positive causal impact on the goal, or in other words that the
policy helps to advance the goal. For instance, legislators justifying their support for increased
income taxes might argue that this policy improves social justice, and the introduction of a
Euro-tax could be justified by claiming that it has a positive effect on the creation of
European identity.
(Figure 1 about here)
I argue that political actors explain their policy preferences about European integration
to improve their approval ratings or to shape citizens’ policy views. Politicians trying to
improve public approval feel compelled to explain their positions on European integration
policies by linking them to desirable political goals in three key scenarios: to mitigate the
reputational costs of an unpopular policy (cf. Mcgraw 1991), to generate positive reputational
consequences by improving the perception of an unknown or previously uncontested policy
(cf. Grose et al. 2014), and to maximize the already positive reputational effects of a popular
policy (cf. McGraw et al 2000). When politicians use explanations for the purpose of
influencing policy attitudes, they do not necessarily do this merely to convince, but instead to
put pressure on opponents in the legislative process (Kernell 1986), or to bring constituent
views in line with their own agenda for electoral gains (Fenno 1978). Politicians might or
might not be interested in generating positive views of integration policies by linking them to
desirable political goals. However, irrespective of what their motives are, the nature of the
issue-linkage they establish between a policy and a goal should always have at least an
unintended effect on policy support.
5
Honest political explanations of high quality can contribute positively to sustain
critical democratic processes of responsiveness and accountability (Esaiasson et al. 2016).
Dishonest and low quality explanations, by contrast, can undermine these goals, as politicians
use them to actively mislead the public about their intentions and past behavior. According to
Jacobs and Shapiro (2000), legislators can employ “crafted talk” to simulate responsiveness,
while pursuing entirely contradictory political agendas. Edelman (1977) proposes the most far
reaching criticism by charging politicians with utter semantic obfuscation of existing
problems and potential solutions.
Varying degrees of politicization of European integration emerge out of the confluence
of strategic calculations made by competing political actors that stand on opposite sides of an
issue divide with respect to the effects of their choices on approval ratings and policy support.
Low politicization identifies a scenario in which neither supporters nor opponents of a policy
of European integration actively explain their position. Asymmetric politicization occurs when
one of these actors steps up his communication efforts by explaining his position, while the
opponent has not (yet) followed suit. Full politicization constitutes a scenario of political
conflict and communication, in which both proponents and opponents explain their positions.
The emergence of different scenarios of politicization is thus a contextual political variable
resulting from legislator behavior that each individual actor can only partially control. In
contrast to the frequently unintended effects on policy support of separate political
explanations made by individual actors, different degrees of politicization result from the
interaction of two opposing actors, and I would expect that they have collateral effects both
on policy support and the approval ratings of politicians.
Clearly, the actual content of policy justifications and the way in which it resonates
with existing individual dispositions should affect public opinion through a process of
persuasion. Moreover, politicians who explain themselves should be better able to change
public opinion than politicians who only proclaim their positions. That being said, in this
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article, I make the separate claim that the degree of politicization, as it emerges from the
interaction of political actors engaged in political communication, should have an independent
effect on citizen views about the competing politicians and the policy they are arguing about.
I propose that greater politicization should raise approval ratings of politicians,
irrespective of whether they speak up in favor of the policy under consideration or against it,
and independent of their party affiliation. Higher degrees of politicization should also raise
public support for the policy being discussed, independent of existing views about the policy
and the goal invoked to explain support or rejection of the policy. Higher politicization should
have these effects, because the explicit political competition it entails represents a critical
feature of a viable and healthy democracy. Citizens will react more favorably to the
politicians that are in charge of democratic discourse and the policies that are being discussed,
when they have the feeling that democracy “works,” for which competitive communication is
a key indicator. More competitive political communication in more politicized environments
thus raises the satisfaction of citizens with democratic discourse, which in turn improves
views of democratic politicians and democratic policies. This makes grater politicization and
the more extensive political competition it entails an important source of democratic
legitimacy (cf. Esaiasson et al. 2016).
Research Design
I tested my expectations about the effects of politicization on approval ratings and
policy support in experimental studies conducted in the laboratory with a student sample and
a group of participants that reflect the diversity of the German voting age population. The
experiment, as illustrated in figure 2, creates three degrees of politicization by varying the coincidence of policy justifications used by competing politicians to explain their opposing
positions (for and against) over the extension of the authority of the European Union through
7
the introduction of a Euro-tax. Participants are randomly assigned to conditions of low
politicization (neither one of the two politicians explains his position), asymmetric
politicization (only one of them explains his position), and full politicization (both explain
their votes).
(Figure 2 about here)
The experimental treatment is administered through a mock newspaper article, which
discusses a vote in the European Parliament (EP) on a resolution demanding the introduction
of a Euro-tax.2 The article mentions Herbert Brueckner, a Member of the European
Parliament (MEP) as one of the legislators that voted in favor of the resolution. The MEP is
identified as a supporter of the Euro-tax. Participants then receive a policy-justification-byimpact or no justification whatsoever for his position. That is, participants are told that
Brueckner explained his decision by invoking one of three desirable political goals allegedly
advanced by the policy (European identity, free markets, or collective economic benefits) or
they receive no further explanation.3
The same mock article also quotes a second MEP, Frank Willmers, who voted against
the Euro-tax policy initiative. His communication behavior is the exact mirror image of the
behavior of the pro-sided Brueckner. Willmers either explains his rejection of the policy in a
2
The online appendix contains a reproduction of the treatment article as well as complete
details on measurement, statistical procedures, and experimental materials discussed in this
section.
3
The three goals are randomly assigned within each of the experimental conditions to make
sure that the effects of competitiveness are not artefacts of a specific kind of policy
justification. The goals were selected to cover normative principles and collective social
benefits.
8
policy-justification-by-impact invoking one of three desirable political goals (European
identity, free markets, and collective economic benefits) or he does not provide any
explanation for his decision.4 Scenarios of low politicization are situations in which neither
one of the two politicians justifies his choice to support or reject the policy; in asymmetric
politicization, only one of them (either one) justifies his position, and in instances of full
politicization, both politicians justify their choices.
The mock article describes the Euro-tax as a measure that would not result in higher
levels of taxation and greater government intervention into the economy, but only the shifting
of fiscal authority from the national level to the European Union. The Euro-tax is a little
known specific policy, which prevents a confounding effect of pre-existing opinions about the
policy on the outcome variable. At the same time, the Euro-tax stands for a real and
controversial debate that prompts meaningful variation in responses, because it speaks to the
highly contested broader issue of conflict over the scope of European political authority.
Completing the experiment takes around 20 minutes, informed consent was solicited
before the beginning of the study, and the protection of participants, including appropriate
debriefing, is guaranteed according to the guidelines prescribed by a typical Institutional
Review Board (IRB).5 Concealed as research about the news media, participants completed
the study in the experimental laboratory at the department XYZ at XYZ University. After
providing informed consent, participants answered a series of pre-treatment questions, went
through the experimental procedure, and then responded to manipulation checks, measures of
4
The article also notes the MEP’s party affiliation, which I randomly varied between the four
major parties represented in the German parliament (the christian democratic CDU/CSU, the
social democratic SPD, the eco-libertarian Greens, and the socialist Left Party).
5
I used the procedures published by the IRB at Ohio State University as my frame of
reference: orrp.osu.edu/irb/
9
the dependent variable, and other post-treatment items. All survey questions that could
possibly have been affected by the treatment were asked in the pre-treatment stage. Before
reading the article that delivered the experimental treatments, participants also read a mock
entry from the official journal of the EU announcing the passing of the resolution that is
subsequently discussed in the article. This additional piece of information was included to
increase the credibility of the story about the vote in the EP.
The experiment was implemented in two rounds during the first quarter of 2015, with
a diverse group of 315 participants that reflect the variation in the characteristics of the
German electorate. 155 participants are students recruited from a participant pool database,
who receive course credit or a small honorarium. The remaining 160 participants are recruited
through a database of a wide range of different clubs and associations as well as classified
ads. They receive a compensation of 15 Euros. The sample covers a wide Age range, both
Genders, representatives of all Social classes as well as a wide variety of Occupation,
education, and income situations. The participants also exhibit meaningful variation in key
political orientations and cognitive inclinations, such as Political sophistication, Political
interest, Left-right position, Political trust, Political efficacy, Need for cognition, and Need
for evaluation (see online appendix for details).
I tested my theoretical expectation about the positive effects of increasing
politicization on public opinion with respect to policy support and politician approval ratings.
The dependent variables are measured using a 0-100 thermometer scale. Policy support is
captured by one thermometer question, asking participants to express their views of the Eurotax policy discussed in the mock newspaper article. People’s judgments of politicians are
reflected in three specific thermometer ratings, one about the pro-Euro-tax politician Herbert
Brueckner, one about the against-Euro-tax politician Frank Willmers, and one average
approval rating of both politicians.
10
Analysis
To test my theoretical expectation about the effects of politicization, I compared
average values for approval ratings and policy support according to the three conditions of
politicization and competitive political communication to which participants were randomly
assigned. Figures 3a, 4a, and 5a illustrate these average values, with 95 % confidence
intervals, for overall support of politicians involved in the debate (3a), for the politician that
favored the Euro-tax, Herbert Brueckner (4a), and for the politician that rejected the policy,
Frank Willmers (5a). Figures 3b, 4b, and 5b display the according pairwise comparisons of
the differences in approval ratings between the varying conditions of competitiveness. Figures
6a and 6b show the same types of results in terms of citizen views of the Euro-tax policy.
(Figures 3, 4, 5, and 6 about here)
To begin with, figure 3a shows that increasing politicization is correlated with a rise in
the approval ratings of the politicians debating a policy. This effect is independent of the
specific position taken over the policy, and the favorability of the policy in the sample under
investigation. Random assignment to the various conditions of politicization makes sure that it
is actually the degree of politicization in and of itself that shapes citizen views of democratic
politicians. The pairwise comparisons displayed in figure 1b show that the positive effect of
politicization on overall approval ratings hinges on the statistically significant differences
between full and asymmetric as well as full and low politicization. Approval ratings in the
conditions of asymmetric and low politicization do not vary at conventional levels of
statistical significance.
The general pattern displayed in figure 3, which entails politicians irrespective of their
policy preference, is reflected in the findings illustrated in figures 4 and 5, which refer to
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politicians favoring or rejecting the Euro-tax policy, respectively. The figures show that the
positive effect of politicization on politicians’ approval ratings occurs consistently and
independently of the politician’s view of the policy. Intense politicization and the according
competitiveness in political communication – a scenario characterized by competing
justifications for opposing positions – is always more conducive to approval ratings than low
politicization, a scenario that is characterized by the complete absence of political
explanations. Differences between full and low politicization are statistically significant for
both pro-Euro-tax and against-Euro-tax politicians. The difference between full and
asymmetric politicization points in the expected direction for both types of politicians, but it
reaches conventional levels of statistical significance only for politicians speaking out against
the policy.
Greater politicization thus makes politicians look better in the eyes of citizens,
independent of the position they take on an issue and how that resonates with their audience.
It also makes policies look better that are subject to increased politicization. Figure 6 shows
that low politicization, similar to the pattern found in terms of approval ratings, constitutes the
environment that is the least conducive to policy support. Policy support in minimally
politicized environments is also significantly lower than in the scenario of asymmetric
politicization. However, low politicization does not differ to a significant extent from intense
politicization, and in contrast to the pattern found for approval ratings, albeit not statistically
significant, asymmetrically politicized environments prompt greater policy support than fully
politicized environments.
Asymmetric politicization can occur in two different ways, depending on whether the
move toward more politicization depends on the initiative of eurocritical or europhile
politicians. The steps from low to asymmetric and then from asymmetric to full politicization
make a difference for policy support and approval ratings. But does the nature of asymmetric
politicization vary between its two variants? Further analysis of the differences within the
12
condition of asymmetric politicization reveals that it is always beneficial for a politician to
engage in asymmetric politicization, all else being equal. The approval ratings of both
europhile and eurocritical politicians are higher in scenarios in which they are the politicizing
agent explaining policy positions, compared to scenarios in which they do not contribute to
politicization by simply stating their position without explanation. For the pro-Euro-tax
politician, the difference between explaining and not explaining in the overall scenario of
asymmetric politicization amounts to a value of 13.69 on a 0-100 thermometer scale
(p=0.003). The tendency is the same for the against-Euro-tax politician (d=6.89), but the
difference is not statistically significant (p=0.12). Interestingly, policy support also increases
as a result of asymmetric politicization, while there is no significant difference between the
two separate varieties of the asymmetric politicization scenario. Support for an integration
enhancing measure such as the Euro-tax rises whenever asymmetric politicization occurs,
independent of whether a europhile or a eurocritical actors steps up his communication
efforts.
Conclusion
This article has reported the findings about the implications of politicization and
competitive political communication gathered from experimental studies conducted in the
laboratory with students as well as a group of participants that reflect the diversity of the
German voting age population. Greater politicization of European integration in more
competitive environments of political communication occurs when legislators pitted against
one another on opposing sides of the issue conflict engage in more extensive explanations for
their varying positions. I investigate specifically how the use of policy justifications by these
actors creates different scenarios of politicization. Low politicization occurs when politicians
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only proclaim their positions or decisions without explaining them at all, full politicization
occurs when politicians with competing positions both justify their choices, and asymmetric
politicization means that citizens are exposed to only one explanation, while the opposing
point of view remains unexplained.
Random assignment to different scenarios of politicization, as well as additional
randomization of the content of the communication, make sure that the variation I find can
reliably be attributed to the contextual variation in politicization. The experimental results
show that, indeed, higher politicization of European integration is generally conducive to
more positive public opinion. This effect is more pronounced for approval ratings of
politicians than for policy support, and it is particularly strong for politicians that speak out
against a policy as opposed to its supporters. All else being equal, speaking more about
European integration and politicizing the issue thus contributes to more favorable opinions
about integration policies and the politicians discussing Europe.
14
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Figure 1: The policy-justification-by-impact
17
Figure 2: Experimental design
18
Figure 3a: average approval rating of politicians
Figure 3b: pairwise comparisons for average approval rating of politicians
19
Figure 4a: approval ratings of pro-Euro tax politician
Figure 4b: pairwise comparisons for approval ratings of pro-Euro-tax politician
20
Figure 5a: approval rating of against-Euro-tax politician
Figure 5b: pairwise comparisons for approval ratings of against-Euro-tax politician
21
Figure 6a: Policy support
Figure 6b: Pairwise comparisons for policy support
22