What do citizens want? And why does it matter? Discourses among citizens as opportunities and constraints for EU enlargement

Abstract:

This article examines the role of citizens’ discourses as constraints and opportunities for future enlargements. Public opinion is an increasingly important factor influencing EU’s integration capacity. When governments’ decisions on enlargement are challenged in referenda, the credibility of the EU’s promise is diminished and integration capacity is negatively affected. We take a discursive institutionalist approach that focuses on citizens’ perceptions and understandings of enlargement expressed in several discourses in each member state.

We argue that political élites can turn to citizen discourses to identify conditions under which enlargement would be acceptable to citizens. Identifying empirically citizen discourses in two old and two more recent member states, we find discourses supportive to enlargement, constraining discourses and a third group that would approve of enlargement but under certain conditions. Examining these conditions we find that to increase integration capacity, enlargement policy needs to be objective, to involve citizens in the member states and to promote better governance in candidate states.