Political parties and the EU in national election campaigns: who talks about Europe, and how?

This paper examines political party mobilization on European Union issues during national election campaigns. We consider which actors talk about the EU, specifically which parties and which actors within parties, as well as how these actors talk about the EU, specifically the types of EU issues addressed as well as their framing. We argue that issue-based strategies and government participation may provide important reasons why parties only mobilize selectively on EU issues. We test our expectations using data from party press releases in Austrian general election campaigns in 2008 and 2013. We find that selective mobilization is most prevalent in terms of content, thus in how parties talk about the EU. This article provides new evidence on the extent of party political contestation over EU issues and shows how strategic incentives limit the ways in which they are incorporated into national politics.