The european dimension of political discourse in Italy. A ... - CIRCaP

N. CONTI / L. VERZICHELLI
Therefore, we decided to use a broader set of qualitative information coming from an indepth
analysis of a number of documentary sources concerning different party activities. The
relevant information has been partially recoded in a quantitative data set, whose codebook is
reported in the following table (table 1). The last variable listed in the codebook is a five point
scale representing the overall position we attribute to each single document on the
dimension pro-Europeanism/Euroscepticism: in this way, we want to raise a rough
classification of the degree of commitment of the party discourse to European integration,
following the categorization illustrated in the following table (table 2).
TABLES 1 AND 2 ABOUT HERE
The negative attitude to European integration has been considered following a categorization
already tested by recent analyses (Szczerbiak and Taggart 2002) and that we elaborated
and partially rephrased here. The most extreme point in the negative scale (Hard
Euroscepticism) is represented by a principled opposition to EU and European integration,
which is supported by a clear proposal to stop or invert the process of integration. In other
words, the political discourse is centred on the idea that a country should withdraw from
membership, oppose the whole project of European integration as it is currently conceived
or, anyway, stop the largest part of the policy convergences in act.
The next category of Euroscepticism is that of soft Euroscepticism. In practical terms, this
should not entail a principled objection to European integration or EU membership, but it may
concern one (or a number) of policy areas. A party (or party faction or party leader) falling in
this category would qualify as a clear opponent of the EEC/EU progress, arguing that
'national interests' would be at odds with the EU trajectory (Szczerbiak and Taggart 2002).
While the point 0 obviously refers to an absolute “non engagement”, that is to say the
absence of mentions on and/or commitments to European Integration, the positive points of
the scale imply two distinguished dimensions: the first dimension is one of pragmatic
acceptance of the status quo (functional Europeanism). Here, the support to European
integration can be re-conducted to a mere “calculus”, the one of pursuing a national interest
or a specific party goal, rather than integration in itself. In this kind of approach, there is no
commitment to further integration, unless it is proved it would serve such interests. Examples
of such type of attitude can be found in some positive judgements about a given situation
(i.e. the making of EMU since it would prove useful for the domestic economy), but with no
real commitment to complete that in a comprehensive “integration design”.
The highest level of pro-Europeanism is what we have called Identity Europeanism. Here, we
mean the absolute predominance of a claim in favour of the shift of further competences from
the national to the supranational arena, of a Federal Europe and of European citizenship. In
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