‘Reactive Pro-Europeanism’: Extending the Agency Turn beyond Euroscepticism – The Labour Case (1983-2016)
University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) 56th Annual Conference, 18 Eylül 2026, ss.1-2, (Özet Bildiri)
- Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Özet Bildiri
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-2
- Ankara Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Mainstream parties’ support for European integration is largely conceptualised by Europeanisation research in a top-down manner as either principled—rooted in stable ideational or programmatic commitments—or structurally ‘locked in’. In contrast, the Euroscepticism literature often pays considerable attention to ‘party agency’, treating opposition to the EU as parties’ strategic choice. This study addresses that asymmetry and offers an alternative lens for critical European studies: mainstream pro‑Europeanism can also be strategic, agency-led, and contingent. The paper therefore advances the concept of ‘reactive pro-Europeanism’—conditional support for European integration that is repeatedly recalibrated in response to domestic political imperatives. This entails treating pro‑Europeanism as a strategic practice that can be intensified, muted, or defused when deemed necessary by party leadership.
Reactive pro-Europeanism sets out to bridge the gap between the structuralist lens of Europeanisation and the agency-oriented insights of Euroscepticism, based on three main foundations: (1) domestic political and electoral incentives—securing votes, outmanoeuvring rivals, winning elections, retaining office—override ideational commitments to the European project; (2) party elites recalibrate the tone, degree and salience of pro-Europeanism, amplifying Europhile signals when electorally useful and freezing them when electorally risky; and (3) pro-European claims may be left aside or even sacrificed when open contestation with Eurosceptic actors is judged too costly. This novel perspective reframes ‘Europe’ not as something unilaterally imposed at the national level, but as a contested resource whose meaning is strategically (re-)produced by key domestic actors such as political parties.
The concept is illustrated through the British Labour Party’s pro-European evolution from its 1983 general election defeat to the 2016 Brexit referendum, drawing on 16 semi‑structured interviews with senior Labour elites and archival research on official party documents. The analysis identifies three stages of Labour’s reactive pro-European practice: abandoning withdrawalism under electoral penalty (1983–1989); rebranding as the ‘party of Europe’ by employing pro-Europeanism as a tool of competitive differentiation against the divided Tories and as an electoral asset (1989–1999); and silencing Europe as part of ‘risk management’ and ‘damage-limitation’ strategies vis-à-vis rising anti-European mobilisation—a pattern that later influenced Corbyn’s reluctant Remain campaign (1999–2016).
By challenging the dominant narrative on established parties’ support for Europe, this paper aims to extend the ‘agency turn’ to Europeanisation, while simultaneously demonstrating how mainstream actors can contribute to the fragility of the pro‑European narrative in member states under conditions of intense EU polarisation.