Pieter De Wilde
Biographic Data
| ID | 365220 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pieter De Wilde |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pieter |
| FAMILY NAME | De Wilde |
| SIGNATURE | DE WILDE P |
| AFFILIATIONS | WZB Berlin Social Science Center |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1878-7780 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1107 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Responding or responsiveness? How politicisation influences the European Commission's policy formulation
Does politicisation have an impact on how the European Commission puts forward policy proposals? A large body of research has addressed this question from a responsiveness angle, assessing the degree to which the EU’s policy outputs align with public opinion. We complement this with a procedural approach that assesses how politicisation affects the input, throughput, and output stages of Commission policy formulation. We distinguish between respo…
The role of procedural fairness in EU legitimacy: Lessons from the Spitzenkandidaten process
The European Union (EU) is facing an ongoing challenge to its institutional and political legitimacy. The 2014 European Parliament elections marked a decisive step towards bringing the EU closer to its citizens by increasing the personalization of EU politics. Under the slogan ‘this time it’s different’, the idea was that the ‘winning’ lead candidate (Spitzenkandidat) of the EP elections would become the new President of the European Commission (…
The impact of unelected representatives on citizens’ satisfaction with democracy: A cross-national survey experiment
When activists act as unelected representatives by voicing political demands on behalf of various constituencies, does this affect citizens’ satisfaction with democracy? We theorize that this may be the case if and when such individuals constitute an effective channel of representation, meaning that (1) activists substantively represent individuals and (2) they are included in politics. Furthermore, we theorize that marginalized individuals becom…
Reconceptualizing “feeling represented”: A new approach to measure how feelings of political representation are constructed
In political representation, the concept of feeling represented has garnered significant attention in recent years. However, the prevailing conceptualization of feeling represented is limited in its scope and has effectively conflated a perception of being represented with feeling represented. We argue that such a conflation undermines our understanding of political representation, especially in the face of the constructivist turn in representati…
The embattled union: Toward a theory of siege mentality within European Union institutions
EU executives on social media: Assessing the potential and trajectories of legitimation via public communication on Twitter
Social media offers opportunities for European Union (EU) executives to improve their precarious legitimacy. Their broad, unmediated, instant, and cheap reach allows EU executives to explain to citizens what they are doing in their own words and to learn from citizens what they want. Yet, while the potential of social media is well-known, we know very little about how EU executives use them. This study addresses this gap by analysing how EU execu…
Venturing Beyond the Vote: Routes to Feeling Represented through Unelected Representation
This study examines how unelected representation, where political activists make representative claims on behalf of self-articulated constituencies, shapes citizens’ feelings of representation. Through a cross-national conjoint experiment (Sweden, Germany, Italy, and Romania, N = 8279), we test three routes to representation: descriptive representation through demographic congruence, substantive representation through issue congruence, and psycho…
(De‐)politicization Discourse Strategies: The Case of Trade
Examining (de‐)politicization as an actor‐driven phenomenon, this study asks: How and to what extent do actors in the public sphere attempt to (de‐)politicize European Union (EU) policies? (De‐)politicization is understood not only as a process but also as the deliberate framing of debates over EU issues at a domestic level. This paper conceptualizes (de‐)politicization acts in the public sphere and shows how these can be detected empirically thr…
Varieties of EU trade politicisation in EU public debates
This paper examines the politicisation of EU trade policy at the level of the EU's Member States. In an effort to study the variation of politicisation across the EU, going beyond the degree to which an issue is politicised, we map out the debates surrounding EU free trade agreements (TTIP and CETA) in the media of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland, based on a novel representative claims analysis dataset. We ask whether and how cl…
Peace, Prosperity and Protection: Narratives of Integration and the ‘Justification Jungle’ of Europe's Public Spheres
The European Union (EU) is in search of a new narrative to create a sense of common purpose, but it is unclear around which values that narrative should be built. To analyse how different narratives resonate in Europe's public spheres, this article presents a novel dataset based on claims analysis of newspaper articles from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Denmark between 2012 and 2019 on the issues of migration, the Economic and Monetar…
Critical junctures and the crystallization of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism
A burgeoning literature documents the emergence of a new globalization cleavage in Western Europe, centered around the issues of immigration and European integration. We investigate to what extent the globalization cleavage has crystallized by studying the alignment of preferences regarding open borders, their connection to more fundamental elements in the normative component of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism, and the extent to which this l…
Estimating building cooling energy demand through the Cooling Degree Hours in a changing climate: A modeling study
Analyzing Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media
Contributions in this thematic issue focus explicitly on citizens and their online engagement with European politics. For social media research in the European Union, citizens remain an understudied actor type in comparison with political elites or news organizations. The reason, we argue, is four key challenges facing social media research in the European Union: legal, ethical, technical, and cultural. To introduce this thematic issue, we outlin…
More power, less influence: European union actors in media debates on fiscal policy after the eurocrisis
Stronger European Union (EU) competencies come with greater media presence, according to existing cross-sectional comparisons. While presence comes with the power to influence public discourse, we know little about how it affects the overall tone of public discourse. This article investigates the effect of the empowerment of EU institutions on media presence and the tone of debate in the EU. It does this through an original claims analysis of new…
The essence of democratic backsliding in the European Union: Deliberation and Rule of Law
This paper analyzes recent trends of democratic backsliding within the European Union (EU). While some scholars highlight threats to the rule of law and judicial independence as the key development and problem, others focus on elite discourse and partisan competition. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the essence of democratic backsliding by analyzing changes between 1990 and 2019 on key indicators of democracy – polyarchy, liberalism, parti…
The interaction between humans and buildings for energy efficiency: A critical review
Energy demands of buildings in the framework of climate change: An investigation across Europe
A cosmopolitan–communitarian cleavage around the world? Evidence from ideological polarization and party–voter linkages
The Quality of Representative Claims: Uncovering a Weakness in the Defense of the Liberal World Order
All kinds of actors, elected and unelected, make claims to represent certain constituencies. This article sheds new light on what this practice of representative claims-making might imply for the legitimacy of the liberal world order. It develops a quality of representation index at the level of representative claims and introduces a novel dataset. First, the article introduces the information criterion as key benchmark against which to evaluate …
The Struggle Over Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism
analyzes globalization-related conflict in the UNGA and the European Parliament. These two ‘strong publics’ feature debates on issues related to the permeability of borders and are directly tied to important centers of decision-making in global governance. The findings show a powerful cosmopolitan presence in both assemblies. The EP also features more communitarian counter voices. An indepth analysis of the partisan nature of debate in the EP and…
Assessing housing approaches for Iraq: Learning from the world experience
Media logic and grand theories of European integration
How does media coverage of European Union (EU) politics affect the process of European integration? This contribution investigates the nature and logic of media coverage of EU affairs and identifies the news value criteria that underpin it. It subsequently confronts the key causal mechanisms and processes of grand theories of European integration with this media logic. This generates several key insights in which media impact the EU and European …
Going full circle: The need for procedural perspectives on EU responsiveness
Research on policy responsiveness of the European Union has adopted the systemic model from national contexts. This focusses on the static congruence or the dynamic adaptation of aggregated policy output and similarly aggregated public opinion. Approaches in this vein provide relevant insights and uncover a surprising degree of EU responsiveness. Yet, this debate contribution argues that they only insufficiently capture indirect accountability ch…
The making of four ideologies of globalization
Recent societal conflicts over immigration, free trade and EU membership testify to the controversiality of globalization in Western societies. Brexit, Trump, the refugee crisis, and the debate around transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) are clear illustrations of the salience of globalization in politics. Many argue that neoliberal ideology supports and drives globalization. This raises the question whether opposition to globali…
The opposition deficit in EU accountability: Evidence from over 20 years of plenary debate in four member states
Debates about the European Union's democratic legitimacy put national parliaments into the spotlight. Do they enhance democratic accountability by offering visible debates and electoral choice about multilevel governance? To support such accountability, saliency of EU affairs in the plenary ought to be responsive to developments in EU governance, has to be linked to decision‐making moments and should feature a balance between government and oppos…
No Polity for Old Politics? A Framework for Analyzing the Politicization of European Integration
In the literature on European integration, politicization as concept is often attributed major importance. This article shows how the literature variously discusses the politicization of European Union (EU) institutions, the politicization of EU decision‐making processes or the politicization of EU issues. Similarly, the literature attributes three different functions to politicization: it functions to crystallize opposing advocacy coalitions, to…
Can the Politicization of European Integration be Reversed
Following the failure of the Constitutional Treaty, executives of European Union (EU) Member States and the European Commission tried to take European integration as a political issue as much off the agenda as possible and limit involvement of citizens in EU decision‐making. This article assesses the viability of this attempt to combat politicization of European integration and comes to the conclusion that it is unlikely to succeed in the long ru…
Winners and losers of globalization in Europe: Attitudes and Ideologies
Globalization pressures result in a new ideological conflict among Europeans. We use detailed items from the Eurobarometer survey on issues of immigration and European integration that measure the ideological perspective underpinning positions toward the EU. This provides a fine-grained analysis of the ideologies underlying the poles of the new globalization-centered conflict line, which we define as cosmopolitan and communitarian. Our results sh…
Introduction: The differentiated politicisation of European governance
The politicisation of European governance has become an important subject in debates about the institutional design, day-to-day decision-making and democratic legitimacy of the European Union. This special issue takes stock of this development of politicisation research, including the theoretical development as well as the rapidly expanding body of empirical evidence. It synergises the various perspectives on politicisation of European governance…
Debating globalization: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism as Political Ideologies
Economic, cultural and political systems formerly bounded by the borders of nation states are increasingly globalized. Politicians, civil society and other societal actors engage in publically debating issues related to globalization. Whether conflicts consolidate to form a stable cleavage depends among other factors on the extent to which they become ideologically underpinned. As the basis for such an underpinning, we identify philosophical deba…
The opposition deficit in EU accountability: Evidence from over 20 years of plenary debate in four member states
Debates about the European Union's democratic legitimacy put national parliaments into the spotlight. Do they enhance democratic accountability by offering visible debates and electoral choice about multilevel governance? To support such accountability, saliency of EU affairs in the plenary ought to be responsive to developments in EU governance, has to be linked to decision‐making moments and should feature a balance between government and oppos…
Representative claims analysis: Theory Meets Method
This contribution presents a detailed methodological discussion on the empirical study of political representation. It confronts Saward's conceptualization of the representative claim with the method of claims analysis, developed by Koopmans and Statham. Drawing on Saward, the contribution emphasizes the theoretical need to study the act of representation in the form of claims through which connections between representatives and represented are …
The essence of democratic backsliding in the European Union: Deliberation and Rule of Law
This paper analyzes recent trends of democratic backsliding within the European Union (EU). While some scholars highlight threats to the rule of law and judicial independence as the key development and problem, others focus on elite discourse and partisan competition. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the essence of democratic backsliding by analyzing changes between 1990 and 2019 on key indicators of democracy – polyarchy, liberalism, parti…
Converging on euroscepticism: Online polity contestation during E uropean P arliament elections
Does the increasing politicisation of E urope signify a step towards the legitimation of the U nion? This could be the case if the increased public intensity of debate and polarisation of opinion brought about by politicisation do not fragment the audience and if arguments presented in public are sufficiently clear about the desired nature of the polity. To answer this question, the focus of this article is on dynamic contestation in the public s…
Assessing actually-existing trajectories of EU politicisation
Theoretical debate about the effects of politicisation on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union has tended to focus on the potential of conflict between European political parties or member state governments. At the same time, empirical sociological studies demonstrate that controversy about Europe continues to unfold primarily within national public spheres. There is as yet no genuine Europe-wide party system or public debate. This rev…
The Quality of Representative Claims: Uncovering a Weakness in the Defense of the Liberal World Order
All kinds of actors, elected and unelected, make claims to represent certain constituencies. This article sheds new light on what this practice of representative claims-making might imply for the legitimacy of the liberal world order. It develops a quality of representation index at the level of representative claims and introduces a novel dataset. First, the article introduces the information criterion as key benchmark against which to evaluate …
Redirecting national parliaments: Setting priorities for involvement in EU affairs
The Operating Logics of National Parliaments and Mass Media in the Politicisation of Europe
Denouncing European integration: Euroscepticism as polity contestation
The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism is manifested in critical practices in discourse that oppose European integration. This paper explores Euroscepticism as an element of discourse, which cannot only be measured as party positions or individual attitudes. Based on this understanding, our argument is twofold. Firstly, Euroscepticism relates to the unsettled and principally contested character of the European Union (EU) as a political entity…
Going full circle: The need for procedural perspectives on EU responsiveness
Research on policy responsiveness of the European Union has adopted the systemic model from national contexts. This focusses on the static congruence or the dynamic adaptation of aggregated policy output and similarly aggregated public opinion. Approaches in this vein provide relevant insights and uncover a surprising degree of EU responsiveness. Yet, this debate contribution argues that they only insufficiently capture indirect accountability ch…
A cosmopolitan–communitarian cleavage around the world? Evidence from ideological polarization and party–voter linkages
Media logic and grand theories of European integration
How does media coverage of European Union (EU) politics affect the process of European integration? This contribution investigates the nature and logic of media coverage of EU affairs and identifies the news value criteria that underpin it. It subsequently confronts the key causal mechanisms and processes of grand theories of European integration with this media logic. This generates several key insights in which media impact the EU and European …
Ex ante vs. ex post: The trade-off between partisan conflict and visibility in debating EU policy-formulation in national parliaments
This article asks how ex ante and ex post control mechanisms structuring the involvement of national parliaments in European Union (EU) policy-formulation affect the scope of conflict and visibility of parliamentary debates. Based on democratic theory, partisan conflict and high visibility are normatively preferable. The effects of control mechanisms on these two criteria are assessed in a comparative case study of plenary debates in the Danish F…
Politicisation of the EU Budget: Conflict and the Constraining Dissensus
The current political climate in the European Union, referred to as the 'constraining dissensus', may place negotiations on the multiannual EU budget centre stage. Media framing of EU budget negotiations as conflict between member states may reinforce the constraining dissensus by resonating with exclusive national identity. In contrast, media emphasis on conflict within or across member states may alleviate the constraining dissensus by strength…
(De‐)politicization Discourse Strategies: The Case of Trade
Examining (de‐)politicization as an actor‐driven phenomenon, this study asks: How and to what extent do actors in the public sphere attempt to (de‐)politicize European Union (EU) policies? (De‐)politicization is understood not only as a process but also as the deliberate framing of debates over EU issues at a domestic level. This paper conceptualizes (de‐)politicization acts in the public sphere and shows how these can be detected empirically thr…
The making of four ideologies of globalization
Recent societal conflicts over immigration, free trade and EU membership testify to the controversiality of globalization in Western societies. Brexit, Trump, the refugee crisis, and the debate around transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) are clear illustrations of the salience of globalization in politics. Many argue that neoliberal ideology supports and drives globalization. This raises the question whether opposition to globali…
Critical junctures and the crystallization of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism
A burgeoning literature documents the emergence of a new globalization cleavage in Western Europe, centered around the issues of immigration and European integration. We investigate to what extent the globalization cleavage has crystallized by studying the alignment of preferences regarding open borders, their connection to more fundamental elements in the normative component of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism, and the extent to which this l…
EU executives on social media: Assessing the potential and trajectories of legitimation via public communication on Twitter
Social media offers opportunities for European Union (EU) executives to improve their precarious legitimacy. Their broad, unmediated, instant, and cheap reach allows EU executives to explain to citizens what they are doing in their own words and to learn from citizens what they want. Yet, while the potential of social media is well-known, we know very little about how EU executives use them. This study addresses this gap by analysing how EU execu…
Accountability and opposition to globalization in international assemblies
Advocates of a global democratic parliament have expressed hopes that this would not only legitimize global governance in procedural terms, but also bring about more cosmopolitan policies. They point to the European Parliament as an example of a successful real existing democratic parliament beyond the state with cosmopolitan intent. We analyse plenary debates in the United Nations General Assembly and the European Parliament about the issues of …
Peace, Prosperity and Protection: Narratives of Integration and the ‘Justification Jungle’ of Europe's Public Spheres
The European Union (EU) is in search of a new narrative to create a sense of common purpose, but it is unclear around which values that narrative should be built. To analyse how different narratives resonate in Europe's public spheres, this article presents a novel dataset based on claims analysis of newspaper articles from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Denmark between 2012 and 2019 on the issues of migration, the Economic and Monetar…
No effect, weapon of the weak or reinforcing executive dominance? How media coverage affects national parliaments’ involvement in EU policy-formulation
Ex ante vs. ex post: The trade-off between partisan conflict and visibility in debating EU policy-formulation in national parliaments
This article asks how ex ante and ex post control mechanisms structuring the involvement of national parliaments in European Union (EU) policy-formulation affect the scope of conflict and visibility of parliamentary debates. Based on democratic theory, partisan conflict and high visibility are normatively preferable. The effects of control mechanisms on these two criteria are assessed in a comparative case study of plenary debates in the Danish F…
No Polity for Old Politics? A Framework for Analyzing the Politicization of European Integration
In the literature on European integration, politicization as concept is often attributed major importance. This article shows how the literature variously discusses the politicization of European Union (EU) institutions, the politicization of EU decision‐making processes or the politicization of EU issues. Similarly, the literature attributes three different functions to politicization: it functions to crystallize opposing advocacy coalitions, to…
Can the Politicization of European Integration be Reversed
Following the failure of the Constitutional Treaty, executives of European Union (EU) Member States and the European Commission tried to take European integration as a political issue as much off the agenda as possible and limit involvement of citizens in EU decision‐making. This article assesses the viability of this attempt to combat politicization of European integration and comes to the conclusion that it is unlikely to succeed in the long ru…
Denouncing European integration: Euroscepticism as polity contestation
The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism is manifested in critical practices in discourse that oppose European integration. This paper explores Euroscepticism as an element of discourse, which cannot only be measured as party positions or individual attitudes. Based on this understanding, our argument is twofold. Firstly, Euroscepticism relates to the unsettled and principally contested character of the European Union (EU) as a political entity…
Politicisation of the EU Budget: Conflict and the Constraining Dissensus
The current political climate in the European Union, referred to as the 'constraining dissensus', may place negotiations on the multiannual EU budget centre stage. Media framing of EU budget negotiations as conflict between member states may reinforce the constraining dissensus by resonating with exclusive national identity. In contrast, media emphasis on conflict within or across member states may alleviate the constraining dissensus by strength…
Representative claims analysis: Theory Meets Method
This contribution presents a detailed methodological discussion on the empirical study of political representation. It confronts Saward's conceptualization of the representative claim with the method of claims analysis, developed by Koopmans and Statham. Drawing on Saward, the contribution emphasizes the theoretical need to study the act of representation in the form of claims through which connections between representatives and represented are …
The Operating Logics of National Parliaments and Mass Media in the Politicisation of Europe
Winners and losers of globalization in Europe: Attitudes and Ideologies
Globalization pressures result in a new ideological conflict among Europeans. We use detailed items from the Eurobarometer survey on issues of immigration and European integration that measure the ideological perspective underpinning positions toward the EU. This provides a fine-grained analysis of the ideologies underlying the poles of the new globalization-centered conflict line, which we define as cosmopolitan and communitarian. Our results sh…
Converging on euroscepticism: Online polity contestation during E uropean P arliament elections
Does the increasing politicisation of E urope signify a step towards the legitimation of the U nion? This could be the case if the increased public intensity of debate and polarisation of opinion brought about by politicisation do not fragment the audience and if arguments presented in public are sufficiently clear about the desired nature of the polity. To answer this question, the focus of this article is on dynamic contestation in the public s…
Redirecting national parliaments: Setting priorities for involvement in EU affairs
Debating Globalization: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism as Political Ideologies
Introduction: The differentiated politicisation of European governance
The politicisation of European governance has become an important subject in debates about the institutional design, day-to-day decision-making and democratic legitimacy of the European Union. This special issue takes stock of this development of politicisation research, including the theoretical development as well as the rapidly expanding body of empirical evidence. It synergises the various perspectives on politicisation of European governance…
Assessing actually-existing trajectories of EU politicisation
Theoretical debate about the effects of politicisation on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union has tended to focus on the potential of conflict between European political parties or member state governments. At the same time, empirical sociological studies demonstrate that controversy about Europe continues to unfold primarily within national public spheres. There is as yet no genuine Europe-wide party system or public debate. This rev…
Debating globalization: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism as Political Ideologies
Economic, cultural and political systems formerly bounded by the borders of nation states are increasingly globalized. Politicians, civil society and other societal actors engage in publically debating issues related to globalization. Whether conflicts consolidate to form a stable cleavage depends among other factors on the extent to which they become ideologically underpinned. As the basis for such an underpinning, we identify philosophical deba…
Accountability and opposition to globalization in international assemblies
Advocates of a global democratic parliament have expressed hopes that this would not only legitimize global governance in procedural terms, but also bring about more cosmopolitan policies. They point to the European Parliament as an example of a successful real existing democratic parliament beyond the state with cosmopolitan intent. We analyse plenary debates in the United Nations General Assembly and the European Parliament about the issues of …
The opposition deficit in EU accountability: Evidence from over 20 years of plenary debate in four member states
Debates about the European Union's democratic legitimacy put national parliaments into the spotlight. Do they enhance democratic accountability by offering visible debates and electoral choice about multilevel governance? To support such accountability, saliency of EU affairs in the plenary ought to be responsive to developments in EU governance, has to be linked to decision‐making moments and should feature a balance between government and oppos…
The Struggle Over Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism
analyzes globalization-related conflict in the UNGA and the European Parliament. These two ‘strong publics’ feature debates on issues related to the permeability of borders and are directly tied to important centers of decision-making in global governance. The findings show a powerful cosmopolitan presence in both assemblies. The EP also features more communitarian counter voices. An indepth analysis of the partisan nature of debate in the EP and…
Assessing housing approaches for Iraq: Learning from the world experience
Media logic and grand theories of European integration
How does media coverage of European Union (EU) politics affect the process of European integration? This contribution investigates the nature and logic of media coverage of EU affairs and identifies the news value criteria that underpin it. It subsequently confronts the key causal mechanisms and processes of grand theories of European integration with this media logic. This generates several key insights in which media impact the EU and European …
Going full circle: The need for procedural perspectives on EU responsiveness
Research on policy responsiveness of the European Union has adopted the systemic model from national contexts. This focusses on the static congruence or the dynamic adaptation of aggregated policy output and similarly aggregated public opinion. Approaches in this vein provide relevant insights and uncover a surprising degree of EU responsiveness. Yet, this debate contribution argues that they only insufficiently capture indirect accountability ch…
The making of four ideologies of globalization
Recent societal conflicts over immigration, free trade and EU membership testify to the controversiality of globalization in Western societies. Brexit, Trump, the refugee crisis, and the debate around transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) are clear illustrations of the salience of globalization in politics. Many argue that neoliberal ideology supports and drives globalization. This raises the question whether opposition to globali…
Energy demands of buildings in the framework of climate change: An investigation across Europe
A cosmopolitan–communitarian cleavage around the world? Evidence from ideological polarization and party–voter linkages
The Quality of Representative Claims: Uncovering a Weakness in the Defense of the Liberal World Order
All kinds of actors, elected and unelected, make claims to represent certain constituencies. This article sheds new light on what this practice of representative claims-making might imply for the legitimacy of the liberal world order. It develops a quality of representation index at the level of representative claims and introduces a novel dataset. First, the article introduces the information criterion as key benchmark against which to evaluate …
Political science (33 works) · Law (30 works) · Politics (30 works) · European Union Policy and Governance (29 works) · Sociology (27 works) · Law (26 works) · Political economy (24 works) · Economics (22 works) · European union (22 works) · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies (17 works)