A New Comparative Focus Group Study
Whilst the politicization of the EU has been increasingly studied over recent years, the analysis has been focusing mainly on political parties and media. Thus, although not completely overlooked, studies looking at EU politicization amongst individuals remain scarce. This article presents a new qualitative dataset from 21 focus groups conducted across social groups and four countries. It was designed to observe processes of (de-)politicization at citizens’ level, how they talk about the EU and along which cleavages are their attitudes structured. This comparative research design sheds new light on discourses and opinions on Europe, mechanisms of politicization and political discussions.