How to historicise “Euroscepticism”. An account of the evening lecture given by Wolfram Kaiser

From Katharina Troll, Hamburg Institute for Social Research

One of the highlights of the workshop in Hamburg was the evening lecture given by Wolfram Kaiser titled “Historicising Euroscepticism: Varieties of Critical Engagement with European union” on the 2nd September 2021. It was not just the first time since the beginning of the pandemic that it was possible to hold an evening lecture at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research with an audience, but it also contributed to and summarised the discussions among our group in the morning and afternoon. The historian Wolfram Kaiser is a distinguished expert for European Integration Studies. He holds a professorship of European Studies at Portsmouth University and is visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium). Kaiser hugely and actively contributes to the research of European Integration Studies and his expertise in various subjects touched directly many of our individual projects.

“Euroscepticism” may seem at first sight like a clearly defined and very recent political phenomenon: Especially since the Treaty of Maastricht political parties, mostly from the conservative or right spectrum, seem to mobilise greater opposition against the EU and further integration in “defence” of national sovereignty and cultural identity. However, bystepping away from this classical political science perception and by transferring the term into historical context, it becomes clear that it neither is a consistently defined term, nor a “new” phenomenon mainly encompassing only the political right. The variety of problems we encounter when applying “Euroscepticism” as a research term in historical research, reflects this very vividly. In his lecture Kaiser addressed these terminological and methodological problems, speaking of “Euroscepticism” as an “ill-defined concept.” The question is: How can a term that lacks a consensual definition, needs to be historicised, and is conceived of as a “new” phenomenon of the political right, be a useful research term for our projects?

Werner Schwarz, German Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Forestry (r.), talking with Sicco Mansholt, Vice President of the EEC Commission (l.), in front of a map.

  Kaiser offered helpful and interesting suggestions to engage critically with those problems and with European integration as such. In this respect, his lecture was conceptualised like a “recipe” for historians who research “Euroscepticism” and European integration. He proposed to “conceive of European Integration as the conflictual emergence of a transnational polity with an increasing degree of institutionalisation.” To historicise Euroscepticism, one must regard the “EU as a polity in the making” and apply a transnational perspective.

In his lecture, Kaiser discussed two main questions that also have been subject of our debates during the workshop and within our reading group: First, why have social and political groups shown different degrees of support or opposition to Europe in changing historical circumstances, and second, why and how have those groups critically engaged with European union? Concerning the first question, he suggested competing visions on three dimensions of European integration (spatial scope, constitutional nature, and socio- economic political character). Those dimensions manifest in counter-movements which also engage with pro-European actors. To tackle the second question, he proposed three additional complementary research approaches: First, shifting the focus to individual and collective experience of the decision-making on the European level; second, identifying and analysing storytellers and their counter-narratives; third, exploring the resulting national as well as transnational political mobilisation and contestation to demonstrate how pro- Europeans and Eurosceptics have interacted, thereby shaping European integration and the present-day EU.