ABSTRACT
This book explores what drives value politics and the way in which it redraws political conflict at EU level.
Based on case studies and analyses of statistical data, the book shows what the uses and roles of values have been at EU level over the past decades in both market-related policies and in identity, cultural and morality policies. It challenges the common assumption that the latter is more driven by value conflicts. The research shows the intrinsic similarities between all policy areas regarding the agency and limits of values as drivers of change or continuity. It argues that European values are a broad and flexible symbolic repertoire instrumentalised to serve as a resource for mobilization, legitimation/delegitimation, the conquest and conservation of power.
This book will be of key interest to both scholars and students in European studies/politics, comparative politics, public policy, political theory, sociology and cultural studies, as well as appealing to professionals of European affairs within and around the EU institutions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|80 pages
“Business as usual”?
chapter 1|22 pages
When political competition boosts attitude consistency
chapter 2|17 pages
Values, the politics of their mobilization and ideological identification
chapter 3|20 pages
Market, culture, and open access
chapter 4|19 pages
The discursive legitimisation of a market-oriented EU trade policy through “European values” in a post-permissive consensus era
part 2|79 pages
“New frontiers”