Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-htx7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-14T20:40:02.041Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Europeanisation and social movements: The case of the Stop TTIP campaign

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Manuela Caiani  and
Paolo Graziano
Manuela Caiani*
Affiliation:
Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy
Paolo Graziano
Affiliation:
University of Padua, Italy
*
Address for correspondence: Manuela Caiani, SNS_Scuola Normale Superiore, Palazzo Strozzi, 1, Piazza Strozzi, Florence 50100, Italy. Email: manuela.caiani@sns.it
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Over the past years, the economic crisis has significantly challenged the ways through which social movements have conceptualised and interacted with European Union institutions and policies. Although valuable research on the Europeanisation of movements has already been conducted, finding moderate numbers of Europeanised protests and actors, more recent studies on the subject have been limited to austerity measures and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been investigated more from a trade unions’ or an international relations perspective. In this article, the TTIP is used as a very promising case study to analyse social movements’ Europeanisation – that is, their capacity to mobilise referring to European issues, targets and identities. Furthermore, the TTIP is a crucial test case because it concerns a policy area (foreign trade) which falls under the exclusive competence of the EU. In addition, political opportunities for civil society actors are ‘closed’ in that negotiations are kept ‘secret’ and discussed mainly within the European Council, and it is difficult to mobilise a large public on such a technical issue. So why and how has this movement become ‘Europeanised’? This comparative study tests the Europeanisation hypothesis with a protest event analysis on anti‐TTIP mobilisation in six European countries (Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria) at the EU level in the period 2014–2016 (for a total of 784 events) and uses semi‐structured interviews in Brussels with key representatives of the movement and policy makers. The findings show that there is strong adaptation of social movements to multilevel governance – with the growing presence of not only purely European actors, but also European targets, mobilisations and transnational movement networks – with a ‘differential Europeanisation’. Not only do the paths of Europeanisation vary from country to country (and type of actor), but they are also influenced by the interplay between the political opportunities at the EU and domestic levels.

Keywords

TTIPsocial movementsEuropeanisationprotest event analysismultilevel governance

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
European Journal of Political Research , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 1031 - 1055
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 European Consortium for Political Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Balme, R. & Chabanet, D. (2002). Introduction: Action collective et gouvernance de l'Union Européenne. In Balme, R., Chabanet, D. & Wright, V. (eds), L'action collective en Europe. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.Google Scholar
Balme, R. & Chabanet, D. (2008). European governance and democracy: Power and protest in the EU. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Beyers, J. (2002). Gaining and seeking access: The European adaptation of domestic interest associations. European Journal of Political Research 41(5): 585–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beyers, J. & Kerremans, B. (2011). Domestic embeddedness and the dynamics of multilevel venue shopping in four EU member states. Governance 25(2): 263–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bieler, A. (2005). European integration and the transnational restructuring of social relations: The emergence of labour as a regional actor? Journal of Common Market Studies 43(3): 461–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourne, A. & Chatzopoulou, S. (2015). Social movements and the construction of crisis actors: Collective responsibility, identity and governance. International Journal of Public Administration 38(12): 874–883.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouza Garcia, L. & Del Rio Villar, S. (2012). The ECI as a democratic innovation. Perspectives on European Politics and Society 13(3): 312–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della Porta, D. & Caiani, M. (2007). Europeanisation from below? Social movements and Europe. Mobilization 12(1): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della Porta, D. & Caiani, M. (2009). Social movements and Europeanisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della Porta, D. & Mattoni, A. (2014). Patterns of diffusion and the transnational dimension of protest in the movements of the crisis: An introduction. In Spreading protests: Social movements in times of crisis. Colchester: ECPR Press.Google Scholar
Della Porta, D. & Mosca, L. (2009). Searching the net: Websites’ qualities in the global justice movement. Information, Communication and Society 12(6): 771–792.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Della Porta, D. & Parks, L. (2015). Europeanisation and social movements: Before and after the Great Recession. In Börner, S. & Eigmüller, M. (eds), European integration, processes of change and the national experience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Della Porta, D. & Parks, L. (2016). Social movements, the European crisis and EU political opportunities. Comparative European Politics 15(64): 1–18.Google Scholar
Della Porta, D. & Tarrow, S. (eds) (2005). Transnational movements and global activism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Della Porta, D., Kriesi, H. & Rucht, D. (2009). Social movements in a globalizing world: An introduction. In Social movements in a globalizing world. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.N. (eds) (2011). The Sage handbook of qualitative research. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Diani, M. & McAdam, D. (2003). Social movements and networks: Relational approaches to collective action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dierckx, S. (2015). European unions and the repoliticization of transnational capital: Labor's stance regarding the FTT, The TTIP and the CETA. Labor History 56(3): 327–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
European Commission (2015). Media use in the European Union. Standard Eurobarometer 84. Brussels: European Commission.Google Scholar
European Commission (2016). The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)‐ Stay of play. Brussels: European Commission.Google Scholar
Geddes, A. & Guiraudon, V. (2004). The emergence of a European Union policy paradigm amidst contrasting national models: Britain, France and EU anti‐discrimination policy. West European Politics 27(2): 334–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giugni, M. & Passy, F. (2002). Le champ politique de l'immigration en Europe: Opportunités, mobilisations et héritage de l'Etat national. In Balme, R., Chabanet, D. & Wright, V. (eds), L'action collective en Europe. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.Google Scholar
Greenwood, J. (2007). Interest representation in the European Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Greenwood, J. (2012). The European Citizens’ Initiative and EU civil society organisations. Perspectives on European Politics and Society 13(3): 325–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooghe, L. & Marks, G. (2009). A postfunctionalist theory of European Integration: From permissive consensus to constraining dissensus. British Journal of Political Science 39(1): 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imig, D. (2004). Contestation in the streets: European protest and the emerging Euro‐politics. In Marks, G. & Steenbergen, M.R. (eds), European integration and political conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Imig, D. & Tarrow, S. (2000). Political contention in a Europeanising polity. West European Politics 23(4): 73–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imig, D. & Tarrow, S. (eds) (2001). Contentious Europeans: Protest and politics in an emerging polity. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Jasper, J. & Goodwin, J. (eds) (2011). Contention in context: Political opportunities and the emergence of protest. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, M.E. & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, H.P. (1986). Political opportunity structure and political protest: Antinuclear movements in four democracies. British Journal of Political Science 1: 57–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koopmans, R. & Rucht, D. (2002). Protest event analysis. In Klandermans, B. & Staggenborg, S. (eds), Methods of social movement research. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Koopmans, R. & Statham, P. (2010). The making of a public sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kousis, M. (2014). The transnational dimension of the Greek protest campaign against Troika memoranda and austerity policies, 2010–2012. In Della Porta, D. & Mattoni, A. (eds), Spreading protests: Social movements in times of crisis. Colchester: ECPR Press.Google Scholar
Kriesi, H. (2004). Political context and opportunity. In Snow, D.H., Soule, S.A. & Kriesi, H. (eds), The Blackwell companion to social movements. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ladrech, R. (1994). Europeanisation of domestic politics and institutions: The case of France. Journal of Common Market Studies 32(1): 69–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahusen, C. (1999). International campaigns in context: Collective action between the local and the global. In Porta, D. Della, Kriesi, H. & Rucht, D. (eds), Social movements in a globalizing world. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lahusen, C. (2004). Joining the cocktail circuit: Social movement organisations at the European Union. Mobilization 9(1): 55–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsson, B. (2014). Transnational trade union action in Europe: The significance of national and sectoral industrial relations. European Societies 16(3): 378–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leiren, M.R. & Parks, L. (2014). When trade unions succeed: Cases of blocked liberalisation in the common market. European Journal of Political Research 53(3): 465–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, G. & McAdam, D. (1996). Social movements and the changing structure of political opportunity in the European Union. West European Politics 19(2): 249–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, G. & McAdam, D. (1999). On the relationship of political opportunities to the form of collective action: The case of the European Union. In Porta, D. Della, Kriesi, H. & Rucht, D. (eds), Social movements in a globalizing world. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mathers, A. (2016). Struggling for a social Europe: Neoliberal globalization and the birth of a European social movement. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazey, S. & Richardson, J.J. (2002). Pluralisme ouvert ou restreint? Les groupes d'intérêt l'Union Européenne. In Balme, R., Chabanet, D. & Wright, V. (eds), L'action collective en Europe. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J. & Zald, M.N. (eds) (1996). Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures and cultural framing. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, D.S. (2004). Protest and political opportunities. Annual Review of Sociology 30: 125–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monforte, P. (2014). The cognitive dimension of social movements’ Europeanisation processes: The case of the protests against ‘Fortress Europe’. Perspectives on European Politics and Society 15(1): 120–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morin, J.F., Novotna, T., Ponjaert, F. & Telò, M. (eds) (2015). The politics of transatlantic trade negotiations: TTIP in a globalized world. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Mueller, C. (1997). Media measurement models of protest event data. Mobilization 2(2): 165–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parks, L. (2015). In the corridors and in the streets. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Poloni‐Staudinger, L.M. (2008). The domestic opportunity structure and supranational activity: An explanation of environmental group activity at the European Union level. European Union Politics 9(4): 531–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, R. (1988). Diplomacy and domestic politics: The logic of two‐level games. International Organisation 42(3): 427–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radaelli, C.M. & Franchino, F. (2004). Analysing political change in Italy. Journal of European Public Policy 11(6): 941–953.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse, T., Green Cowles, M. & Caporaso, J. (2001). Europeanisation and domestic change: Introduction. In Green Cowles, M., Caporaso, J. & Risse, T. (eds), Transforming Europe: Europeanisation and domestic change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Rodekamp, M. (2013). Their members’ voice: Civil society organisations in the European Union. Wiesbaden: Springer.Google Scholar
Rootes, C. (2002). The Europeanisation of environmentalism. In Balme, R., Chabanet, D. & Wright, V. (eds), L'action collective en Europe. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.Google Scholar
Rucht, D. (2002). The EU as a target of political mobilisation: Is there a Europeanisation of conflict? In Balme, R., Chabanet, D. & Wright, V. (eds), L'action collective en Europe. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.Google Scholar
Rucht, D. (2004). Movement allies, adversaries and third parties. In Snow, D.H., Soule, S.A. & Kriesi, H. (eds), The Blackwell companion to social movements. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ruzza, C. (2004). Environmental sustainability and policy networks in tourist locations. Foedus 11.Google Scholar
Ruzza, C. (2014). Civil society actors and EU fundamental rights policy: Opportunities and challenges. Human Right Review 15: 65–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saurugger, S. (2006). The professionalisation of interest representation: A problem for the participation of civil society in EU governance. In Smismans, S. (ed.), European governance and civil society. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Seidendorf, S. (2003). Europeanisation of National Identity Discourses: Comparing French and German Printed Media. Paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research meeting.Google Scholar
Sikkink, K. (2005). Patterns of multilevel governance. In Porta, D. Della & Tarrow, S. (eds), Transnational protest and global activism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S. (1989). Democracy and disorder: Protest and politics in Italy, 1965–1975. Oxford: Claredon Press.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S. (1994). Social movements in Europe: Movement society or Europeanisation of conflict? Florence: European University Institute.Google Scholar
Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement: Social movements, collective action and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilisation to revolution. Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley.Google Scholar
Uba, K. & Uggla, F. (2011). Protest actions against the European Union, 1992–2007. West European Politics 34(2): 384–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Caiani and Graziano supplementary material

Caiani and Graziano supplementary material
Download Caiani and Graziano supplementary material(File)
File 22.1 KB