Sleeping in the storm How the European Commission does not adjust its communication strategy to politicization

Abstract

The European Commission needs to craft a reputation of being legitimate. For this, it articulates to represent the interests of stakeholders such as citizens and businesses. This can be referred to as ‘legitimacy claims’: mentions of stakeholders with the goal of signaling that these form a source of legitimacy. In times of increasing politicization, a key question is whether and how the Commission adjusts its communication strategy. With this thesis, I test whether politicization has an effect on the number of legitimacy claims towards citizens and businesses. Using a quantitative text analysis of Commission press releases between 1997 and 2009, I gathered monthly data on legitimacy claims. I built two time series models (ARIMAX) and included politicization and the orientation of Commissioners as independent variables. Results show that the Commission did not adjust its communication strategy towards citizens and businesses in light of politicization. The share of press releases in a month that quoted Commissioners holding citizen-oriented portfolios did not significantly affect the number of legitimacy claims directed at citizens. These findings suggest that, despite the growing body of literature emphasizing the effects of politicization, legitimacy claim dynamics may be relatively stable over time.