CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Van de Putte, Thomas Cyriel Christiane |
|---|---|
| Title | Discourses on Democracy. The European Year of Citizens 2013 and the Public Sphere. |
| Summary | The adaptation of national public spheres to a new European political level has attracted the attention of political scientists and political philosophers since the early 1990’s. Research until now mostly focused on normatively theorizing the future European public sphere, and on the measurement of Europeanization of national public spheres. This thesis aims at adding to this a policy perspective. Citizenship, communication and information policies are for the European institutions a way to construct a European public sphere in a top-down way, and to increase their own democratic legitimacy. On the basis of content analysis of policy documents, and participant observation in multiple projects in the context of the European Year of Citizens 2013, this thesis analyzes the ideological aims and practices these policy domains contain, and the agency and interests of specific people involved. The research project reaches the final conclusion that the European Year of Citizens 2013 is a tool for ideological persuasion rather than a deliberative democratic attempt to construct a genuine European public sphere. Keywords: public sphere, European Commission, citizenship, discourse, ideology, European Year of Citizens 2013, Citizens’ Dialogues. |
| Supervisor | Pelinka Anton; Liebhart Karin |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/putte_thomas.pdf |
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