Reinvented through crises: The political economy of the Western European left within European integration [CrisEU]

Recurring economic and political shocks have made crisis management and resilience a central priority of the EU over the past decade. While academic research has long explored crisis responses at the European level, the dominant emphasis on electoral trends and elite-driven processes have failed to capture the long-term, quieter dynamics of support for European integration.

The role of European progressives, a key source for the European ideals of solidarity and internationalism, remains underexamined—despite both progressive politics and European integration undergoing mutations and adaptations shaped by recurring crises. While these processes have been studied separately, little attention has been given to their intersections. As a result, progressive politics is often portrayed as a passive victim of increasing integration, while the EU is seen as caught between populism and technocratic decision-making.

CrisEU will build a theoretically informed, impact-oriented study to investigate the ideas and group characteristics that, through critical junctures, shape long-term support for European integration. The central hypothesis is that progressive politics is continuously ‘reinvented’ at different stages in response to three interrelated factors:

1. The changes in the composition of left-wing social networks (e.g. gender, age, education).
2. The evolving memories of past crises
3. The shifting understandings of what is necessary to ensure European integration.

Beyond academia, this research will help political parties and trade unions identify the drivers of (dis)integration within the EU, the ways in which memory informs crisis-management management, and the impact of social network pluralism in driving policy innovation.