On framing the EU: A plea for the relaunch of frame analysis in the study of elite and mass attitudes on European integration

This article makes the case that attitudes towards the EU should be conceptualised as interpretative 'frames', to then be employed as analytical tools for comparison within and between European countries. As is argued, at present this move is all the more necessary, since multiple asymmetrical crises and the entrenchment of 'differentiated integration' have compounded the contested, open-ended nature of European integration. In parallel, EU studies have already increasingly acknowledged the context dependence, heterogeneity and ambivalence of such attitudes, moving beyond the presumption of stable support or opposition. This article leverages a variety of extant works and the empirical outcomes of a deductive-cum-inductive research endeavour to craft a comprehensive inventory of 16 interpretative frames. Then, it highlights a fundamental prospective application, discussing practices devised to enable the construction of a frame-based approach to mass-elite congruence on European integration. Further avenues for future research, which could be pursued on the back of a relaunch of frame analysis in EU studies, entail the study of Euroscepticism, national 'issue cultures' and 'issue fields', and mass-level attitudes towards the EU.