Calling on Europe? Secessionist Political Parties and Their Communications to the European Union

To what extent do independence-seeking political parties across Europe appeal to the European Union (EU)? What accounts for differences in these parties' communication levels? In accordance with the literature, we expect that such parties would bypass their host states and seek support from the EU for their nationalist causes, while the EU itself also offers institutional opportunities further enabling parties to solicit assistance, even if it does not always deliver what these parties want. To explore this argument, we conduct an online search for documents and other texts in which secessionist political parties directly and indirectly appeal to the EU and analyze them with social network tools. The resultant network is characterized by multiple parties communicating to the EU but to different degrees. We also find that moderate political ideology on the left-right spectrum, constituent support, and competition in the secessionist movement positively and significantly correlate with higher intensity of online communication.