An alternative to 'ever-closer union': To what extent does Eurosceptic rhetoric in UK and Hungary contribute to the contingency of European integratio

The European Union faces a pressing question of legitimacy. Since the Maastricht Treaty, the development of supranational governance resulted in greater public scrutiny and democratic contestation in Member States. Consequently, public division grew over EU integration. But context-specific public opinion displays a multitude of varying and sometimes diametrically opposing interests in the 27 Member States. As a result, supranational solutions proposed by the EU to transform these conflicting interests into coherent and mutually shared problems are being questioned in national capitals, demonstrating the embeddedness of Euroscepticism. But although Euroscepticism challenges EU legitimacy, it is not necessarily an argument for anti-EU politics. Alternatively, Euroscepticism should be perceived as a democratic counterargument to the 'logic' of integration that necessitates centralised decision-making in Brussels, which has left the European public feeling disenfranchised. To understand Eurosceptic calls for more democratic EU decision-making that keeps the future of integration open-ended and how this influences public attitudes, research is needed on its rhetoric within national contexts.

Studying the rhetoric of Euroscepticism provides a much-needed holistic approach that recognises the complexity of EU politics. Politicisation of the integration process is a dialectical relationship between public opinion and party politics. It is therefore highly dependent on the frames and narratives linking public, political leadership, and EU institutions. To enhance our understanding of Euroscepticism's public influence, this project proposes that a rhetorical political analysis (RPA) is required where political problems are conceived as relational negotiations between competing political alternatives, expressed through the interaction of citizens and political leadership at national and EU-level. Michel Meyer's rhetoric theory is the only theoretical and methodological framework that situates discourse in relation to leadership and public audience in sociocultural and political context. Regarding Euroscepticism, rhetoric is the strategic activity of negotiating various national and supranational relations, embedded within a complex multi-level governmental and sociocultural structure.

The British and Hungarian cases are ideal for comparative RPA because both have been rich sources of Eurosceptic rhetoric. Both are (re)negotiating their relationship with Brussels, with the UK experiencing this as a soon-to-be ex-Member State, while Hungary remains a committed Member State. Although their reasons for and solutions to renegotiating EU-Member State competencies differ, they both democratically challenge the legitimacy of supranationalism. To explain variability in how Eurosceptic rhetoric influences public opinion in these countries, this project will use RPA's innovative epistemological and methodological framework. It will demonstrate that the EU's multi-level governance and respective national sociocultural structures constrain but do not determine political actors in pursuing the realpolitik of national interest, without jeopardising the benefits of EU membership (Hungary) or risking failure to secure a beneficial trade deal (UK). By exploring the political strategising at play in opening up discursive space for alternatives to supranationalism, this project will explain to what extent Eurosceptic rhetoric contributes to the contingency of the integration process.