In the recent crises of the EU, member state governments found themselves in a quandary. On the one hand, international interdependence and deficient policy regimes call for more supranational integration. On the other hand, Eurosceptic publics and voters constrain what governments can commit to in the EU. Governments respond to this quandary by using depoliticization and politicization tactics dependent on the situation. In this paper, I argue that this is a quandary of their making. Governments designed European integration with a view to maximizing their own autonomy against both domestic and transnational society. Whereas they vested the EU with high supranational authority, they sought to retain sovereignty, capacity, and legitimacy – thereby creating a crisis-ridden political order. I further argue that governments’ choice of politicization and depoliticization tactics in such crises primarily depends on the strength of transnational pressures and their own capacity to manage them unilaterally.
