Depoliticization strategies in public debates about EU trade

Considering the limited attention devoted to depoliticization as a strategic outlook typical of EU-level executive actors in the context of bottom-up politicization, this study asks: How and to what extent do actors in the public sphere attempt to depoliticize FTAs? It conceptualizes what an act of depoliticization in the public sphere looks like and shows how this can be detected empirically through a claim-level (de-)politicization index. This approach is applied to a database of evaluations (claims) on EU trade, by EU actors, national executive actors and societal actors, surrounding TTIP and CETA, in the media of six Member States (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Denmark). While there is evidence that this behaviour is partly context-dependent, the analysis lends further plausibility, but brings also greater nuance, to the notion that depoliticization flows primarily top-down and politicization bottom-up: the more the EU depoliticizes, the more domestic actors politicize, and vice versa.