Édouard Hargrove

This doctoral thesis focuses on recent instances of political dissensus within the European Union surrounding an ambivalent political ideal: the rule of law. A vast literature at the crossroads of law and political science has developed around the emergence and persistence of various issues tied to the rule of law within a number of EU member states. Alongside this burgeoning literature, a parallel stream of research has gathered around the (lack of) responses from various EU institutions by analysing the rationales and consequences of their actions vis-à-vis certain member states.

In contrast to these twin literatures, this thesis focuses on how different issues over the rule of law in member states become politicised at the European level, and more specifically within European Parliament. It tries to uncover the different lines of contention around these rule of law issues, to make sense of the political considerations afforded to different cases, and to establish the reasons why these rule of law issues are perceived as more or less problematic from the perspective of different actors.

The research is premised on the idea that all social phenomena can be given alternative meanings according to people’s beliefs, experiences, backgrounds, interests etc. No matter how objectively-founded some political issue may seem, there is always a subjective or interpretative component that binds itself to it and through which it actually becomes a political issue (that is, an issue that is politically recognised as such). Because of this, the focus of the thesis is not on the actual events across member states that scholars discuss in relation to their own conceptions of the rule of law, but rather on the competing strategies of various EU actors to problematise these issues as such, i.e. as issues pertaining (or not) to the "rule of law". More specifically, it concentrates on the symbolic efforts of opposing actors to (re)define the rule of law and (re)cast certain events in specific ways so as to provoke (or prevent) certain responses at the European level.