What is political Europe?

For a long time, European federalism implied doing “more politics” at the European level. Scholars have started to challenge this optimistic view, arguing that a “political Europe” carries risks as well as opportunities. This introductory article to the special issue explores the politicization of the EU from an empirical perspective. First, we analyze various definitions of politicization: an issue is politicized when it generates a visible cleavage in the political community, bringing actors and citizens to clarify - or even polarize around - their positions. Then we review the literature by differentiating three contexts of political activity: public opinion, majoritarian institutions and non-majoritarian institutions. We conclude that, while politicization varies according to the context, it must nevertheless be understood as a whole since it involves political parties, voters and institutions concomitantly.