Domestic Adaptations of Europe: A Comparative Study of the Debates on EU Enlargement and a Common Constitution in the German and French Quality Press

The article investigates why a specific European issue is debatedin one country but disregarded in another, and why issues aredebated differently in different European countries. To understandthis national filtering, expectations are formulated as to howspecific policy traditions and issue-specific conflict constellationswithin a country are reflected in media debates. A systematiccontent analysis of the debates on EU enlargement and a commonconstitution for the years 2000–2002 in the German andFrench quality press reveals considerable variation in issuesalience, actors’ prominence and actors’ responsibilityattributions between and within the countries. This variationcan be seen to be connected with different policy traditionsand conflict constellations. The study seeks to go beyond merelydescribing variations in media coverage across Europe and systematicallyuses cross-national and cross-issue comparative research tounderstand this variation. Received for publication October 19, 2006. Accepted for publication April 5, 2007.