Abstract
In this paper we focus on the Czech public discussion on refugee crisis. Together with other Visegrad countries, the Czech republic has rejected the relocation scheme and stood against further Europeanization of the asylum policy.
Thus, hardly any refugees were accepted, yet the refugee crisis became a major topic of national political discussions. The level of public concern remained high with over 70 % supporting the refusal of refugees.
We assume that the low support for Europeanization of asylum policy is connected with low levels of Europeanization of political communication. In this case, Europeanization is defined as establishment of communicative linkages between national and European level, eg. national actors discussing European topics or addressing European institutions.
In the Western Europe, low levels of Europeanization of political communication were classified as democratic deficit of the EU. However, there are hardly any data from the post-communist CEE member states.
Therefore here, we treat the refugee crisis as a fitting issue-specific and time- limited case study. Specifically, we ask whether the claimants situated the refugee issue in national or European geopolitical frame of reference and whether they addressed national or European actors.
The study is based on a representative sample of 1200 political claims selected from transcripts of the news broadcasted in the Czech public television in 2015 and 2016. We apply the method of quantitative political claims analysis (PCA).
We argue that even though the public stood against Europeanization of asylum policy, the refugee crisis served as a catalyst for Europeanization of political communication in the Czech national public sphere.