Depoliticizing Transnational Cleavage‐Related Issues Through Social Media Advertising: The 2022 Danish Defense Referendum Campaign

Abstract

Denmark has an extensive but troubled experience when it comes to referendums related to the EU, with the Danes rejecting the pro-integration options in three votes up to 2022. As Denmark is the "home of issue voting," these outcomes are symbolic of the transnational cleavage permeating its society, which has been argued to make the abolition of Denmark's opt-outs impossible. Nevertheless, the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulted in an apparent shift in the balance between the sides of this cleavage as Denmark subsequently voted overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing its EU defense opt-out. Scholarly work has argued that voters responded to efforts from the pro-abolition camp to depoliticize the issue of European integration, which raises the question of how the campaigning actors were able to achieve this. This contribution examines the role of social media advertising in this regard. Prior studies have focused primarily on social media discourse and its impact on voter behavior in referendum contexts, portraying it as a site for polarization and politicization, rather than depoliticization. We map the advertising expenditures of campaigning actors in the run-up to the referendum using data from the Meta Ad Library, and analyze their messaging using structured framing analysis to show how both sides in the campaign deal with the issue of European integration. Results show the pro-side being much more present than the contra-side, and offer empirical evidence for passive and active depoliticization strategies by the former vis-à-vis the transnational cleavage-related issue of European defense cooperation.