This open access book is the product of three years of academic research that has been carried out in the EU-funded Jean Monnet Network on "Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the Delegitimation of European Integration" since 2019. Drawing on the multidisciplinary expertise of the network's members, the book explores the impact of the phenomenon of post-truth politics on European integration and the European Union. It places particular emphasis on how post-truth politics has played out in the public sphere and asks what impact the phenomenon has had on public deliberation, but reflects also on its implications for democracy in a wider sense. This book is primarily written for audiences with an interest in politics and policy making, including academics, policy makers and civil-society actors. Thanks to its accessible style, the book should however also be an asset to wider audiences.

What kind of public sphere is possible in the European Union with its considerable diversity of national identities, languages and media systems? Against the backdrop of debates about a fundamental European community deficit and the possibility of post-national democracy, this book explores the role of a European public sphere not only in bridging presumed gaps between citizens and their representatives in the European institutions, but also in creating transnational communicative spaces that contribute to the politicisation of EU politics. Drawing on Deweyan pragmatism, social constructivism and the Habermasian notion of constitutional patriotism, this book moves beyond the conventional wisdom that a European public sphere necessitates the existence of a sense of European "identity light". Arguing that a political sense of community along the lines of a European constitutional patriotism can only emerge out of the democratic process itself, Maximilian Conrad looks at the role of daily newspapers not only as framers of public debate, but also as actors with distinct normative views regarding the future of the integration process, both in terms of the nature of the EU as a polity and the nature of democratic rule in this polity. The crucial empirical question addressed in the book is: Do newspapers with a pronounced preference for more democracy beyond the nation state also play a more active role in providing forums for transnational debate?