Caught in the Deviation Trap. On the Fallacies of the Study of Party-Based Euroscepticism

Abstract

Although Euroscepticism as a scholarly term seems to be indispensable in European studies today, we argue that the current approaches to party-based Euroscepticism are in need of reformulation. This is so mainly because students of party-based Euroscepticism mistakenly construe the term as a deviation from the essentialized integration mainstream. While the study of Euroscepticism has also developed in alternative directions, these innovative approaches have only created additional problems: either the redefinition of Euroscepticism leads to more substantive definitions, but also to the denial of the temporal and spatial diversity of Euroscepticism, or the redefinition results in creating new typologies, but these typologies only reproduce the old pattern of deviation vs. the norm on a different level. This critical literature review article concludes by briefly outlining the steps which would redress the situation and which consist of a radical contextualization of Euroscepticism(s).