Mapping party support for EU referendums after Brexit: results from an expert survey

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article maps party support for national EU-related referendums across the EU after Brexit. It is motivated by conflicting expectations about the trajectory of EU referendum politics in the post-Brexit environment which foreground either possible contagion or deterrent effects of the Brexit referendum. Against this background, the article explores the scope of party support for EU referendums in EU member states, which types of political parties endorse popular votes on European issues and how the Brexit experience has affected EU referendum support among European parties. To that purpose, the article presents novel data from an EU-wide (except Ireland) expert survey. The findings show that EU referendum support varies greatly between national party systems and that it comes mainly from Eurosceptic opposition parties, often on the populist far right. The impact of the Brexit precedent on party positions on EU referendums is relatively weak overall and uneven across parties.