Radical left Euroscepticism meets government participation in Iceland: the case of the Left-Green Movement

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the years after the Great Recession, the economic crisis was also followed by party system change in several European countries. This period witnessed some radical left parties (RLPs) coming into power or achieving significant electoral expansion. Nevertheless, in time, journalistic and academic accounts suggested that such parties started to experience the difficulty of responsiveness to their electorate while their Euroscepticism was moderated. Being in the first-ever left-wing coalition of Iceland in 2009, the Left-Green Movement (VG) also joined the zeitgeist of this era: a RLP associated with Euroscepticism coming into office for the first time in a changing party system after the outbreak of the economic crisis. Moreover, the VG also formed a controversial coalition with centre-right forces in 2017. Suggesting a new Euroscepticism typology and drawing from Mair (2007) and Mair (2009)’s distinctions between policy/polity scepticism and responsible/responsive government, this article investigates the impact of government participation on the responsiveness and Euroscepticism of the VG. It also questions whether there is an effect of the largely absence of the EU’s constraints in Iceland on the change of the VG’s Euroscepticism and responsiveness throughout its government experience. The analysis relies on semi-structured interviews conducted with VG MPs and party cadres.