Eurosceptic Parties Research Articles

The political effects of intra-EU migration: Evidence from national and European elections in seven countries

This article studies the impact of immigration from Central and Eastern Europe on support for Eurosceptic parties. The analysis covers 30 national and European Parliament elections in seven Western, Northern and Southern European countries (2004 to 2019). For each election, I analyse how the local-level share of the vote for right- and left-wing Eurosceptic parties varies as a function of the levels and changes in the local-level share of Central and Eastern European immigrants from the population, controlling for the influence of relevant demographic, social and economic variables. I find that higher levels of immigration from Central and Eastern Europe are systematically related to higher voting shares cast for right-wing Eurosceptic parties at the local level in all of these countries, net of the influence of non-Western immigration, in elections for the European Parliament and in national elections as well. The effects on left-wing Euroscepticism are heterogeneous: positive in the Netherlands, Austria and Portugal, but negative in Italy, Denmark and Sweden. The effects have not diminished significantly over the past 15 years and are most visible in mid-sized localities.

Politicisation of the European Union in Slovenia in the Twenty Years of its Membership

Abstract Ever since Slovenia became independent, the European idea has been viewed fondly by the political elite and the public. The absence of any successful Eurosceptic parties has meant the main goals concerning European integration became national projects. Euroscepticism has remained limited, although in more recent years politicisation has steadily grown through political parties’ positions on EU issues. At the same time, the country’s political elite has lost sight of the specific strategy Slovenia should play in the EU. Moreover, alignment with other EU member states has begun to vary depending on the ruling party. After twenty years of membership, this has led to Slovenia being seen as one of the more submissive actors in EU policymaking. In the article, by applying an analytical framework of politicisation, we consider the changing attitudes to the EU in Slovenia through the twenty years of its membership. The central research question is: in which ways have European issues become politicised over the last twenty years in Slovenia? The research question is addressed by considering a chronological approach and analysis of events, participation in European elections and public opinion data. We argue that, as a newer member state, Slovenia politicises European issues to a limited extent.

How Does Eurosceptic Party Consolidation Transform Party Competition Over European Issues?

AbstractThe European Union (EU)—the world’s most advanced and exemplary case of regional integration—is adapting to an era when internal criticisms are becoming more influential than ever before in the history of European integration. An entirely new party family of Eurosceptic parties has emerged and consolidated over the last decade. Given that one of their main aims is to challenge and critique the EU, Eurosceptic parties have a particular interest in European issues—the European polity as well as major European policies. Against this backdrop, the paper investigates whether and how the rise and consolidation of Eurosceptic parties of the left and right has affected party competition over European polity and policy issues. Empirically, we use information from the Euromanifesto data set covering the past 40 years (1979–2019) relating to elections to the European Parliament. Our paper’s findings suggest that the upsurge and consolidation of Eurosceptic parties of the left and right has an important effect on party competition over European issues: Eurosceptic party success affects mainstream leftist parties’ issue salience and position when it comes to the EU polity. Moreover, higher levels of support for far-right Eurosceptic parties have an impact on the position of rightist mainstream parties on EU cultural policy issues, whereas leftist mainstream parties appear mostly unresponsive to the Eurosceptic parties’ success when it comes to EU economic policy issues. These findings give us a clearer insight on how exactly Eurosceptic parties are transforming mainstream party competition.

EU issue voting in European member states: the return of the pro-EU voter

In the member states of the European Union (EU), there are increasing signs of waning EU support, particularly in the form of anti-EU sentiment and voting. Yet, the salient role of pro-EU voting has not been side-lined entirely. Using a combination of data from EES and CHES that estimates the positional distance between voters and parties on the EU, the results suggest that voters are significantly mobilised on support for the EU. This is congruent to recent evidence that has shown that voters have rewarded parties with more polarised stances on the EU and, contrary to Eurosceptic party mobilisation, those parties with a more extreme pro-EU stance. Here, the more vocal a Europhile party, the more likely that citizens will vote for that party given their positional closeness to the EU. The findings in this article suggest the (re-) emergence of an EU dimension with mobilising effects on parties and voters and serious consequences for the dynamics of party competition.

Wie wichtig ist die europäische Integration für pro-europäische Wähler:innen in Zeiten der Politisierung?

AbstractThe increasing success of Eurosceptic parties and multiple European crises have fostered the politicization of European integration. However, we know little about how pro-European voters behave in this politicized environment. How important is European integration for pro-European voters? Do they care more about European integration when their vision of Europe is increasingly contested? The past 15 years have been characterized by persistent politicization of Eurosceptic parties and an increasing willingness of Europhile parties to engage with European topics. Moreover, European crises illustrated potential consequences of political disintegration. I expect these developments to be reflected in an increasing salience of European integration among pro-European voters. I derive salience estimates from spatial vote models encompassing four issue dimensions to track the development of salience. I use data from the European Social Survey, the European Election Studies, and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, which cover many EU member states between 2008 and 2019. The results show that the salience of the European integration issue is most pronounced among Eurosceptic voters, while it is less pronounced among pro-European voters. However, in countries with a successful Eurosceptic party, it is more likely that the European integration issue also matters to pro-European voters. Moreover, there has been an increasing trend over time that European integration is not only important for anti- but also for pro-European voters across Europe.

Mapping citizens, voters, and parties’ preferences on European solidarity across EU member states

ABSTRACT Since 2008, the European Union (EU) witnessed a growing tension between the social and economic dimensions of integration as a consequence of the ‘polycrisis’. The increasing politicisation of EU issues in national political arenas that led to the rise of Eurosceptic parties mostly revolved around the issue of European solidarity. Against this background, this study investigates the congruence between voters and incumbent members of national parliaments on the highly contentious aspects of EU solidarity. First, the article maps the extent to which national political elites share similar views on EU solidarity with their voters. Secondly, we assess members of parliaments (MPs)-voters’ congruence at the party level. Employing original data from an elite and a mass survey conducted in six EU countries between 2017 and 2018, we find that both voters and MPs expressed a high level of support for policies strengthening European solidarity in the Eurozone periphery. Instead, voters in Northern and Eastern EU member states shared more positive preferences than their national representatives. Furthermore, the party-voter distance was higher for radical-right Eurosceptic MPs, especially in Northern Europe, than for other parties.

The 2015 Refugee Crisis and Institutional Trust in European Countries

Exogenous events have the potential to affect citizens’ risk-perceptions, (in)security sentiments, electoral choices, policy preferences and institutional trust levels. It has been shown that migrant and refugee flows also affect citizens’ trust and policy preferences. The 2015 refugee crisis as it has come to be known, shook Europe’s cohesion and tested the existing immigration and asylum policies as well as acted as a further stimulus to populist/right wing Eurosceptic parties with an agenda of anti-immigrant restrictive policies. Expectedly, it has attracted considerable attention in the relevant literature. Building on existing studies that examine various aspects associated with the 2015 refugee crisis, the present paper examines its effect on institutional trust levels in Europe. Specifically, it focuses on trust towards the national government, the EU and the two state security services the police and the armed forces. To this effect, the study draws data from successive Eurobarometer surveys before and after the crisis. Employing segmented-type regression models as well as Oaxaca decomposition models it probes into the 2015 refugee crisis’ impact on the levels of institutional trust using over 400,000 responses to the relevant Eurobarometer questions. The results reported herein suggest the presence of “a rally around the flag effect”. Nonetheless, macroeconomic factors such as GDP growth and unemployment as well as differences in behavioural responses also explain a large part of the observed gap in trust before and after the 2015 refugee crisis.

The Geography of EU Discontent and the Regional Development Trap

While in recent times many regions have flourished, many others are stuck—or are at risk of becoming stuck—in a development trap. Such regions experience decline in economic growth, employment, and productivity relative to their neighbors and to their own past trajectories. Prolonged periods in development traps are leading to political dissatisfaction and unrest. Such discontent is often translated into support for antisystem parties at the ballot box. In this article we study the link between the risk, intensity, and duration of regional development traps and the rise of discontent in the European Union (EU)—proxied by the support for Eurosceptic parties in national elections between 2013 and 2022—using an econometric analysis at a regional level. The results highlight the strong connection between being stuck in a development trap, often in middle- or high-income regions, and support for Eurosceptic parties. They also suggest that the longer the period of stagnation, the stronger the support for parties opposed to European integration. This relationship remains robust whether considering only the most extreme Eurosceptic parties or including parties with more moderate levels of Euroscepticism.

Euroscepticism in the Discourse of “Russian Parties” in Estonia

Introduction. The party-political system of Estonia, with traditionally Euro-optimistic elites leading it, was previously characterized by the presence of a number of so-called “Russian political parties”, which traditionally professed Euroscepticism and criticized the European Union as whole or certain areas of its activities. The purpose of the article is to determine the specific features of the Eurosceptic party discourse of “Russian parties” in Estonia. Materials and Methods. The information basis of the paper consisted of the results obtained using a combination of the comparative method (method of comparative analysis) and the method of discourse analysis. A single case study design was chosen for the paper. The data obtained as a result of using the discourse analysis method made it possible to study the indicators of the Eurosceptic discourse of “Russian parties” and process their programs, manifestos, electoral platforms, as well as statements of their high-ranking representatives. Results. It was revealed that the use of Euroscepticism by the analyzed “Russian parties” when targeting the Russian-speaking diaspora of the state in a number of cases (for example, in case of the Estonian Center Party) has shown some efficacy, allowing it to mobilize the electorate among Russian-speaking citizens. However, it was found that for small marginal “Russian parties” in Estonia this did not demonstrate productivity and benefit, since such efforts did not bring them a significant number of votes in elections at various levels. Most of them, adhering to Eurosceptic protest declarations, were never able to take part in “mainstream politics” of Estonia; thereby they failed to implement their Eurosceptic political agenda. Discussion and Conclusion. The results allow us to conclude that a specific characteristic of the Eurosceptic party discourse of the majority of “Russian parties” in Estonia is its focus on pragmatism for ethnic Russian residents living in this state in the form of concrete results that are useful for them: the desire to improve the existing discriminatory position of ethnic Russian population in Estonia through appealing to Brussels, to solve the problem of so called non-citizens, and, finally, to establish good relations between Estonia and its eastern neighbor state – Russia. The results of this study can find application in the academic activities of universities in our country, may be of interest to political and regional scientists studying political processes in the Baltic States.

Contextual Sources of Euroscepticism in Eastern Central and Western Europe: The Role of Peripheral Regions

Abstract This paper examines how regional contextual factors influence Eurosceptic voting in Eastern Central and Western Europe. It employs a theoretical framework of multidimensional regional periphery and relative deprivation to explore how economic, spatial and demographic factors can generate collective feelings of deprivation among regional inhabitants. This relative deprivation is supposed to manifest as political discontent expressed at the EU level, either by attributing responsibility for regional peripherality to the EU or by blaming national institutions, potentially spilling over to the EU level. Based on an integrated dataset encompassing economic, spatial and demographic indicators as well as election data from the European election 2019 for 1169 NUTS 3 regions within the EU, the findings support the hypotheses. Poor economic performance in a region, relative to the national average and historical levels, increases Eurosceptic voting, and the impact of an ageing population is significant. Spatial infrastructure conditions have minimal direct but moderating effects: Eurosceptic parties benefit more from economic underperformance, if the infrastructure is also poorly developed. The paper further shows differences in cue -taking between Eastern Central Europe and Western Europe suggesting that citizens in Eastern Central Europe consider the EU more often as saviour than as creator of regional deprivation. The paper underscores the importance of regional contextual factors and infrastructural effects, and highlights the need to avoid one-size-fits-all explanations for Euroscepticism in Eastern Central and Western Europe.

Reinforcing or moderating? The impact of Brexit on Italian and German Euroscepticism

This article investigates the impact of Brexit on Eurosceptic parties' arguments for leaving (or remaining in) the European Union (EU). Drawing on a comparative design, the article looks at the images and narratives of the EU that Eurosceptic parties in Italy and Germany have advanced in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum and reflects on the broader implications in terms of the prospects of further states leaving the EU. This research is motivated by two assumptions grounded in the literature on Euroscepticism and EU polity contestation: firstly, that Euroscepticism is fuelled by external circumstances that are exploited by interested political actors; and secondly, that both the Brexit referendum and the UK's departure from the EU have had a profound impact on discourses on the EU within member states, most importantly because this process has highlighted the real possibility of replacing EU membership with trade agreements and other specific arrangements. By means of a comparative analysis of the development of Eurosceptic discourse in Italy and Germany after Brexit, the article reveals that on the structural level, Eurozone membership remains the main obstacle to leaving the EU. Yet on the ideological level, Eurosceptic discourse in the two countries centers on two principles that are at odds with each other. Beyond the alleged lack of democratic representation within EU institutions that is pointed out by Eurosceptic parties in both countries, the main criticism of the EU project in Germany is that the country shares the costs of states with lower economic outputs. In Italy, on the other hand, the criticism is that the EU benefits wealthier states while constraining the country's opportunities for development.

The imbalanced effect of politicization: How EU politicization favours Eurosceptic parties

This article investigates how the systemic politicization of the EU is associated with support for different political parties. We argue that, while politicization involves actions by both Eurosceptic and Europhile parties, it does not affect parties at both extremes of the continuum in the same way. To investigate these differentiated effects, we leverage data from the European Elections Study and the Chapel Hill expert survey covering two decades (1999 to 2019). The evidence supports the hypothesis that, when it comes to voters’ preferences, politicization strongly favours Eurosceptic parties. We conclude that the systemic politicization of European issues is thus a one-way street leading to the reinforcement of the constraining dissensus on the EU.

Трансформация партийно-политической системы ЕС накануне евровыборов-2024

The article analyzes the main trends in the transformation of the political party system of the European Union on the eve of the next European Parliament election, which will be held in June 2024. Long-term trends include: a decrease in the popularity of traditional political parties – conservatives, social democrats and liberals – in most EU member states; an increase in electoral support for populist parties in the same countries; an increase in the representation of women in EU authorities; strengthening the pan-European political space, which leads to deepened impact of EU political institutions on the political systems of EU member states, etc. Relatively new trends in the transformation of this system are: growing popularity and influence of Eurosceptic parties both in individual European countries and in the European Union as a whole; political conflict between the EU and its member states – Poland and Hungary which violate European democratic principles, including the rule of law with respect to the rights of citizens and the independence of the judicial branch of government. The author scrutinises the influence of changes in the socio-class structure of European society on these processes, which occur partly owing to a visible reduction in the number of the industrial proletariat. It is noted that the consequences of these changes are the destruction of the boundary between the traditional right and left parties, and the death of many classical ideological categories. The study also presents the forecast of results of the leading pan-European political parties’ participation in the 2024 European election, made by a number of European non-governmental organizations and mainstream media holdings following public opinion polls, as well as their possible impact on the formation of a new composition of the European Parliament and the European Commission.

ІТАЛІЯ ПІСЛЯ МААСТРИХТУ: ВИКЛИКИ ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОЇ ІНТЕГРАЦІЇ У 1990-ТІ РР.

The article examines the impact of the signing of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the foundation of the EU, on political and economic processes in Italy in the 1990s. The transition from the EEC to a new form of European integration was the subject of a general political consensus. The question was raised about the influence of European integration on the 1992–1994 «Mani pulite» scandal, which was characterized by a series of trials against prominent officials and ended with the collapse of the old political system of the First Republic. As a result, Italy for the first time created a «technical government» under the former head of the Bank of Italy, C. A. Ciampi, which was a kind of temporary administration that launched the mechanism for implementing EU reforms. At the same time, a block of newly created Eurosceptic parties was consolidated in Italy. The block won the parliamentary elections, as a result of which a government led by S. Berlusconi was formed in 1994. Despite the anti-European statements declared by this government, it failed to stop the process of European integration. After the collapse of S. Berlusconi’s government in 1996, the pro-European coalition «Olive Tree», headed by R. Prodi, came to power. Thus, in the political system of the Second Republic (1994 – pr.t.), the issue of European integration became the main marker of division between various political forces, which lost the character of mass ideological parties of the 20th century and have become unstable personalist projects. The governments of the «Olive Tree» managed to give new impetus to European integration reforms, the main of which was the introduction of the euro instead of the national currency – the lira. This reform was perceived as an opportunity to renovate the Italian Republic as a consequence of strengthening the state apparatus, the program of privatization of the public sector of the economy, and a more cautious budget policy. The permission from the EU to switch to the euro since 1999 proved that, despite difficulties of a political and economic nature, Italy managed to carry out key reforms, and with the introduction of the euro instead of the national currency, the European integration of the country became an irreversible process.

Bringing geography back in: Borderlands and public support for the European Union

AbstractWhat explains the variation in public support for European integration? While the existing literature has predominantly focused on economic, cultural and political factors, the influence of geography has been largely overlooked. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by examining the impact of residing in the European Union (EU) border regions on voters' perceptions and attitudes towards the EU. Contrary to previous research, our study reveals a remarkable pattern, indicating that individuals living in border regions exhibit a higher propensity to vote for Eurosceptic parties and hold negative views on the EU. Through the utilization of both behavioural and attitudinal indicators in years ranging between 1999 and 2021 and employing statistical matching, our analysis robustly supports this finding. Moreover, we delve into the underlying mechanisms driving these negative attitudes in border regions, highlighting the significance of institutional factors. A mediation analysis reveals an interesting and previously unexplored theoretical twist: We find that residing in a border region is associated with lower trust in national political institutions, which translates into distrust in the EU. These findings suggest that it might be policymakers residing in the capital of the country rather than people on the other side of the border that make borderland inhabitants' attitudes distinctly negative.

정당차원의 유럽회의주의

Assuming that party-based Euroscepticism could expand to citizens’ Euroscepticism and bring about changes in party system in European countries, this study seeks to understand the characteristic of Eurosceptic parties and to explore the motivations leading these parties to adopt Eurosceptic positions. In particular, it tests whether their Eurosceptic positions are driven by differentiation-strategy motivation or by ideology based motivation. Analysing parties from 17 Western European member states and 11 Central and Eastern European member states, this study demonstrates clearly that parties’ Euroscepticism is driven first and foremost by the ideology based on nationalism or populism. This finding implies that party-based Euroscepticism could affect not only sustainability of European integration but also party system in Europe.

From qualified to conspirative Euroscepticism: how the German AfD frames the EU in multiple crisis

ABSTRACT Research on Euroscepticism tends to portray parties opposing European integration or criticising the European Union (EU) as a family of Eurosceptic parties (either hard or soft). Recent literature, however, offers empirical evidence on the ambivalence and diversity of the EU critique. What is still unclear are the reasons behind the chameleonic nature of Euroscepticism and the implications that this may have for the EU critique and the changes proposed about EU policy or institutions. The present article addresses this question exploring the role of EU crises to capture the changing nature of Euroscepticism and suggests that it is related to contextual pressures on the political debate around the EU. The paper develops this argument and illustrates it through the analysis of the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, covering the EU crises of the last decade, including the recent period of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine invasion. Drawing on a corpus of party manifestos and speeches between 2013 and 2022, this study shows that there are three main frames used by the party to criticise the EU. It also concludes that these frames involve distinct political implications for the EU critique and the alternative proposals presented by the party.

Populism Analytical Tools to Unearth the Roots of Euroscepticism

Populist leaders around the globe magnify pre-existing frustrations and dramatise crises to erode confidence in elites and institutions. They adapt their othering and blame attribution discourses to specific geographical realities to take advantage of local problems and prejudices. Most Eurosceptic parties apply a similar populist logic of articulation simplifying political problems, morally delegitimising their political adversaries and supranational institutions, appealing to an idealised and somewhat homogeneous notion of society as well as presenting popular sovereignty as threatened by Brussels and mainstream parties. Populism literature has developed theories and measurement tools that are very useful to explain the emergence of Eurosceptic movements and to what extent their narratives resonate with citizen’s pre-existing attitudes and/or contribute to shaping them. This article shows the value of using populism as an epistemic framework to analyse Euroscepticism and understand how parties tailor their messages (supply-side) to trigger specific beliefs and behaviours (demand-side) in the inhabitants of different geographic contexts.

Electoral effects of investment subsidies in national and European elections

ABSTRACT Extensive research has focused on political movements against regional integration and globalisation to understand the causes and consequences of their political success in developed democracies. However, studies on the effectiveness of large-scale institutional efforts to hinder this political development have been limited. My paper investigates the electoral effects of one of the largest investment subsidy programs in the world, the European regional investment policy. Even though it distributes billions of Euros each year to foster economic and social cohesion, it is unclear whether these fiscal transfers produce any tangible electoral effects. I argue that, in this case, supranational institutions have been successful in taking credit, making heavily targeted regions infertile grounds for the electoral success of eurosceptic parties. Leveraging the NUTS-level election dataset (EU-NED) and regression discontinuity models, this paper is the first to investigate the causal link between investment subsidies for less developed regions and electoral support for eurosceptic parties in national and European elections. The analysis shows that high fiscal transfers to less developed regions cause lower levels of Eurosceptic voting.

Traitors or Allies. German Right-Wing Movements and the Memorialization of the National Conservative Resistance to Hitler

After the Second World War, most former Nazis were certain that they (and their Führer) would have won the war if there had not been a national-conservative opposition among the traditional elites, i. e. diplomats, bureaucrats, and the officer corps.It took the West German political mainstream years to adopt the notion of resistance to Hitler as part of a positive tradition. By 1990, however, it had become received wisdom that men like Colonel Claus Graf Stauffenberg were positive examples of how some, albeit very few, had stood up against injustice and repression. Only on the extreme right fringe could authors still defame the resisters as traitors.The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), started in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party, was soon hijacked by elements of the far Right. One example is the New Right’s discussion of the resistance. While some proclaim that “Stauffenberg was a traitor”, others claim the 1944 opposition for their own heritage. By harnessing it for their cause, the memory of the conspiracy and its generally positive connotations in German public opinion, the German New Right is attempting to attract centre or centre-right voters who are disappointed with Angela Merkel’s pro-European policies.