Eurosceptic Parties Research Articles

PROSPECTS OF ITALEXIT IN THE CONTEXT OF RISKS OF STRENGTHENING DISINTEGRATION PROCESSES IN EUROPE

The risks of Italy's withdrawal from the European Union (Italexit) are analyzed. Italy has one of the most powerful economies in the European Union and a great political influence on the processes in the EU. Therefore, the possible exit of this country from the Union could have catastrophic economic and political consequences for the future of European integration. The probability of the threat of the so-called Italexit, which has been discussed by the Italian politicians for a long time, is researched. In addition, the ways and possibilities of avoiding the threat of Italexit, as well as strengthening European solidarity despite the development of disintegration processes in Europe in general and in Italy in particular, are discovered. The probability of Italexit is defined as low, but some negative trends that may increase the risks of Italy's exit from the EU in the future are outlined. The growing sentiments of euroscepticism in Italy and their impact on the country's foreign policy and on relations between Italy and the EU's central institutions in Brussels are observed. The most influential parties of Eurosceptics and right-wing populists and their activities in the Italian parliament and government are considered. The prospects for further activities of Eurosceptic parties and their potential impact on the policy of Italy and the EU are forecasted. It is proved that Italian Eurosceptics are potentially the most dangerous in Europe because of their popularity not only at the national but also at the European level, their ability to unite right-wing radical parties from other European countries, their ambitions to occupy key positions in the European Commission and their active ties with Russia. The possible ways to avoid the most catastrophic scenarios of Italy's exit from the EU are analyzed.

Eurosceptic Challenger Parties and Political Opposition in European Union Politics: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?

Despite extensive research on Eurosceptic challenger parties, our knowledge of their influence on political opposition has so far been sparse. In this article we make an in‐depth assessment of parliamentary EU opposition, based on 4,264 statements made by national parliamentarians in the European Affairs Committees (EACs) of Denmark and Sweden. Our analysis shows that the presence of Eurosceptic challenger parties in the national parliamentary arena impacts patterns and practices of EU opposition significantly. A greater presence of ‘hard’ Eurosceptic parties in parliament is associated with more opposition in EU politics. These parties deliver a vast majority of the polity‐oriented opposition towards the EU and present more policy alternatives than mainstream parties. The findings presented have implications for our understanding of national parliamentary EU opposition as well as for the assessment of the impact of Eurosceptic challenger parties on the process of European integration.

Euroscepticism behind the Victory of Eurosceptic Parties in the 2018 Italian General Election? Not Exactly

Euroscepticism behind the Victory of Eurosceptic Parties in the 2018 Italian General Election? Not Exactly

United in Diversity, Divided in Adversity? Support for Right-Wing Eurosceptic Parties in the Face of Threat Differs Across Nations.

This article investigates whether the perceived threat of terrorism explains the support for right-wing Eurosceptic parties and Euroscepticism above and beyond other relevant variables, including perceived economic and immigration threats. We first examined the entire Eurobarometer samples of 2014 and 2015, and then conducted survey experiments in four European Union (EU) countries, that is, United Kingdom (N = 197), France (N = 164), Italy (N = 312), and Romania (N = 144). Our findings suggest that the perceived threat of terrorism has a small effect on the negative attitudes toward the EU above and beyond the effect of immigration and economic threats and other basic control variables. The relationship between these variables varies across countries and it is less linear than we might expect.

Euroscepticism and Protestant Heritage: The Role of Religion on EU Issue Voting

AbstractThis paper focuses on the historical ties between Protestantism and the nation-state, as well as between Catholicism and supranationalism, to widen the political science debate on different conditions of EU issue voting. Research suggests that the political context in each nation-state shapes the extent to which individual Eurosceptic attitudes influence the decision to vote for Eurosceptic parties. In addition to this, I expect that a nations' religious background responds differently to this relationship. Using data from the 2014 European Parliament elections, I show that citizens from predominantly Protestant countries actually decide for Eurosceptic parties if they hold negative attitudes towards European integration. In contrast, citizens from predominantly Catholic countries may or may not vote for Eurosceptic parties, but their voting decision is not based on individual EU attitudes such as support for European integration, trust in EU institutions or European identity.

Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European elections were characterized in many countries by growing support for Eurosceptic parties. This growth was not uniform and not clearly associated with the economic performance of these member states. In this article, we investigate the role played in the 2014 European Parliament elections by a country-specific factor – the composition of government coalitions – different from economic performance. In particular, we argue that in those countries where moderately Eurosceptic parties were more involved in the government, citizens with negative attitudes toward the European Union were more likely to vote for highly Eurosceptic parties. This was especially the case when the governments also included strongly pro-EU parties. The empirical analysis, which is based upon the 2014 European Election Voter Study, the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, and the Parliaments and Governments database, confirms our hypotheses.

Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European elections were characterized in many countries by growing support for Eurosceptic parties. This growth was not uniform and not clearly associated with the economic performance of ...

Undermining, defusing or defending European integration? Assessing public communication of European executives in times of EU politicisation

AbstractHow do mainstream political executives cue their politicised constituencies on European integration? Moving beyond static expectations that EU politicisation induces executives to either undermine, defuse or defend integration, this article theorises executives’ incentives under different configurations of public and partisan Euroscepticism in their home countries. Expectations are tested on the sentiment and complexity that executives attach to European integration in almost 9,000 public speeches delivered throughout the Euro Crisis. It is found that national leaders faced with sceptical public opinion and low levels of partisan Euroscepticism rhetorically undermine integration, whereas European Commissioners faced with similar conditions are prone to defend it. These responses intensify disproportionally with growing public Euroscepticism, but are moderated by Eurosceptic party strength in surprising ways. When such challenger parties come closer to absorbing the Eurosceptic potential in public opinion, executive communication turns more positive again but also involves less clear rhetorical signals. These findings move beyond existing uniform expectations on mainstream responses to Eurosceptic challenges and highlight the relevance of different domestic configurations of EU politicisation.

The effect of European Parliament elections on political socialisation

ABSTRACTDo European Parliament (EP) elections have adverse effects on the political socialisation of individuals? Instilling a lasting political disaffection in impressionable voters, the supranational contest may have negative consequences for long-term political socialisation. Relying on a large cross-national dataset from 2004, I identify the causal effect of first-time eligibility and voting in the EP elections by exploiting the exogenous variation in adolescents' birth months. The results of a discontinuity design show that the elections do not politically disengage young voters or strengthen their party bonds to radical or Eurosceptic parties. Instead, the EP elections arouse their political interest in general and their European interest in particular; a long-lasting effect that persists for more than five years. Placebo tests and various robustness tests confirm the results. Considering that individuals are most receptive towards political socialisation stimuli during early adulthood, this study sheds light on the integrative potential of the EP elections.

A tale of two crises? A regional-level investigation of the joint effect of economic performance and migration on the voting for European disintegration

Hard-line Euroscepticism appears to be, nowadays, a persistent phenomenon of the later stages of European integration. However, it is unclear to what extent the joint effects of economic insecurities and growing numbers of immigrants play a role in determining the people’s choice to actually support hard-line Eurosceptic parties with their vote. Building upon the existing body of literature on the economic determinants of voting for anti-European parties, this study brings the analysis further by breaking down the electoral performance of strictly Eurosceptic parties for different types of elections at the regional level, accounting for within-country variations otherwise lost in national-level analysis. We build a dataset including the regionally distributed results of all electoral episodes (regional, national, European) between 2007 and 2016 in Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Italy for a total of 522 elections. Methodologically, the paper adopts panel-level econometrics.

Shooting the fox? UKIP’s populism in the post-Brexit era

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has moved from being a single-issue party par excellence to a broader party of protest, taking advantage of wider feelings of discontent and disconnection. However, the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the EU fundamentally challenged its development and operation, by removing a core part of the party’s rationale and identity, and radically shifting the overall political landscape. This paper considers the re-positioning through the referendum period, both rhetorically and organisationally. Drawing on party press releases and media coverage, the paper argues that UKIP has become caught in a set of multiple transformations, pushing it in the longer term towards a more conventionally populist position in a way that carries important resonances for other Eurosceptic parties across the continent.

Convergence towards a single economic model? Italy and Germany in the interconnected euro system

Structural reforms have failed to bring about convergence in the Eurozone. This argument is made here by comparing two countries – Italy and Germany – assumed to embody contrasting economic models. Three main points are made in the paper. First, the generalisation of the macroeconomic strategy of the northern countries threatens to undermine political support for European integration, as the disparities it engenders drive the electoral successes of Eurosceptic parties. Second, Italian performance does not display the traits commonly associated with the southern European syndrome. Third, Italy’s core economic problem – its persistently low GDP and productivity growth – is due to its prolonged efforts to reduce a public debt which originated in the 1970s and 1980s. The paper argues for the need to return to a macroeconomic analysis, as opposed to the focus on the microeconomic issue of competitiveness, and for the need to consider other policies in addition to the completion of the banking, financial and fiscal unions.

Employment shocks and anti-EU sentiment

Euroscepticism and the rise of populist parties have often been linked to economic insecurity. This paper identifies regional employment changes as causal factors for forming attitudes towards the European Union and voting for eurosceptic parties in European Parliament elections. To do so, I combine industry-specific employment data for roughly 260 European NUTS II regions with individual-level Eurobarometer survey data for the past 20 years and regional voting results. I apply panel data and instrumental variable methods; for the latter I construct a Bartik-style instrument, which predicts employment changes on the basis of regional industry specialization and Europe-wide sector specific employment growth rates. The effect of employment changes on attitudes towards the EU is particularly strong for unemployed and low-skilled workers in regions with a high share of migrants from other European member states, which supports the narrative that ‘losers of globalization’ tend to be more skeptical towards economic and political integration.

Eurosceptics in trilogue settings: interest formation and contestation in the European Parliament

Trilogues have been studied as sites of secluded inter-institutional decision making that gather the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament (EP) and the European Commission. Trilogues, however, are not exempt from formal and informal party-political dynamics that affect intra- and inter-institutional contestation. The increase in Eurosceptics in the 2014 EP elections offers an opportunity to investigate their efforts to shape the position and behaviour of the EP negotiating team in trilogues. Therefore, this article investigates to what extent Eurosceptic party groups participate in trilogue negotiations and how mainstream groups deal with their presence. The analysis shows that the opportunities to participate in trilogues and shape the EP’s position are higher for those perceived as soft Eurosceptic MEPs, while mainstream groups apply a ‘cordon sanitaire’ to those perceived as being part of hard Eurosceptic groups – which reduces the chances of MEPs from those groups being willing to participate in parliamentary work.

Responding to the crisis: Eurosceptic parties of the left and right and their changing position towards the European Union

AbstractAt the time of the election of the European Parliament (EP) in 2014, the European Union (EU) was heavily affected by a multifaceted crisis that had – and still has – far‐reaching implications for the political system of its member countries, but also for the European level of governance. Against the background of the strong Eurosceptic vote in the 2014 EP elections, this study aims to investigate in which way Eurosceptic parties of the left and the right respond to the multiple crises of the EU. Using data from the Euromanifesto Project from 2004/2009 and 2014, changes in the party positions towards the EU are analysed in the shadow of the multiple crises and the reasons thereof are explored. The findings show a general anti‐European shift among the two types of Eurosceptic parties. Nevertheless, the changes in the EU polity tone are not determined by issue‐based repercussions of the multiple crises, but by the EU‐related evaluation – the polity mood – of the national citizenry. For far‐right Eurosceptic parties, the shift is moderated by the level of public support for EU integration in their national environment. Among far‐left Eurosceptic parties, by contrast, it is moderated by the more specific public attitudes about the monetary union policy of the EU. Consequently, political parties when drafting their manifestos for EP elections are not so much guided by the objective severity of political problems or by the evaluations of these problems by the citizenry. What matters in the end is the link that citizens themselves are able to establish between the severity of political problems, on the one hand, and the responsibility of the EU for these problems on the other. This has important consequences for understanding of the nature and substance of political responsiveness within the EU system of multilevel governance.

The 2019 European Parliament Elections in Luxembourg in the Context of Past Elections

The aim of this article is to analyse the 2019 European election in Luxembourg and to contextualize it by comparing it with past elections. The article presents the party landscape, the electoral campaign, the electoral system and the results of the 2019 European election. The results are then analysed in the context of past national and European elections in order to establish whether European elections are second-order elections in Luxembourg, how electoral volatility evolved over time, whether there is a rise in Eurosceptic parties and how the representation of women has evolved since 1979.

Overcoming History through International Organizations – Historical Roots of EU Support and Euroscepticism

There is little causal evidence about deep-rooted sources of support for shifting power from nation-states to international organizations. Focusing on the European Union, this paper develops the hypothesis that citizens appreciate the role of international organizations in constraining member state’s the more, the more negatively their region was historically affected by the actions of nation-states. For identification, I use the historically homogeneous regions of Alsace and Lorraine in France as a natural experiment. A municipal level geographical regression discontinuity design documents that more negative exposure led to persistently higher EU support in three important referenda and less success of Eurosceptic parties in parliamentary elections. This effect is not driven by linguistic differences, migration, socioeconomic factors or public good provision, but linked to a stronger European identity. This stronger identity is neither explained by perceived economic benefits, nor comes at the expense of a weaker national or regional identity.

Cueing the radical voter: The impact of economic, immigration and integration cues on public fear of the EU

This article analyses the extent to which radical left parties (RLPs) and radical right parties (RRPs) invoke fear of the EU in their voters by cueing on the economic, immigration and integration dimensions. In the West, mainstream theories of party cueing hold, although not in the predicted direction. RLPs cue on the economic dimension, with more protectionist cues resulting in less EU fear. RRPs are cueing on immigration, although respondents who vote for a more xenophobic party are less Eurosceptic. In the East, RLPs cue on immigration, with the anticipated outcome that a more xenophobic cue conditions greater EU fear. At the same time, RRPs cue on integration directly, with respondents who vote for a more Eurosceptic party exhibiting less fear. Overall, the most Eurosceptic respondents in the West are those who vote for a RRP, while the same is true for RLP voters in the East.

Divided national memories and EU crises: how Eurosceptic parties mobilize historical narratives

Historical grievances of different political groups in the EU contributed to the rising opposition to “Brussels”. This opposition is often framed through memories that contest the official EU narrative of the peaceful and prosperous continental integration that was able to overcome the destructions of the two world wars and the Cold War divisions. Based on the analysis of the development of some of the most prominent Eurosceptic parties (le Front National, die Alternative für Deutschland, Syriza, Podemos, Fidesz, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), it is argued that recent EU crises and especially their interpretations have been influenced by the legacies of some of the most important periods of twentieth-century European history. The legacy of the Second World War and its aftermath in two founding member states (France, Germany), the legacy of right-wing dictatorships in two Southern European member states (Greece, Spain) and the legacy of communist dictatorships in two Central and Eastern European member states (Hungary, Poland) still shape narratives and stances towards European integration.

From the cultural and foreign policies of western European far-right parties to the European Union’s 2015–2018 Work Plan for Culture – identifying and opposing nativism

ABSTRACTThis article is framed by an interest in cultural policy in the context of shifting political trends and cultural governance. It begins by comparing the cultural and foreign policy proposals of a number of western far-right Eurosceptic parties (FN, PVV, UKIP), arguing that they reveal a set of shared assumptions regarding cultural identity and sovereignty. It then suggests that the European Union’s 2015–2018 implementation of its motto (‘United in Diversity’), emphasising the ideas of intercultural dialogue and cultural diversity, did not question such nativist assumptions. Finally, proposing to imagine a relational cultural strategy incompatible with nativism, the article connects François Jullien’s understanding of culture as something that is built around shared resources with Judith Butler’s notion of performative agency. In doing so, the article contributes to the development of cultural policies that aren’t methodologically nationalist.