Eurosceptic Attitudes Research Articles

Euroscepticism in a Pro-European State on the Basis of Media Content Analysis

Abstract Against the background of research conducted in other EU countries, Euroscepticism is a marginal sentiment among Poles. Nevertheless, this attitude and the arguments associated with it are noticeable in many areas in the public space: among members of the public presenting Eurosceptic arguments on the social media, journalists in press commentaries or politicians themselves. The aim of this article is to analyse the scale of such statements, their specific character and presence in the Polish press during the election and post-electoral period in 2015–2017. The study involved content analysis of selected text units which allowed the fundamental research question to be answered—namely, what is the nature of Eurosceptic attitudes manifested in the Polish press during the electoral/post-electoral period of lively discussions on the role of the European Union in Poland.

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.

When Eurosceptics become Europhiles: far-right opposition to Turkish involvement in the European Union

ABSTRACT Turkey’s involvement in the European Union has long provoked controversy among Europe’s elites. Recently, in the context of the so-called ‘migrant crisis’, coupled with the mainstreaming of Islamophobia and rising Euroscepticism, the issue of Turkey has acquired renewed significance. While many scholars have linked hostility towards Turkey with the desired construction of a supra-national European identity, few have noted the role it plays in the discourse of parties that explicitly reject the EU. Adopting a mixed-methods approach to Critical Discourse Studies, this paper investigates the contemporary construction of Turkey as a dangerous ‘other’ by far-right parties in the United Kingdom (UKIP) and France (FN/RN). Drawing on theories of Orientalism, Islamophobia and civilisationism, it exposes the apparent contradiction in the strongly Eurosceptic positions adopted by these parties, while simultaneously rejecting Turkish involvement based on its supposed ‘non-Europeanness’. They thus become defenders of Europe while simultaneously undermining the supra-national EU project.

European Union Funding and Sub-National Euroscepticism: Evidence From Poland

This article tests whether EU transfers make beneficiaries more or less supportive of the European project. This question is especially relevant as anti-EU are becoming more electorally competitive across Europe. The European Commission states that their funding programs aim to achieve greater social and economic cohesion among EU member states. Yet, it is puzzling that across Europe, eurosceptic attitudes are clearly evident in regions that benefit most from EU funds (Becker et al., 2017; Richards et al., 2018). We address this puzzle by dis-aggregating EU funding at the local and individual levels in the EU’s highest net-beneficiary country, Poland. Using county-level data on EU funding beneficiaries and individual panel data from the Polish Social Diagnosis Survey, we find a positive association between EU agricultural spending and euroscepticism as measured by voting and attitudinal data. By examining the relationship between EU aid and eurosceptic political behavior and opinions, this project sheds light on the political economy of transfers and calls into question the unifying potential of agricultural spending.

Inglorious glorification and attachment: National and European identities as predictors of anti- and pro-immigrant attitudes.

Anti-immigrant attitudes are not only widespread among Eurosceptic nationalists, but also among people who feel that immigration threatens European values and identity. We therefore assumed that the connection between nationalism and xenophobia can only partially explain the rise of hostile attitudes in the post-2015 period. In two online surveys (N=1,160), we compared how (a) glorification versus attachment and (b) national versus European identity can predict anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim attitudes in Hungary. In the first study, national and European glorification predicted higher anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim prejudice. However, attachment with Europe predicted positive, while attachment with Hungary predicted negative attitudes towards immigrants. We replicated this pattern in a second study and found that the different predictions of national versus European identities were mediated by attitudes towards the EU. Eurosceptic attitudes were associated with increased hostility towards both immigrants and Muslim people and reflected a perceived contradiction between the interest of the nation and that of the EU. We conclude that for a better understanding of intergroup hostility towards Muslim immigrants in Europe, we need to simultaneously consider the psychological phenomenon of ingroup glorification and the values and norms of the social categories with which people identify.

EU Transfers and Euroscepticism: Can't Buy Me Love?

This paper investigates whether EU redistributive policies improved the public attitude toward European integration, both in terms of public opinion and in terms of political preferences. We build a new dataset combining data from the European Social Survey, different data sources for political parties’ stances and transfer records from EU institutions. We focus on the regional Cohesion Policy, within which the Convergence Objective program offers a quasi-experimental framework that allows us to single out these effects by means of a regression discontinuity approach. Results show that EU transfers have mitigated the rise of Eurosceptic attitudes and reduced the political consensus for anti-EU parties in long-time recipient regions. We estimate that increasing the regional per capita EU transfers by 1000€ over the 2000-2014 period reduces the share of Eurosceptic individuals by about 8 percentage points and voters’ support for anti-EU parties by 10 percentage points. The effects are homogeneous across different socio-economic groups, including the most disadvantaged ones. Other attitudes that are often associated with Euroscepticism (i.e. anti-trade and anti-immigration stances) are not substantially affected by EU regional transfers.

National political elites, the EU, and the populist challenge

For several years, the European Union (EU) has faced two major crises at the same time – a global financial crisis that spilled over to the Eurozone countries and an immigration crisis. Those countries more negatively affected complain that the EU is ineffective in providing solutions, while better-off countries are reluctant to share the costs of the most exposed countries. In this critical context, radical populist parties have had specific incentives to offer extreme policy stances on the EU, signalling clear Eurosceptical positions as a means of breaking into the electoral market; their stance is now represented in the national parliament of many member states. The article examines the attitudes of national political elites towards the EU. It shows that the feelings towards the EU have largely survived acute changes (induced by the crises or changes to elite composition). Although Euroscepticism is a growing phenomenon within society and party systems, it is less on the rise among the elites holding public office. However, due to the unprecedented success of radical populist parties in some countries, Euroscepticism is now on the rise, also among this segment of elites, and some limited signs of contagion to the mainstream are already visible.

Towards a New EU: Why Populism Can Save the European Union

Europe has seen an alarming increase of populist parties throughout the last two decades. The European debt crisis has only added to their strength and support, and Eurosceptic attitudes have only increased, as exemplified by the recent Brexit vote. However, this exploratory paper will argue that the crisis to which populism has given rise allows the EU to critically reflect on itself and fix many of the fatal flaws that the increase in populist support has pointed out. It will be argued that the EU needs to create a strong civic society to help mend its democratic deficit. Finally, it will be argued that by incorporating particular elements of populist thought and critique (i.e., democratization and fairer economic policies), that is, implanting an “alter-europeanization,” that the ugly side of populism (its xenophobia and racism) will begin to lose support within European countries.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v12i1.1234

Towards a New EU: Why Populism Can Save the European Union

Europe has seen an alarming increase of populist parties throughout the last two decades. The European debt crisis has only added to their strength and support, and Eurosceptic attitudes have only increased, as exemplified by the recent Brexit vote. However, this exploratory paper will argue that the crisis to which populism has given rise allows the EU to critically reflect on itself and fix many of the fatal flaws that the increase in populist support has pointed out. It will be argued that the EU needs to create a strong civic society to help mend its democratic deficit. Finally, it will be argued that by incorporating particular elements of populist thought and critique (i.e., democratization and fairer economic policies), that is, implanting an “alter-europeanization,” that the ugly side of populism (its xenophobia and racism) will begin to lose support within European countries.

Implicancias del Brexit en la Unión Europea

June 23, 2016, will be a day difficult to forget, mainly in Europe. Should the United Kingdom remain part of the European Union (EU) or not?, was the question posed in the historic referendum and the majority, with a very little margin, voted in favor of leaving the EU.This is how the United Kingdom became the first country that decided to leave the European Union, where it remained for more than four decades, dealing an unprecedented blow to an emblematic integration process worldwide. In what it seems an irreversible process, the United Kingdom began on March 29, 2017, the formal process to leave the European Union (EU), activating Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon that provides a mechanism for the voluntary and unilateral withdrawal of a country of the European Union.The result of the referendum and the express mention of the recovery of independence and sovereignty by the British Prime Minister Theresa May reflect the primacy of Eurosceptic or Europhobic positions on the island against the pro-Europeans. In the following lines, we will reflect on the underlying forces of the European integration process, its main milestones, to analyze the role of the United Kingdom in it and the impact of the withdrawal of the UR to the EU.

What unites the voter bases of populist parties? Comparing the electorates of 15 populist parties

Various scholars have argued and demonstrated that Western European populist parties have something in common. Although these parties adhere to various ideologies and employ different organizational forms and political styles, they all endorse a similar set of ideas concerning the relationship between the people and the elite. Yet despite our increasing knowledge about these parties, so far we know only very little about populist voters. Do the voter bases of populist parties also have something in common? To answer that question, I focus on the electorates of 15 prototypical populist parties from 11 Western European countries. I show that, in contrast with widely held beliefs, the electorates of populist parties do not always consist of individuals who are more likely to be ‘losers of globalization’ with Eurosceptic attitudes, low levels of political trust, and preferences for (more) direct democracy. This suggests that ‘the’ populist voter does not exist.

The Benelux approach to EU integration and external action

ABSTRACTAs small states with a cosmopolitan outlook, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, have a natural interest in good-neighbourly relations and in cooperating through the EU. However, despite the closely knit nature of the economic, monetary and physical spheres of the lowlands, their attitudes to European integration diverge. Whereas the Netherlands has taken a transactional and even Eurosceptic position, Belgium sticks to its federalist approach to integration as a natural extension of its own constitutional structures which receive shelter from the EU. Luxembourg shares the federalist ideals but adopts an autonomous stance to protect its position as an international tax haven. These generic findings apply less to matters of EU foreign and security policy, which is the main subject of investigation of this special forum.

It takes two: how Eurosceptic public opinion and party divisions influence party positions

Do parties respond to voters’ preferences on European integration in elections to the European Parliament (EP)? Following recent research that shows political party responsiveness to Eurosceptic attitudes during EP elections is conditioned by party characteristics, this article seeks to understand how party unity on European integration affects party responsiveness to Euroscepticism. It argues that when Eurosceptic attitudes among voters are high and the parties are divided in their position on European integration, parties will be more responsive to voters and take a more Eurosceptic position. To test the theoretical expectations, the study uses data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Euromanifestos Project, and European Election Study for 1989–2009 for over 120 parties across 20 European Union member states. The findings have important implications for understanding the nature of democratic representation in the European Union.

Constructivism as an explanatory research approach to Eurosceptics’ behaviour in the European Parliament regarding the external action of the European Union

This paper presents possibilities offered by the constructivist approach to analysing behaviours and attitudes of Eurosceptical MEPs towards the EU’s external actions. The analysis conducted in this paper shows that constructivism is very useful in explaining why Eurosceptics’ behaviour is often unusual in the field of European foreign policy. It also shows the evolution of Eurosceptic attitudes and identity. The inner organisation of the European Parliament is the main reason of this situation. The behaviour of small EP political groups is limited by the EP statute. It pushes Eurosceptical politicians to take part in debates within the EP framework, which has a significant influence on their identity. The final part of the paper shows the consequences of this process. The first of these are the “discursive nodal points” present in the Eurosceptical debates. The second is a “diplomatic republic of Europe” built between Eurosceptics in the EP. The third and final consequence is a “European public sphere” which emerges because Eurosceptics take part in EP debates.

The battle for hegemony: Resistance and neoliberal restructuring in post-crisis Europe

The post-crisis environment has seen a number of poignant developments over the nature of political and economic continuity. As austerity policies have emerged, a wide collection of resistance has grown which has been marked by civil and political demonstration. The result has been the emergence of a number of different positions from both the left and the radical right which have sought to challenge the centrist political management of the crisis. Following earlier work on the nature of such resistance (Worth in Resistance in the age of austerity. Zed Books, London, 2013b), this article argues that its fragmented nature has led to the failure of the left to develop a coherent alternative to austerity. It also highlights how some Eurosceptic positions on the right have emerged in such a way that they either have followed the Tea Party in advocating a far more market centrist neoliberal position (such as UKIP in Britain) or have looked to side-line economic issues with a reactionary pursuit of anti-multicultural issues. By using a Gramscian understanding of hegemony, the article suggests oppositional groups have lacked a form capable of mustering a successful ‘war of position’ in challenging austerity. As a result, the main principles of neoliberal governance – market generated growth, deregulation, fiscal prudency – which were seen as untenable in 2008, have re-emerged through the guise of austerity and debt management. Indeed, it can be suggested that neoliberalism has actually consolidated its hegemonic position due to greater debates both on the role that state should play in bailouts and on the fact that through austerity, neoliberalism appears able to survive periods of crisis.

Euroscepticism – a today’s issue with tomorrow consequences

<p>The European Union is dominated by permanent change and diversity so that public opinion regarding different EU-related issues follows a similar trend. Within this continually changing context, there are two important interconnected things to be considered: first, public opinion towards the EU represents the core of political and academic debates over the present and future of the European integration. Second, the favorable attitudes and opinions towards the EU have increasingly changed into disapproving or sceptic attitudes in the last years. Although there are studies on Eurosceptic attitudes and their causes in almost all EU member states, only a few of them offer a clear overview of this issue. The present paper addresses four questions: What is actually Euroscepticism?; What are the faces of Euroscepticism in the EU as a whole?; How prominent are Eurosceptic attitudes in Romania?; Where do we go from here? The aim of this paper is to examine the theoretical foundations of Euroscepticism and to provide insightful information to be used in future studies.</p>

Right-wing euroscepticism in the UK: the cases of the uk independence party and the conservative party between 1993 and 2015

The outcome of the 2014 elections of the European Parliament and the results of the 2015 national elections begged the question of whether the parties defending Eurosceptic positions are becoming prominent political forces in the UK. The research question is as follows: what are the similarities and differences between the two main right-wing parties of the UK, namely the Conservatives and the UKIP, in their anti-EU rhetoric in the last two decades? I used public speeches of the UKIP leader which showed that the national identity and national sovereignty are of a great value for the party. In this work, I also used other primary sources: the parties’ manifestos (1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015), the Eurobarometer surveys (in 1999, 2004 and 2015) and YouGov surveys (between 2012 and 2015). They show that the British public is hostile towards Europe and immigrants from Europe. This article draws the similarities between the Conservatives and the UKIP. They both criticize Brussels for over-centralization of power. According to them, the aim of any British government is to reduce the competences of supranational bodies and return certain powers to the state capitals. In addition, the Conservatives and the UKIP pledged to fight against immigration. However they have different approaches towards the same problems: the Conservatives would have Britain renegotiate the membership terms, while the UKIP favors a withdrawal from the EU. The main difference between the parties in question is that the Tories are far more cautious than UKIP. They believe that Britain can renegotiate the terms of membership and returning certain powers back to the national level. For the UKIP, the EU is bad in its nature. The Conservative party wants to be in Europe but not run by Europe while the UKIP argues that it is impossible to be in Europe but not run by Europe.Keywords: Euroscepticism, UKIP, Conservatives, Britain

Right-wing euroscepticism in the UK: the cases of the uk independence party and the conservative party between 1993 and 2015

The outcome of the 2014 elections of the European Parliament and the results of the 2015 national elections begged the question of whether the parties defending Eurosceptic positions are becoming prominent political forces in the UK. The research question is as follows: what are the similarities and differences between the two main right-wing parties of the UK, namely the Conservatives and the UKIP, in their anti-EU rhetoric in the last two decades? I used public speeches of the UKIP leader which showed that the national identity and national sovereignty are of a great value for the party. In this work, I also used other primary sources: the parties’ manifestos (1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015), the Eurobarometer surveys (in 1999, 2004 and 2015) and YouGov surveys (between 2012 and 2015). They show that the British public is hostile towards Europe and immigrants from Europe. This article draws the similarities between the Conservatives and the UKIP. They both criticize Brussels for over-centralization of power. According to them, the aim of any British government is to reduce the competences of supranational bodies and return certain powers to the state capitals. In addition, the Conservatives and the UKIP pledged to fight against immigration. However they have different approaches towards the same problems: the Conservatives would have Britain renegotiate the membership terms, while the UKIP favors a withdrawal from the EU. The main difference between the parties in question is that the Tories are far more cautious than UKIP. They believe that Britain can renegotiate the terms of membership and returning certain powers back to the national level. For the UKIP, the EU is bad in its nature. The Conservative party wants to be in Europe but not run by Europe while the UKIP argues that it is impossible to be in Europe but not run by Europe. Keywords: Euroscepticism, UKIP, Conservatives, Britain

Right-wing euroscepticism in the UK: the cases of the uk independence party and the conservative party between 1993 and 2015

The outcome of the 2014 elections of the European Parliament and the results of the 2015 national elections begged the question of whether the parties defending Eurosceptic positions are becoming prominent political forces in the UK. The research question is as follows: what are the similarities and differences between the two main right-wing parties of the UK, namely the Conservatives and the UKIP, in their anti-EU rhetoric in the last two decades? I used public speeches of the UKIP leader which showed that the national identity and national sovereignty are of a great value for the party. In this work, I also used other primary sources: the parties’ manifestos (1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015), the Eurobarometer surveys (in 1999, 2004 and 2015) and YouGov surveys (between 2012 and 2015). They show that the British public is hostile towards Europe and immigrants from Europe. This article draws the similarities between the Conservatives and the UKIP. They both criticize Brussels for over-centralization of power. According to them, the aim of any British government is to reduce the competences of supranational bodies and return certain powers to the state capitals. In addition, the Conservatives and the UKIP pledged to fight against immigration. However they have different approaches towards the same problems: the Conservatives would have Britain renegotiate the membership terms, while the UKIP favors a withdrawal from the EU. The main difference between the parties in question is that the Tories are far more cautious than UKIP. They believe that Britain can renegotiate the terms of membership and returning certain powers back to the national level. For the UKIP, the EU is bad in its nature. The Conservative party wants to be in Europe but not run by Europe while the UKIP argues that it is impossible to be in Europe but not run by Europe.
 Keywords: Euroscepticism, UKIP, Conservatives, Britain

The Rise of the Populist Radical Right in Western Europe

Populist radical right (PRR) parties are on the rise in Western Europe. Where do the electoral successes of these parties come from? First, it has been shown that the opening of borders has fuelled the divide between the ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ of globalisation. The ‘losers’ are individuals who feel threatened by international competition. They vote for PRR parties because they agree with their nativist, populist and Eurosceptic positions. Second, various social and political developments have facilitated the success of these parties. Some examples of these developments are increased electoral volatility, the ideological convergence of the mainstream parties, and increasing immigration and unemployment. Third, PRR parties themselves are, to a large extent, responsible for their own successes. Without their increasingly moderated messages and profiles, their often appealing external and internal leaders, and their well-institutionalised party organisations, their (long-term) successes would not have been possible. Most probably, the PRR party family will remain with us for a while.