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Red Europe Versus No Europe? The impact of attitudes towards the EU and the economic crisis on radical-left voting
Abstract and Figures
The 2014 European Parliament election saw a relatively large increase in the size of radical left parties (RLPs), particularly in Western Europe. This article aims to provide new ways of thinking about the dynamics of radical-left voting by analyzing the changing role of attitudes towards the European Union (EU) in explaining support for RLPs at European Parliament elections during the Great Recession. It is argued that the Europeanization of economic issues during the financial crisis, together with the particular kind of Euroscepticism advocated by these parties, have enabled them to successfully attract a heterogeneous pool of voters. Using the 2009 and 2014 European Elections Studies, it is shown that the effect of negative opinions about the EU on radical-left voting increased significantly during the crisis. In addition, support for RLPs also increased among voters with positive views of the EU who were nevertheless strongly dissatisfied with the economic situation.
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... However, successful mobilization depends on the absence of a RRP in the party system. While studies in the past have emphasized the importance of European integration for RLPs (Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2017;March and Rommerskirchen, 2015;Ramiro, 2016;Visser et al., 2014), this research analyses when Euroscepticism can be beneficial and when it can harm RLPs' success. This article adds to a significant growing literature on how different party families compete in their own ways. ...
... Past research suggests RLPs specifically see electoral success when high Euroscepticism is present in the population (March and Rommerskirchen, 2015). It is not yet entirely clear whether RLP voters are Eurosceptic or RLPs thrive in countries with higher levels of Euroscepticism in society (Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2017). For example, Visser et al. (2014) found an effect for Eurosceptic voting among far-left voters. ...
... Robustness checks included using different country-level controls and excluding overly influential cases (e.g. SYRIZA) from the case selection (Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2017;Gomez et al., 2016;Krause, 2020). Dropping these cases shows that they have not driven the results. ...
The European Union has gained salience as an issue in political debate. Recent literature shows that successful radical right-wing parties are frequently in opposition to European integration. This article looks at how radical left-wing parties’ positions on EU integration affect their electoral support. It argues that radical left parties can mobilize voters in their favour through positioning in opposition to EU integration because this allows voters to combine their left-wing economic and anti-EU preferences. Using expert and individual-level survey data, this research demonstrates that radical left-wing parties that position themselves against EU integration are more likely to gain individuals’ vote choice. This finding is surprising, given that traditionally radical left-wing parties are defined through their economic, rather than their non-economic, positions. This article demonstrates that variation in positioning around non-economic issues such as EU integration can explain differences in voter support across radical left-wing parties.
... First, studies have dealt with current trends and events in West European politicssuch as European integration or the 2008 financial crisisto explain the electoral fortunes of the far left (e.g. Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017;Dunphy 2004). Second, research has investigated the influence of individual-level factors from the perspective of cleavage theory (Ramiro 2016), theories focusing on economic distress and deprivation (March and Rommerskirchen 2015;Visser et al. 2014), or modernisation theory (Charalambous and Lamprianou 2017;Gomez et al. 2016). ...
... 10 The dependent variable measures the percentage of electoral support for RLPs. 11 Following the literature on radical left parties, opposition to neoliberalism and exceeding capitalism constitutes the core ideological feature of these parties (Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017;Gomez et al. 2016;March 2011). In line with the academic consensus regarding the members of the West European radical left party family, 25 parties have been identified. ...
... First, although Sinn F ein is a member of the GUE/NGL group in the European Parliament since 2004, several studies on the far left exclude this party from their analyses due to its primary commitment to questions of national unity and independence (e.g. Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017;Gomez et al. 2016). Dropping this party from the analysis does not change the results in substantial ways. ...
Challenger parties’ electoral successes have attracted increasing scholarly attention. Based on the example of West European radical left parties, this article investigates whether and how centripetal and centrifugal positional movements on different conflict dimensions influence the election results of these parties. Depending on parties’ issue-linkages, these strategies will have a different effect for the economic and the non-economic issue dimension. Due to radical left parties’ long-term commitment and a strong party-issue linkage on economic issues, more moderate positions will play to their electoral advantage. In contrast, far-left parties compete with social democratic and green-libertarian parties for party-issue linkages on the non-economic issue dimension. Here, they benefit from promoting centrifugal strategies. Based on time-series cross-section analyses for 25 West European far-left parties between 1990 and 2017, the empirical results show that the success of radical left parties’ positional strategies varies with the conflict dimension in question and that this effect is only partly moderated by the positions of competing mainstream left parties.
... The gender gap seems of lesser relevance in the cases of other populist manifestations (for example, Hawkins et al. 2012;Elchardus and Spruyt 2016). Studies of the radical left report that men are not more likely than women to support radical left views (Beaudonnet and Gomez 2016;Visser et al. 2014). Ramiro (2016: 15-16) finds also considerable variation in the effect of gender across Western European countries, which may account for the absence of a more general discernible pattern. ...
... Ramiro and Gomez (2016) suggest that Podemos voters differ from the conventional descriptions of globalization losers found predominantly among those with lower education. This is corroborated by Beaudonnet and Gomez (2016) inclination. The authors argue that economic vulnerability may have an indirect effect on populism inasmuch as it fosters feelings of relative deprivation and a declinist view of society which may fuel populist sentiments (p.125). ...
... Other studies provide mixed findings that increasingly contradict the traditional link between the working class and radical left-wing vote (for example, March 2011). Recent work by Beaudonnet and Gomez (2016) refutes also the assumption that manual workers or the unemployed are more prone to vote for left-wing radical parties (p.10). Ramiro and Gomez (2016) Their data suggest that the party is drawing support from a broader coalition of voters across all social strata, and that it is relatively more successful among educated voters hit by the economic crisis. ...
All over Europe, we are currently witnessing populist political parties and figures enjoying success in elections and mobilising the electorate against the supposed elite. The most recent example of this political development is the Brexit campaign in the UK, which demonstrated that populists can exert considerable influence over political decisions. Populist parties are also enjoying election successes outside Europe; this phenomenon has been occurring in the US and Latin America for a long time, for example. The new “Handbook on Political Populism” offers a comprehensive theoretical and empirical introduction to populist politics in Europe, the Americas and beyond. It focuses on explaining the phenomenon of populism as a consequence of the crisis of the representational system and aims to highlight the controversies and limits of current academic research and debate on the subject. With contributions from: Tjitske Akkerman, Wolfgang Aschauer, Hans-Georg Betz, María Esperanza Casullo, Paula Diehl, Sarah C. Dingler, Flavia Freidenberg, Sergiu Gherghina, Vlastimil Havlík, Kirk A. Hawkins, Reinhard Heinisch, Christina Holtz-Bacha, Robert A. Huber, Gilles Ivaldi, Benjamin Krämer, Maria Elisabetta Lanzone, Zoe Lefkofridi, Dietmar Loch, Vanessa Marent, Miroslav Mareš, Alfio Mastropaolo, Oscar Mazzoleni, Sergiu Miscoiu, Teun Pauwels, Franca Roncarolo, Saskia Pauline Ruth, Carlo Ruzza, Steven Saxonberg, Christian H. Schimpf, Damir Skenderovic, Sorina Soare, Lone Sorensen and Sandra Vergari.
... Many studies (35%) seek to examine or explain the electoral performance (success or decline) of RLPs (e.g., March & Rommerskirchen, 2015;Weisskircher, 2019) and the determinants of radical left voting. For example, the impact of economic factors (Bowyer & Vail, 2011) or citizens' attitudes towards the EU or immigration (Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017;Edo et al., 2019). Others instead analyse the 'resilience' of RLPs over time (Ellinas & Katsourides, 2013) or their prospects for future success. ...
... However, the literature has been mainly focused on studying parties' response to changes in public preferences and economic conditions, for which there is a high level of support (Fagerholm, 2016). Since some studies show that the success of RLPs 'is strongly rooted in demand-side factors', such as deteriorating economic conditions (March & Rommerskirchen, 2015, p. 48) or public dissatisfaction with the economy and the EU (e.g., Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017), it is expected that the same will also affect them at the programmatic level. Yet, and despite the extensive literature, due to the limitations of existing data on public opinion and voters, we will only be able to test hypotheses related to changes in economic conditions in our empirical analysis. ...
This dissertation provides an empirical, systematic and detailed analysis of programmatic change in European radical left parties (RLPs) since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). In particular, it seeks to understand the programmatic development of the party family since this important critical juncture and the factors that have driven changes in their policy platforms since then. In short, it addresses the question of how and why RLPs have changed programmatically over the past three decades.
... Recent studies suggest that European integration, and EU policies in general, have become increasingly conflictual over the past years, both among political elites and in the media (Atikcan, 2018;Braun et al., 2016;De Vries and Hobolt, 2012;Houde et al, 2022). The politicization of European integration can also be seen at the mass level, with studies showing that the European issue weighs more heavily in citizens' vote choices than used to be the case just a couple of decades ago (Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2017;Belot and Van Ingelgom, 2015;Carrieri, 2020;Goldberg et al., 2020;Le Gall, 2019). This pattern of increasing politicization has not happened everywhere in the EU, and so there is wide variation both within and across countries, but it seems to have impacted most member states (Grossman et al., 2019;Hoeglinger, 2016;Hutter and Kerscher, 2014). ...
... In their view, a mix of plain disinterest by both elites and the public, alongside the lack of political platforms to express discontent about European integration, prevented the EU from becoming a more important issue in both national and European parliament elections for a long time. Nevertheless, over the past couple of decades, a growing amount of literature has shown attitudes towards integration to have become increasingly important for explaining both turnout and vote choice in both national and European parliament elections (Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2017;Belot and Van Ingelgom, 2015;De Vries, 2007;Le Gall, 2019;Pellegata and Visconti, 2022). Interestingly, the politicization of the EU has been mostly driven by national politics. ...
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.
... Soft Eurosceptic parties, on the other hand, consider the EU as problematic because of policies diverging strongly to their main ideas Taggart and Szczerbiak 2008;. Beaudonnet and Gomez (2017) show that total opposition towards EU membership leads to increasing support of radical parties on the right, while supporters of extreme left parties are not hostile of the European idea in general, but are critical about the economic situation in Europe. 5 This difference in strategies is not at all surprising considering that the general strategy of mainstream parties in the context of the increasing contestation of the EU was to either decrease the salience of this issue (de Vries and Hobolt 2012), or to blur their stances (Adam et al. 2016;Rovny 2012). ...
... Hobolt (2015: 7) thus concludes that the support for leftwing Eurosceptic parties 'was not driven by a rejection of the European project, but by discontent with austerity policies and a desire for more European solidarity.' This is supported by a study by Beaudonnet and Gomez (2017) who show that for the voters of radical left parties, economic evaluations played a more important role after the outbreak of the crisis than they did before. Taken together, we assume that the Euro Crisis has reinforced the explanatory power of the economic dimension for party positions on European integration. ...
What determines the positions of political parties towards European integration and the European Union? Empirical research has depicted those positions to be strongly influences by the two main conflict dimensions of party competition in Europe: first, a socio-economic conflict between proponents of market liberalization versus the supporters of a more controlled economy and, second, a socio-cultural conflict between the advocates of libertarian and cosmopolitan values versus the inheritors of authoritarian and nationalist values. The idea of our paper is to investigate these relationships across time and space taking into account critical junctures of the European integration process. We argue, first, that the Maastricht treaty has altered party competition over Europe, as it transformed the nature of the unification process from an economic cooperation into a genuine political project. Accordingly, party positions on European integration in Western Europe have become much less connected to economic and more related to cultural issues. Second, we contend that the Euro Crisis has led to divergent pathways of party competition over European integration. While it yielded an unexpected comeback of economic determinants in the most hard-hit countries in Southern Europe, it accelerated the general ‘cultural backlash’ of Western societies thereby further strengthening the explanatory power of the cultural conflict dimension. We test these theoretical assumptions by analyzing elections manifestos of parties competing in European Parliament elections (Euromanifestos) from 1979 to 2014. The empirical results partly confirm our theoretical expectations, but bear important implications for our understanding of roughly fourty years of party competition over EU issues in Europe.
... Parties from both the far left and the far right are a lot more Euroskeptic than other parties (Gross and Debus 2018;Jolly 2007;Marks, Wilson, and Ray 2002). The electoral support for far-left and far-right Euroskeptic parties stems from different motivations, however (Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017;van Elsas, Hakhverdian, and van der Brug 2016). Far-right Euroskeptic parties argue on very different aspects of EU integration and address ideological grounds that differ from those of the far-left (Braun, Adrian Popa, and Schmitt 2019;Hooghe and Marks 2009). ...
With Euroskeptic parties being on the rise across European Union (EU) member states, dominant parties are pressured to reconsider their positions regarding a further European integration. Yet, dominant parties' positional reactions to Euroskeptic challenger parties are not limited to the national level but are also required at the regional level. Transferring insights regarding party competition at the national and European levels to the regional level in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (2008-2017), we show that regional dominant parties shift towards more positive EU positions in response to electorally successful Euroskeptic challenger parties, particularly when these challenger parties emphasised EU issues to a larger extent. These findings have important implications for our understanding of party competition in European multi-level systems in the electoral arena, for the intricacies of regional party competition in Europe, and for dominant parties' strategies when faced with Euroskeptic challengers.
... This means that EU polity issues-that is, the institutional and procedural foundations of the EU-are as relevant as EU policy issues (such as the economy, immigration, or social policies) for party competition. This is even more true for research on Euroscepticism because right-wing Euroscepticism is mainly motivated by purportedly cultural phenomena such as an opposition to immigration, whereas left-wing Euroscepticism is more likely to be a function of economic concerns (Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017;Hobolt 2015;van Elsas et al. 2016;van Elsas and van der Brug 2015;Vasilopoulou 2018;Braun et al. 2020Braun et al. , 2019Börzel et al. 2023;Wagner 2022). Because both EU issues and Eurosceptic motivations are multidimensional phenomena, we act on the assumption that, beyond their general critique of the EU as a polity, Eurosceptic parties differ in their opposition to EU policies. ...
The 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.
... less receptive to certain forms of political discourse, including populist discourse. In general, voting for populist parties on the left and right is associated with low socio-economic status, low levels of trust, high levels of personal dissatisfaction, strong protest intentions, high levels of external political efficacy, and-in the European context-opposition to the European Union (Bakker et al., 2016;Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017;Clarke et al., 2016;Elchardus & Spruyt, 2016;Halikiopoulou et al., 2012;Lindholm & Rapeli, 2023;Schumacher & Rooduijn, 2013;Spruyt et al., 2016). Additional social and psychological predictors of support for populist movements include feelings of fear, anger, threat, collective resentment, and a penchant for conspiratorial thinking (Bettache & Chiu, 2018;Bonikowski, 2017;Erisen et al, 2021;Marcus, 2021;Obradović et al., 2020;Rico et al., 2020). ...
Populism, as a general belief system, is thought to combine an idealistic view of “the people,” a cynical view of “the elites” as hopelessly corrupt, and a Manichean conception of “good” versus “evil.” Understood in this way, it stands to reason that certain psychological variables would predict the endorsement of populist attitudes, even after adjusting for demographic factors. Studies show that authoritarianism, conscientiousness, and openness are positively associated with support for populism in general, whereas system justification, agreeableness, and neuroticism are negatively associated with support for populism in general. In contexts as diverse as France, Germany, and the UK, we find that system justification, conceptualized as a motivation to defend and bolster the societal status quo, is associated with decreased support for populist parties on the right and left—even for respondents who are high in economic distress, ethnic intolerance, opposition to the European Union, and support for income redistribution. At the same time, there are clearly meaningful psychological differences between supporters of left-wing vs. right-wing populists. In the context of France, authoritarianism and social dominance orientation are positively associated with support for Marine Le Pen on the right but negatively associated with support for Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left. In the context of Spain, both left-wing and right-wing populist parties invoke nationalist themes, but in quite different ways. Whereas right-wing populism is exclusionary, left-wing populism—as exemplified by Podemos in its early years—emphasizes citizen mobilization, an inclusive welfare state, and a moral community that transcends ethnolinguistic boundaries. We conclude that there is not one populism, but at least two major types of populism that share key features of non-populist ideologies of the left and right.
... In explaining the electoral performance of PRLPs, the literature on radical left populism has emphasised demand-side and supply-side explanations (March and Rommerskirchen 2015). Thus, a good electoral performance can be expected in those cases marked by contexts of economic crisis (Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017;Dunphy 2004) and by political scenarios in which traditional parties have converged in their policies (Bailey 2009;Moschonas 2002;Nachtwey 2013). This fact would be fundamental to understanding the electoral performance of the radical left, populist, and nonpopulist (Katsambekis and Kioupkiolis 2019, 14). ...
In the last decade, there have been numerous studies on the rise, characteristics, and consequences of the emergence of populist parties in Western liberal democracies. However, most analyses of European populist parties have focused on the right-wing populist parties. Although some scholars have made valuable efforts to understand left-wing populism in Europe, these studies have paid attention to their ideological-organizational idiosyncrasies or the characteristics of their electoral bases. This paper aims to fill the gap in the economic and political contexts in which Radical Left Populist Parties have achieved significant electoral results putting into practice a fsQCA analysis and examining their uneven electoral performance in Europe. Following some previous work applying QCA techniques, this paper tests the theory on the importance of economic and political factors. Findings indicate that the electoral performance of radical left populism cannot be explained in a univocal way, highlighting the crucial role of equifinality in understanding this political phenomenon.
... At the other end of the ideological spectrum, new far-left parties have threatened establishment politics in France, Spain, and Greece (Orriols & Cordero, 2016;Ramiro, 2016;Stavrakakis & Katsambekis, 2014;Vasilopoulos et al., 2015). Unlike the far right, parties on the far left typically appeal to low-income and dissatisfied, yet highly educated, cosmopolitan, and postmaterialist segments of the electorate that are concerned with rising income inequality and the lack of economic redistribution (Algan et al., 2017;Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017;March & Rommerskirchen, 2015;Mayer, 2011;Rooduijn et al., 2017;Vasilopoulos et al., 2015;Visser et al., 2014). ...
Throughout Europe and North America, mainstream political parties have ceded electoral support to antiestablishment parties from the far left and far right. We investigate the hypothesis that individual differences in system justification—the psychological tendency to defend and justify the overarching social system—would be negatively associated with antiestablishment voting, even among citizens who would otherwise be inclined to support radicalism. In three large, nationally representative surveys conducted in France (N = 14,432), Germany (N = 1,168), and the United Kingdom (N = 2,337), we observed that system justification was positively associated with voting for establishment parties and negatively associated with antiestablishment voting. System justification was associated with reduced support for antiestablishment parties on the right and left—even among respondents who were high on ethnic intolerance, opposition to the European Union, economic distress, and support for income redistribution. Thus, all other things being equal, system‐justification tendencies reinforce political moderation, establishment voting, and therefore social stability.
... This is because, in contrast with most other parties, the majority of the Radical Left family members mix left-wing economic policies and cultural liberalism with (generally soft) Euroscepticism. Findings in previous research are also consistent with this hypothesis (see Lachat 2008;Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017). ...
... Only on EU integration do both voter groups share sceptical positions, but again in a less drastic form in the case of die Linke. This resonates with the notion of soft vs. hard Euroscepticismwhereby PRL parties oppose EU integration practice as a 'neoliberal' project, while PRR parties oppose EU integration in principle on nationalist grounds(Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017), including in Germany(Ketelhut et al. 2016). ...
Three different constituencies are becoming increasingly common across Western European electorates: mainstream voters, non-voters and populist voters. Despite their distinct behaviours in electoral politics, we have limited empirical knowledge about the characteristics that distinguish these three groups, given the typical underrepresentation of non-voters in surveys and the relative recency of large-scale research on populist voters. To address this gap, we analyse novel survey data from contemporary Germany that oversamples non-voters and includes a sizeable share of both populist radical left and populist radical right party supporters. Two main findings with broader implications stand out. First, populist voters resemble their mainstream counterparts in their expectations about democracy but correspond more closely to non-voters regarding (dis-)satisfaction with democracy. Second, non-voters and populist voters seem to reject mainstream democratic politics in distinct ways, throwing doubt on the (further) mobilization potential of abstainers for populist projects.
... For example, Beaudonnet and Gómez (2017, p. 3) found that "bad economic evaluations and negative opinions about the EU" partly explain the growing support for RLPs after the economic crisis, having allowed them "to attract pro-EU voters (…) concerned with the economic situation". This suggests that poor management of the crisis by the European institutions may have generated greater Euroscepticism among RLPs and their electorate (Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017). Thus, we hypothesize that the 2008 economic crisis increased the salience of EU issues in Southern European RLP' manifestos while accentuating their anti-EU rhetoric, especially in the first half of the 2010s: ...
The 2008 economic crisis brought unexpected electoral success and renewed academic attention to Southern European radical left parties (RLPs). However, despite the growing literature, important aspects of these RLPs remain to be empirically explored, such as the impact of some important historical episodes-and increasingly salient themes (e.g. climate change)-on their programmatic profile. This paper seeks to assess the impact of the 2010s-a 'Decade of Crisis and Resilience'-on the programmatic change of RLPs from Southern Europe by examining their evolution along several policy dimensions, using empirical data from party manifestos. The results suggest that Southern European RLPs have adapted their programmatic appeals in early 2010s, temporarily radicalizing their positions on socioeconomic issues and Euroscepticism earlier in the decade, and more recently increasing the attention given to environmental issues.
... While some of these parties are strong advocates of the withdrawal from the EU, others fight for a change from within (Charalambous, 2011;March, 2011;March & Rommerskirchen, 2015, p. 43 The Euroscepticism and sense of "Nordic exceptionalism" of the Nordic Green Left has been described by the literature (Eskelinen, 2015;Johansson & Raunio, 2001;March, 2011, pp. 95-96), in contrast to the more pro-European stance of some SRLPs (Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017;Charalambous, 2011). But with harsh austerity measures being recently imposed by EU institutions on some Southern European countries since 2010 (Greece, Portugal, Spain), we may expect an increase in their anti-European discourse that we do not find in Nordic countries, as they were not as affected by the crisis. ...
The 2008 economic crisis brought an increasing support for some Western European radical left parties (RLPs) and renewed academic attention to this party family. Still, there is a lack of empirical knowledge on the ideological differences among RLPs – particularly across countries and regions. The present work conducts for the first time a systematic and direct cross-regional comparison of the ideological differences between RLPs from two different European regions (Nordic and Southern European countries). Manifesto and expert survey data are used for measuring and comparing party positions along several ideological dimensions and to evaluate to what extent a region-based ideological classification of RLPs finds empirical support. The results show that while some important ideological differences are found between Nordic and Southern European RLPs, these do not appear to be significant enough to classify them into two distinct ideological subgroups. Moreover, the results also suggest that, to compare the ideological differences between RLPs, we need more precise empirical instruments adapted to the study of its most characteristic ideological traits.
... March & Rommerskirchen, 2015;Weisskircher, 2019) and the determinants of radical left voting. For example, the impact of economic factors (Bowyer & Vail, 2011) or citizens' attitudes towards the EU or immigration (Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017;Edo et al., 2019). Others instead analyze RLPs' 'resilience' over time (Ellinas & Katsourides, 2013) or their prospects for future success. ...
The 2008 economic crisis brought an increasing support for some European radical left parties (RLPs) and renewed academic attention to this party family. This article retrospectively assesses the literature on RLPs by conducting a scoping review under the following research question: How have European radical left parties been studied since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989)? Using an adapted version of the PRISMA framework, it analyzes 197 articles published between 1990 and 2019 to show that, despite the growing scholarship, significant gaps persist in the literature. Important aspects of RLPs have yet to be explored (e.g. party organization, policy impact), while uneven geographic coverage has left some relevant countries and parties in the background. By providing an overview of the field, it identifies new avenues for future research on the topic and shows how scoping reviews can be a method of interest also for political scientists.
... However, populist and extremist parties gained more ground in the aftermath of the crisis (Hopkin, 2020). For example, the leftist SYRIZA and Podemos in Greece and Spain, respectively, were countered with the rise of populist or right-wing extremist parties in core countries with a substantial voter base of more than 10% in the The rise of populist and extremists parties calls our attention to whether or not support for the euro, EU organizations, and the EU project on a larger scale have changed because extreme right and radical left parties share an attitude of Euro-skepticism, compared to the pro-EU orientation of mainstream parties (see Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017;Esteve-González & Theilen, 2018;Rohrschneider & Whitefield, 2016). Increased voting for extremist parties could be partly explained by an observable rise in mistrust in national democracy across Europe. ...
The Global Financial Crisis, which originated in the United States, developed into a sovereign debt crisis in Europe, particularly the Eurozone. The Eurozone crisis was driven mainly by divergence in macroeconomic structures, fiscal indiscipline, and financial integration with fragmented regulatory and supervisory governance arrangements. The crisis also exposed flaws in the institutional design of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The EMU lacked mechanisms of effective crisis prevention and management and fiscal coordination, had a centralized monetary policy despite divergence in the macroeconomic structure and institutional setting across member states, and adopted a “light touch” approach to financial regulation. In response, crisis-hit countries implemented structural reforms and public spending cuts. European Union (EU) leaders attempted to address these deficiencies with institutional reforms at the national and regional level. Policy responses and institutional reforms have led to populist backlash with declining trust in regional and domestic politics and organizations, with voters favoring more inward-looking, nationalist political parties. Within this context, the Eurozone and EU face further challenges to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability and to ensure intraregional policy coordination.
... The nexus between political attitudes and the RLP vote is also relatively sparse in the existing literature and shows some contradictory (or at least very nuanced) findings. For example, while Ramiro (2016) finds that being skeptical-to-hostile toward the EU is a significant predictor of the RLP vote, Beaudonnet and Gomez (2017) show that RLP voters are a "heterogeneous coalition" of traditional Eurosceptics and those who support the EU but were opposed to the EU's austerity politics in the wake of the European financial and debt crisis. Given that some of the findings on the RLP voter are ambiguous, in our analysis we test some commonly used sociodemographic variables and political attitudes among RLP, social democratic, and green voters when attempting to disentangle the vote on the left. ...
This article analyzes voters for Radical Left Parties (RLPs) in three countries-Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Belonging to the democratic socialist subtype of RLPs, parties in these countries find themselves in an intense "sibling rivalry" with social democratic and green parties for voters on the left side of the political spectrum. There is little existing scholarly analysis of the demand-side of RLPs in competition with their competitors. We fill this gap using the European Social Survey (ESS), testing various demographic and attitudinal variables to disentangle the vote on the left. We conclude that what distinguishes the RLP voter from the social democratic or green voter in these countries is not socio-demographic characteristics but rather three attitudinal variables-satisfaction with democracy, attitudes toward immigrants, and the role of government in reducing income disparities. Furthermore, we find that given these three attitudinal variables, the probability to vote for an RLP compared to a social democratic or green party increases dramatically the farther the voter places him/herself to the left.
... Because of their opposition to European integration, these parties view Russia as a model for a truly sovereign and independent country, which can help counterbalance U.S. influence over Europe while helping them achieve their own countries' dissociation from Euro-Atlantic institutions (Klapsis, 2015). Such Eurosceptic messages can be combined with different ideologies on both right and left sides of the spectrum, and can, therefore, be employed by parties belonging to different ideological families (Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2017;Golosov, 2020;Taggart, 1998). ...
Scholarship analyzing Russia’s influence in Europe has focused primarily on the supply-side of this relationship, especially on the links between the Kremlin and specific parties. Surprisingly few studies have focused on the demand-side. My paper fills in this gap. First, I compile a dataset of pro-Russian parties in the European Union and show that Russia-sympathizers are found across different (left and right) party families. Second, I demonstrate that supporters of these parties across different party families show stronger Eurosceptic attitudes than the electorates of mainstream parties. This finding explains the endorsement of narratives and policies indirectly favorable to the Kremlin by political actors whose electorates harbor Eurosceptic sympathies. It also sheds some light on the opportunistic rather than ideological nature of Russia’s influence operations in the European Union, which exploit opportunities presented in respective regions. In other words, these parties are the Kremlin’s fellow travelers.
... Previous conceptualisations of such claims predominantly focus on their alter-European variant which contests the current European polity while supporting further supranational integration (cf. de Wilde and Trenz, 2012) and concern mainly Eurosceptic actors substantively distinct from the sovereigntist and nativist RR (Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2016). ...
Radical right European contestation is analyzed mainly as claims denouncing European integration. Less focus is put on narratives suggesting how a supposed ‘truly European’ political process should be and work. This paper explores how radical right actors use such counter‐European claims within their competition strategies. Computer‐assisted qualitative analysis of communication by Front National, Alternative for Germany and Fidesz during the humanitarian crisis debate 2015–16 demonstrates that radical right counter‐Europeanism constitutes a nuanced tactical resource deployed to normalize nativist supply in the name of Europe. Unlike Eurorejectionist FN, Fidesz and AfD redefined Europe in nativist terms, attempting to draw legitimacy from association with European identity and cooperation. Concurrently, both actors justified Euronativism not only as antithetical to current EU values and political principles, but mainly as their more fundamental practice juxtaposed against ‘not (truly) European elites’, effectively ‘hijacking’ Europe from within. The findings deepen our understanding of radical right Europe‐contesting competition strategies.
... Most of the existing research explores the appeal of populism by treating party choice as a proxy for populist attitudes. Several studies have compared the demographic and attitudinal characteristics of followers of far-left and far-right populist parties in either the same or different countries (Beaudonnet & Gomez, 2017;Clarke, Whiteley, Borges, Sanders, & Stewart, 2016;Inglehart & Norris, 2016;Mudde, 2007Mudde, , 2010Schumacher & Rooduijn, 2013). In general, they find that voting for populist parties (on the left and right) is predicted by low socio-economic status, low levels of trust, strong protest attitudes and external political efficacy, and high levels of Euroscepticism (Bakker, Rooduijn, & Schumacher, 2016;Elchardus & Spruyt, 2016;Halikiopoulou, Nanou, & Vasilopoulou, 2012;Schumacher & Rooduijn, 2013;Spruyt, Keppens, & Van Droogenbroeck, 2016). ...
Research in political science has focused on definitions of populism, platforms of populist parties, and demographic characteristics of those who support populist parties. Yet little is known about the psychological characteristics of populist supporters and how they might differ as a function of left-right ideology. Using a measure of populist attitudes in general, we investigated the role of Big Five personality traits as well as authoritarianism, social dominance, and system justification in a nationally representative sample of French respondents. We observed meaningful variability in relations between psychological characteristics and the endorsement of populist attitudes as a function of left-right ideological orientation, as well as variability in the psychological predictors of support for Jean Luc Mélenchon (a left-wing populist) and Marine LePen (a right-wing populist). We conclude that left-wing and right-wing populists are not the same, psychologically speaking, and that the differences are consistent with the distinction between inclusionary and exclusionary forms of populism.
... Second, political parties also have an incentive to follow public opinion, which should have led to more 'indirect effects' of the crisis. When citizens reacted to the severe changes to the economic and political conditions by becoming more Eurosceptic and attributing more relevance to the European integration issue (Beaudonnet and Gomez 2017;Braun and Tausendpfund 2014;Hobolt 5 Mainstream parties can react to these parties in two possible ways. When the issue in question allows them to attract new voters, they also tend to emphasise this issue and often adjust their own position on this issue. ...
The Euro crisis has considerably altered party competition across Europe. By adopting a party-system perspective this contribution analyses to what extent the Euro crisis has ‘moved’ party systems to more Eurosceptic positions and whether it has affected the systemic salience of the European integration issue. We argue that worsening economic conditions have directly affected party competition on European integration, but that party systems have additionally adapted to a more Eurosceptic public opinion in many EU member states. Connecting national parties’ election manifestos for European Parliament elections to survey data and macro-economic indicators, our empirical analysis shows that changes in party competition on European integration in EU member states between 2009 and 2014 can be explained by both factors. In the economically most affected countries, party systems have become more Eurosceptic—both as a direct reaction to economic hardship and as an indirect response to an increased public dissatisfaction with the regime of the EU. Moreover, an increase in the systemic salience of the European integration issue has occurred mainly in creditor countries, where the public has become more Eurosceptic regarding the idea and the continuing process of European unification.
... Many parties responded with growing Euroscepticism to the external economic interventions (Turnbull-Dugarte 2019) and radical left parties, which campaigned strongly against the austerity regime, experienced great electoral gains. Hobolt (2015: 7) underlines that the support for left-wing Eurosceptic parties 'was not driven by a rejection of the European project, but by discontent with austerity policies and a desire for more European solidarity.' Beaudonnet and Gomez (2017) support this conclusion by demonstrating that economic evaluations played a more important role than before for voters of radical left parties after the outbreak of the crisis. Such findings indicate that the Euro crisis has reinforced the explanatory power of the economic conflict dimension for party positions towards European integration in the South European countries. ...
Party competition over European integration is structured by two main dimensions of political conflict: a socio-economic dimension (market liberalisation vs. a more regulated economy) and a socio-cultural dimension (libertarian, cosmopolitan values vs. authoritarian, nationalist values). This article investigates the relationship between these conflict dimensions and parties’ positions towards EU issues across time and space, in particular focussing on two ‘critical junctures’ in the European unification process. For this purpose, analysis is made of the election manifestos of parties competing in European Parliament elections (Euromanifestos) from 1979 to 2014. First, it is found that the key moment of the Maastricht treaty significantly reshaped party competition over Europe. After Maastricht, positions towards European integration have become less connected to the economic dimension and much more related to the cultural dimension in Western Europe. Second, it is contended that the Euro crisis has not dramatically restructured political conflict over European integration.
... Various studies have shown that economic factors impact on political support for the EU. Poor economic performance at the national level (in terms of GDP/GNI and unemployment change) or negative subjective perceptions among citizens about globalisation and their economic future reduce political support for the EU(Hooghe and Marks 2004;Henjak et al. 2012; Chalmers and Dellmuth 2015;Lastra-Anadón and Muñiz 2017) and encourage support for more radical parties on both the right and the left(Beaudonnet and Gomez 2016;Rooduijn et al. 2017).Initial research on the patterns of voting behaviour in the United Kingdom's EU referendum in June 2016 found that inequality, associated with the negative effects of integration and globalisation, was one explanatory factor; those areas with lower median wages, low levels of skills, lack of opportunities and higher levels of poverty were significantly more likely to vote Leave(Bell and Machin 2016; Darvas and Wolff 2016;Goodwin and Heath 2016; Clarke et al. 2017). This is part of a broader pattern, as Rodríguez-Pose (2017: 189) argues: ...
... These may take the form of unconscious biases, perceptions of cultural differences, and ethnocentrism. However, this must also be considered in the wider context of the rise in populism across the globe (Müller, 2017), dissatisfaction with supranationalism leading to support of radical left and right parties in the European Union (Akkerman et al., 2017;Beaudonnet and Gomez, 2016), and legitimate concerns that people may have regarding their national identities (Goodwin and Heath, 2016). Nonetheless, the ability to reduce prejudice against individuals whilst recognising and debating the wider potential causes of these prejudices is one that we hope to address in this paper. ...
ABSTRACT: The decision of the UK public in July 2016 to vote to leave the European Union was greeted with surprise within the UK and across the world. However, should we really have been surprised? Surveys of attitudes towards freedom of movement to the UK over the last 10 years have suggested an increasing negativity regarding immigration, and many debates before and after the vote have raised the issue of whether prejudice played a role in the outcome of the referendum. It is only within the last 12 months that a number of research study findings have started to provide a more coherent, data-informed evidence-base suggesting that voting behaviour in the referendum may have correlates to prejudice personality styles, nationalism, Islamophobia, and implicit/explicit prejudice. We argue that recent evidence suggests that levels of prejudice towards‘others’was a factor in the Brexit vote and that the attitudes underlying this vote must be explored in greater detail through cross-disciplinary scientific research, with legitimate concerns recognised and fallacies challenged.
Which classes vote for radical-left parties (RLPs) in Western Europe? Previous research indicates that RLPs are strong among production workers and socio-cultural professionals, though not necessarily among both at the same time. Starting from the observation that these two classes take opposite stances on cultural issues, we trace variation in class voting back to RLPs’ positions on the cultural dimension. Combining voter-level data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) with information on the positions of 23 RLPs from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, we report robust evidence of a libertarian versus authoritarian class trade-off: RLPs with less libertarian positions receive relatively less support from socio-cultural professionals and relatively more support from production workers. These findings add to evidence that class voting varies with party positions. Ours is the first study to demonstrate this for RLPs, showing how, in the early 21st century, cultural positions matter for class voting.
The 2008 economic crisis brought new scholarly attention to Southern European radical left parties (SERLPs). Yet, important aspects of these parties remain empirically unexplored, such as their programmatic development. Using empirical data from party manifestos, this article examines the programmatic evolution of SERLPs during the 2010s-a decade full of crises (economic, migration, climate). Despite their different trajectories on various policy dimensions , the results suggest that these parties were able to adapt their program-matic appeals to capitalize on poor economic conditions and growing discontent with the EU, while showing signs of being attentive to the emergence of new issues on the public agenda-such as anti-growth concerns. Moreover, they also provide support for a moderating effect of government participation (and proximity to power) on RLPs.
Pendant longtemps, vouloir « plus d’Europe » signifiait y faire « plus de politique ». Depuis quelques années, cette vision optimiste est contestée par les chercheurs qui voient dans l’Europe politique un risque autant qu’une chance. Cet article introductif au numéro thématique explore la politisation de l’UE d’un point de vue empirique. Dans un premier temps, nous revenons sur les définitions de la politisation : un enjeu est politisé lorsqu’il génère un clivage visible dans la communauté politique, amenant les acteurs, les citoyens et les citoyennes à clarifier leurs positions, voire à se polariser autour d’elles. Puis nous proposons un état de la littérature différenciant trois contextes de l’activité politique : l’opinion publique, les institutions majoritaires et les institutions non majoritaires. Nous concluons que, si la politisation varie selon les contextes, elle doit néanmoins être appréhendée dans son ensemble puisqu’elle fait intervenir les partis politiques, les électeurs et les institutions de manière concomitante.
The regions of the European Union are currently experiencing a period of seismic change that has transformed their established voting patterns and increased anti–European Union voting. Applying objective economic measures, spatial econometrics and municipal voting data from recent elections and a referendum, this study examines the factors shaping anti–European Union votes in Greece. The results indicate a strong link between the country’s changing economic geography and the geography of the anti–European Union vote, providing evidence not only of the ‘geography of discontent’ and the ‘left-behind hypothesis’ but also of the ‘geography of austerity’ associated with the heterogeneous effects of fiscal consolidation and austerity policies.
This paper investigates how right‐wing populist voting following the 2015 refugee wave was affected by regional characteristics, using data from a quasi‐natural experiment in Sweden. The results suggest that voting outcomes are heavily dependent on pre‐influx municipal characteristics. In localities with strong anti‐immigration sentiments during the 1990s refugee wave, as well as in areas with high crime rates before the refugee wave, there is a positive relationship between immigration rates and anti‐immigration voting. However, the immigration‐related increase in the nationalist vote is significantly smaller in depopulation areas. These polarizing effects on voting are exacerbated when considering immigration of young males. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
English
Whilst the politicization of the EU has been increasingly studied over recent years, the analysis has been focusing mainly on political parties and media. Thus, although not completely overlooked, studies looking at EU politicization amongst individuals remain scarce. This article presents a new qualitative dataset from 21 focus groups conducted across social groups and four countries. It was designed to observe processes of (de-)politicization at citizens’ level, how they talk about the EU and along which cleavages are their attitudes structured. This comparative research design sheds new light on discourses and opinions on Europe, mechanisms of politicization and political discussions.
Français
Alors que la politisation de l'UE a été de plus en plus étudiée ces dernières années, l’analyse s'est principalement concentrée sur les partis politiques et les médias. Ainsi, les études de la politisation de l'UE chez les individus, sans être absentes, restent rares. Cet article présente un nouveau set de données qualitatives de 21 groupes de discussion dans quatre pays européens et avec des profils sociaux variés, permettant d’étudier les processus de (dé)politisation au niveau des citoyens, la manière dont ils parlent de l'UE et les clivages qui structurent leurs attitudes. Cette recherche comparative offre un nouvel éclairage sur les discours et les opinions sur l'Europe, les mécanismes de politisation et les discussions politiques.
At the latest since the European parliamentary elections in 2019, it has become increasingly popular to label political opponents as populist and Eurosceptical. In addition to excessive political media coverage and public interest, however, it is undisputed that populism and Euroscepticism are two political phenomena that have become increasingly important both in political science research and in the reality of electoral politics. Radical left and right populist parties did indeed gain about 29 per cent of the seats in the last European parliamentary elections and benefited greatly from their critical and negative stance towards the European Union (Rankin 2019; Rooduijn et al. 2019; Henley 2020). It is hardly surprising that populism and Euroscepticism often appear in tandem, given that there are considerable conceptual parallels between the two. Furthermore, this overlap exists not only at the party level, but also extends to the public and the relationship between Eurosceptical and populist attitudes.
However, while populism and Euroscepticism are often regarded as two sides of the same coin, we still lack systematic research and cross-national evidence on what drives this strong connection on both the supply and demand sides of electoral politics, taking into account the host ideology to which populism is attached. This chapter is dedicated to these questions and provides an overview of previous research on the relationship between populism and Euroscepticism, as well as an outlook on issues that future research should address. In the following section, we outline conceptual definitions of both populism and Euroscepticism. In the third section, we review the causal mechanisms between populism and Euroscepticism on both the supply and the demand side by considering the role of host ideologies in this relationship. Finally, we empirically analyse the role of the interaction between populism and ideology in explaining Euroscepticism on both the party and the voter level. We conclude by highlighting important gaps in the research literature on this subject area and propose a framework for further research on the topic.
ABSTACT
This paper aims to discover whether the rate of unemployment in the first two decades of the 21st century influenced electoral support for the radical left parties (RLPs). The election results for 37 RLPs were analysed at the level of the NUTS 2 regions. The impact of unemployment was examined using four indicators – general, youth, long-term and male unemployment rates. The aim was achieved through a multilevel regression analysis conducted for parliamentary elections between 2002 and 2019. The results suggest that RLPs are more successful in regions with a higher unemployment rate (general, long-term, male) across the years under review. A 1% rise in the long-term unemployment rate led to an increase in support for RLPs of 0.2% to 1.9% in most NUTS 2 regions (179 out of 198). This effect is most pronounced in the regions where the centre-periphery cleavage associated with historically strong leftist tendencies can be observed, particularly in the case of German, Greek, Portuguese and Spanish regions. The main thrust of the paper is in the analysis of electoral support in parliamentary elections at the regional level, which is less represented in the thematic literature compared with the individual or national level.
Η συζήτηση για τον ευρωσκεπτικισμό είναι πιο επίκαιρη από ποτέ άλλοτε στην ιστορία της ευρωπαϊκής ολοκλήρωσης. Η άνοδος του ευρωσκεπτικισμού τόσο στην κοινή γνώμη όσο και στα κομματικά συστήματα των κρατών μελών, συμπίπτει με μεγάλες δοκιμασίες για το ευρωπαϊκό οικοδόμημα. Οι συνέπειες της οικονομικής κρίσης του 2008, η αύξηση του αισθήματος ανασφάλειας από τρομοκρατικές επιθέσεις, η προσφυγική κρίση, ζητήματα ταυτότητας και η για πρώτη φορά αποχώρηση μέσω δημοψηφίσματος ενός κράτους μέλους από την ΕΕ, κλονίζουν την εμπιστοσύνη των πολιτών προς την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση δυσχεραίνοντας την περαιτέρω εμβάθυνση της ευρωπαϊκής ολοκλήρωσης. Το πρώτο μέρος της παρούσας μελέτης καλύπτει το θεωρητικό πλαίσιο και τις απαραίτητες εννοιολογικές διασαφηνίσεις. Παρουσιάζονται οι κυριότερες προσεγγίσεις γύρω από την έννοια του ευρωσκεπτικισμού στην επιστημονική σκέψη. Ακόμη, μέσα από την ιστορική εξέλιξη του φαινομένου, η ενότητα αυτή καταλήγει στις σύγχρονες παράμετρούς και διαστάσεις που αυτός λαμβάνει. Ποιες θεωρούνται ως οι κύριες αιτίες ανόδου του ευρωσκεπτικισμού και το πώς αυτός έχει αλλάξει μορφή μέσα στην πορεία της ευρωπαϊκής ενοποίησης. Στο δεύτερο μέρος μελετάται το πως εκφράζεται ο ευρωσκεπτικισμός σε πολιτικό επίπεδο στην Ευρώπη. Ποια είναι τα κύρια ρεύματα και ποιοι οι κύριοι εκφραστές του ευρωσκεπτικισμού στη σύγχρονη Ευρώπη. Πως αποτυπώνονται οι τάσεις στην κοινή γνώμη σχετικά με την ευρωπαϊκή ολοκλήρωση και την θέση των κρατών μελών μέσα σε αυτήν. Στο τρίτο μέρος εξετάζονται οι περιπτώσεις της Γαλλίας, του Ηνωμένου Βασιλείου, της Ελλάδας και της Ιταλίας, αναφορικά με την άνοδο που παρουσιάζει ο ευρωσκεπτικισμός τα τελευταία χρόνια σε αυτές τις χώρες. Στο τελευταίο μέρος, συνοψίζονται τα βασικά συμπεράσματα και διατυπώνονται προβληματισμοί σχετικά με την επιρροή που ο ευρωσκεπτικισμός μπορεί να έχει για το μέλλον της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης.
Bu çalışma, ana akım aktörlerin düşüşü bağlamında popülist radikal sağın yükselişini ele almaktadır.
Bu çalışmada, popülist sağın yükselişi ana akım aktörlerin düşüşü bağlamında ele alınmaktadır.
This paper analyses the rise of populism and its discursive challenge to global constitutionalism (GC). It shows that populist contestation is more ambivalent than often suggested: its challenge depends on the populist variety and can both undermine or support liberal principles of GC. Building on the ideational approach to populism and a framework of transnational politicisation, a proposed typology identifies both communitarian types of populism and cosmopolitan types of populism. Illustrative case studies of the Alternative for Germany, the Polish Law and Justice Party, the Democracy in Europe Movement and Peru's Alberto Fujimori substantiate these empirically. While all cases contest a perceived lack of popular sovereignty in a largely non-majoritarian global constitutional order, varieties of populism present contrasting responses: communitarian types push for global de-constitutionalisation in line with illiberal nationalist majoritarianism, while cosmopolitan types support global constitutionalisation according to liberal and democratic principles. Further, neo-socialist populists campaign against neoliberal principles in GC, but remain divided about supporting political principles beyond the state. These findings suggest an emerging politicisation of the process of global constitutionalisation at the societal level according to principles of democratic legitimacy; and global constitutional differentiation depending on outcomes of these normatively ambivalent and empirically contingent political contests.
At 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.
Το άρθρο εξετάζει την εξέλιξη της κυβερνητικής αποτελεσματικότητας στα κράτη-μέλη του Ευρώ και τους παράγοντες προσδιορισμού της κατά την περίοδο μετά την εκδήλωση της παγκόσμιας χρηματοπιστωτικής κρίσης και μέχρι τη διακήρυξη από την Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή της εκπνοής της κρίσης χρέους στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση. Για την επεξεργασία των στατιστικών στοιχείων εφαρμόζουμε παλινδρόμηση μέσω της μεθόδου των σταθερών επιδράσεων και κατασκευάζουμε ένα δυναμικό υπόδειγμα πάνελ δεδομένων με τη χρήση της γενικευμένης μεθόδου εκτίμησης ροπών. Η κεντρική θέση του άρθρου είναι ότι η κυβερνητική αποτελεσματικότητα επηρεάζεται λιγότερο από την κατάσταση της οικονομίας και περισσότερο από την εύρυθμη λειτουργία του κράτους δικαίου και την πολιτική σταθερότητα και απουσία βίας.
Have European citizens become increasingly Eurosceptic over the last two decades, turning their backs on European integration? Though many journalists, politicians and academics argue that they have, this book suggests that reactions to European integration cannot be reduced uniquely to a rise in Euroscepticism, but that indifference and ambivalence need also to be brought into the picture when studying EU legitimacy and its politicisation.
Drawing on new evidence from survey data from eight founding member states, and focus groups conducted in francophone Belgium, France and Great Britain, Integrating Indifference explores the various faces of citizens’ indifference, from fatalism, to detachment, via sheer indecision.
This book adopts a pioneering mixed-methods approach to analysing the middle-of-the-road attitudes of ordinary citizens who consider themselves neither Europhiles nor Eurosceptics. Complementing existing quantitative and qualitative literature in the field, it opens up new perspectives on attitudes towards European integration.
'This is a book that should be read by everyone concerned about how Europe's citizens are responding to what EU institutions are doing in response to the eurozone crisis. The author shows the theoretical and empirical importance of the large bloc of indifferent and uncertain citizens who are neither committed to further integration, nor eurosceptic. Anyone concerned with methodology will be interested in the book's demonstration, through careful analysis of trend quantitative data and qualitative group discussion, of how public opinion can be misread by jumping to conclusions from precoded data.'
Richard Rose, Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde, and Visiting Professor, European University Institute, Florence
'In the midst of growing pessimism, Integrating Indifference invites us to re-calibrate our interpretation of trends in popular support of European integration. Through a masterful combination of survey and qualitative data analysis, Van Ingelgom demonstrates that growing confusion and political alienation more than rampant Euroscepticism reigns among the European Union's citizens. Instead of jumping off the boat, what policy-makers, scholars and pundits who favour integration should thus be doing is explaining to disoriented citizens why past institutional reforms were needed and why Europe needs more, not less, integration.'
Juan Diez Medrano, Rafael del Pino Professor, Department of Economic History and Institutions, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
'This excellent and provocative book sheds a new light on the issue of European integration – now more topical than ever. The careful reexamination of Eurobarometer trends over 40 years, and the content analysis of 24 focus groups from three countries, go against the dominant frames of interpretation in terms of rising euroscepticism and democratic deficit… One-third of citizens have neither a good nor a bad image of the EU; it’s simply outside the world they live in. In the long run, this indifference could prove even more damaging than open dissent.'
Nonna Mayer, president of the French Political Science Association
Radical left parties (RLPs) are a diverse lot and several RLP subtypes have been distinguished in the literature. However, the degree to which these subtypes are associated with significantly different policy proposals has not been analysed. At the same time, little is known about whether these predicated subtypes are associated with differences in their voters’ characteristics. In this article, we analyse the policy positions of RLPs across a number of issues using manifesto and expert survey data, allowing us to assess the nature of the differentiation between types of RLPs. We find that RLPs differ in the extent to which they adopt New Politics issues, and we propose a classification of Traditional and New Left RLPs. Using cross-national survey data coming from the European Election Studies series and multilevel multinomial models, we also examine the ideological, policy and social differences in the electorates of the various types of RLPs. We find socio-demographic and attitudinal differences between the voters of Traditional and New Left RLPs that are consistent with the programmatic differences of the parties
European radical left parties (RLPs) are gradually receiving greater attention. Yet, to date, what has received insufficient focus is why such parties have maintained residues of electoral support after the collapse of the USSR and why this support varies so widely. This article is the first to subject RLPs to large-n quantitative analysis, focusing on 39 parties in 34 European countries from 1990 to 2008. It uses the ‘supply and demand’ conceptual framework developed for radical right parties to identify a number of socio-economic, political-cultural and party-system variables in the external environment that might potentially affect RLP support. The article finds the most persuasive variables to include political culture (past party success), the level of unemployment, Euroscepticism and anti-globalization sentiment, the electoral threshold and competition from Green and radical right parties. The findings suggest several avenues for future research and provide a framework that can be adapted to explain the electoral success of other party families.
The 2014 European Parliament elections saw an unprecedented surge of support for Eurosceptic parties. This article provides an overview of the ideologically highly diverse Eurosceptic camp in the European Parliament and addresses the causes and consequences of the Eurosceptic vote. Based on an analysis of aggregate election results and opinion-poll data, it argues that the electoral success of Eurosceptic parties cannot be dismissed as a mere protest vote against unpopular governments. Instead, fundamental worries about the effects of European Union (EU) policies and dissatisfaction with mainstream politics lie at the heart of the Eurosceptic success. The selection of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the Commission, backed by overwhelming majorities in the European Council and the European Parliament, suggests that Eurosceptics, despite their considerable electoral support, will continue to be excluded from the EU's corridors of power. This strategy of exclusion provides the ideal breeding ground for an even stronger Eurosceptic backlash in five years' time.
This article extends the current literature on European far-left parties by investigating the sociodemographic, ideological and attitudinal profile of the French far-left voter in the 2012 Presidential Elections. Particular emphasis is placed on the impact of the economic crisis on the sudden electoral rise of the French far left and factors such as economic hardship, change of economic conditions, attitudes toward economic inequality and Euroscepticism. Results suggest that explanations based purely on economic factors fall short of explaining the totality of the French far-left vote, especially if compared with the other parties of the French far left. Instead, attitudes toward Europe and post-materialism are central in the understanding of the renaissance of the French far left. On the basis of these findings we reach a number of conclusions regarding the future of far-left parties in France and Europe.
A growing literature in research on the European Union (EU) claims that European integration has become comprehensively politicized in the EU's population. The most convincing evidence for this assertion stems from research on political and societal elites – studies of party manifestos, interest groups' activities, news media reporting and the like. By contrast, evidence on politicization trends in the broader citizenry is much more ambiguous. This article raises the question of whether politicization is more than an elite phenomenon. Based on a differentiated conception of politicization, it analyzes focus groups conducted with EU citizens in four member states. It shows that, for most citizens, only the fundamentals of European integration have gained political saliency, while the EU's day-to-day activities remain largely non-politicized. In addition, patterns of politicization in the European population are conditioned by significant knowledge deficits.
This article examines support for radical left ideologies in 32 European countries. It thus extends the relatively scant empirical research available in this field. The hypotheses tested are derived mainly from group-interest theory. Data are deployed from the 2002-2010 European Social Surveys (N = 174,868), supplemented by characteristics at the country level. The results show that, also in the new millennium, unemployed people and those with a lower income are more likely to support a radical left ideology. This is only partly explained by their stronger opinion that governments should take measures to reduce income differences. In contrast to expectations, the findings show that greater income inequality within a country is associated with reduced likelihood of an individual supporting a radical left ideology. Furthermore, cross-national differences in the likelihood of supporting the radical left are strongly associated with whether a country has a legacy of an authoritarian regime.
In this contribution, we focus on the role of euro-scepticism on radical right-wing voting in national elections in 18 European countries between 2002 and 2008. We do so with multilevel modelling taking advantage of high-quality cross-national European data. First, we focus on social cleavages related to voting, e.g. social class and religiosity. Second, we examine the effects of several contextual characteristics, of which some are classical and others new. Third, we take diverse socio-political attitudes into account. We test whether euro-scepticism affects voting for the radical right, over and beyond other determinants that have previously been proposed to determine radical right-wing voting. We find evidence that euro-scepticism indeed contributes to the explanation of voting for the radical right beyond perceived ethnic threat and political distrust. At the same time euro-scepticism is much less relevant than perceived ethnic threat in explaining why particular social categories, i.e. lower educated people, manual workers, unemployed people and non-churchgoers are more likely to vote for the radical right.
The Lisbon Treaty has institutionalized a dual constitution, supranational in the single market’s policies and intergovernmental in (among others) economic and financial policies. The extremely complex system of economic governance set up for answering the euro crisis has been defined and implemented on the basis of the intergovernmental constitution of the EU. The euro crisis has thus represented a test for the validity of the intergovernmental constitution of the Lisbon Treaty. Although the measures adopted in the period 2010-2012, consisting of legislative decisions and new intergovernmental treaties, are of an unprecedented magnitude, they were nevertheless unable to promote effective and legitimate solutions for dealing with the financial crisis. In the context of an existential challenge, the intergovernmental approach faced a structural difficulty in solving basic dilemmas of collective action.
What leads citizens and political parties to oppose the principles, institutions, or policies of the European Union? This double special issue brings together specialists on public opinion, political parties, and media to answer this question. We examine economic interest and identity as sources of Euroscepticism among Europe's citizens and we analyse how public opinion is cued by media and political parties.Acta Politica (2007) 42, 119–127. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500192
How is contestation on European integration structured among national political parties? Are issues arising from European integration assimilated into existing dimensions of domestic contestation? We show that there is a strong relationship between the conventional left/right dimension and party positioning on European integration. However, the most powerful source of variation in party support is the new politics dimension, ranging from Green/alternative/libertarian to Traditional/authoritarian/nationalist.
We make a three-fold contribution to research on the European radical left. First, we will offer a clear and comprehensive definition of the term radical left. Second, we will look at the main developments within the European radical left as a whole, and not just at one sub-set of political parties. Third, we will take a pan-European perspective, focusing on both Eastern and Western Europe. The radical left in Europe post-1989 is both in decline and in mutation. Decline is evident in both the marginalization and moderation of Communist organizations (notably parties), a direct result of the fall of the Soviet Union, and the fissiparous nature of many radical left groupings. But the end of the USSR has also given space for mutation, that is, the emergence of a New Radical Left employing new ideological approaches (principally social-populism) and modern forms of trans-national cooperation (particularly through the European Parliament and the anti-globalization movement). This mutation indicates future potential, however unrealized so far.Comparative European Politics (2005) 3, 2349. doi:10.1057/palgrave.cep.6110052
The project of European integration now spans Europe, but in becoming bigger and broader the European Union has brought on itself significant criticism. As the EU becomes deeper, wider, and more ambitious, so opposition and scepticism become more prominent for citizens and more problematic for elites. Concerns about a ‘democratic deficit ‘ and the distance between European elites and publics have come to be a common feature of European politics. As a consequence Euroscepticism has become a part of the terrain of conflict between political parties across Europe. Opposing Europe? provides the first comprehensive review of party-based Euroscepticism across the breadth of contemporary Europe and the first in-depth comparative academic study of Euroscepticism. This, the second of two volumes, is made up of comparative chapters which address different aspects of Euroscepticism. The volume looks across Europe and includes EU member states and candidate and non-member states in order to draw out comparative lessons that relate to the nature of political parties, party systems, and the domestic politics of European integration. Opposing Europe? is a groundbreaking, ‘state of the art ‘ book that provides a definitive review of a key issue in European politics. It is also one of the few attempts to integrate the fields of EU studies with both West European and East European studies in order to draw lessons about the way in which the EU interacts with domestic politics in both member and non-member states. Examining the way that parties position themselves and compete on the European issue provides powerful lessons for the trajectory of the European integration project more generally, and on the prospects for the emergence of a European political system and polity.
Hudson explores the development of communists and other left forces, charting their survival and renewal after 1989. She shows how an open and democratic form of socialism has emerged which embraces environmental, gender and anti-war politics.
Economic conditions are said to affect election outcomes, but past research has produced unstable and contradictory findings. This book argues that these problems are caused by the failure to take account of electoral competition between parties. A research strategy to correct this problem is designed and applied to investigate effects of economic conditions on (individual) voter choices and (aggregate) election outcomes over 42 elections in 15 countries. It shows that economic conditions exert small effects on individual party preferences, which can have large consequences for election outcomes. In countries where responsibility for economic policy is clear, voters vote retrospectively and reward or punish incumbent parties - although in coalition systems smaller government parties often gain at the expense of the largest party when economic conditions deteriorate. Where clarity of responsibility for economic policy is less clear, voters vote more prospectively on the basis of expected party policies.
The European Union’s (EU) mode of operating has changed significantly since the Maastricht Treaty. Citizens are now more sceptical and Member States are more reluctant to cede power to the EU. Enlargement to 27 members has made high-level dealings more cumbersome, and new treaty arrangements — the Lisbon Treaty in particular — have enhanced the importance of intergovernmental decision-making. Because of all this, the EU is likely to be slow in making important choices and its decisions are more likely to reflect the lowest common denominator of diverse Member State positions.
What has happened to the European radical left after the collapse of the USSR? How has it reacted, reformed, even revived? This new volume is one of the first to provide an overview of the main developments in contemporary European radical left parties (those defining themselves as to the left of, and not merely on the left of social democracy), which are now an increasingly visible phenomenon in European party politics. Unlike many of the existing studies it focuses on communist and non-communist parties, addresses their non-parliamentary and international activity, and takes a pan-European perspective, focusing on both Eastern and Western Europe.
What do citizens say about Europe? Before the crisis of 2008 citizens in Britain, France and Francophone Belgium were 'overlooking' Europe by ignoring it in favour of globalisation, economic flows, and crises of political corruption. Innovative focus group methods allow analysis of the nature of their reactions and positions, and demonstrate how euroscepticism is a red herring. Instead they articulate indifference to and ambivalence about Europe contrasting with activists who engage in conflict about European issues. The analysis shows national and social differences. French projection contrasts with British exteriorisation and Belgian incorporation. The social gap is not a matter of deficits: workers have real arguments about issues close to home while managers show more concern about European politics.This book is part of the qualitative turn in European studies and both complements and challenges established knowledge on European attitudes. (Publisher's abstract)
This article examines whether the support for Eurosceptic challenger parties influences mainstream party position change on European integration in Western Europe. The key finding is that Eurosceptic challenger support is capable of influencing mainstream position shifts on European integration provided that, on average, EU issues are regarded as important by the Eurosceptic challengers. Moreover, the centre-left is more affected by Eurosceptic contagion since it is influenced by both radical right and radical left Eurosceptic success, whereas the centre-right is only susceptible to radical right success. The empirical analyses are based on panel regression analysis employing expert survey data provided by Chapel Hill Expert Survey. The findings presented in this article have important implications for the study of party positioning on European integration as well as for the study of party competition in general.
What do citizens say about Europe? Before the crisis of 2008 citizens in Britain, France and Francophone Belgium were 'overlooking' Europe by ignoring it in favour of globalisation, economic flows, and crises of political corruption. Innovative focus group methods allow analysis of the nature of their reactions and positions, and demonstrate how euroscepticism is a red herring. Instead they articulate indifference to and ambivalence about Europe contrasting with activists who engage in conflict about European issues. The analysis shows national and social differences. French projection contrasts with British exteriorisation and Belgian incorporation. The social gap is not a matter of deficits: workers have real arguments about issues close to home while managers show more concern about European politics.This book is part of the qualitative turn in European studies and both complements and challenges established knowledge on European attitudes.
Radical left parties (RLP) have been significant actors in many Western European party systems since the expansion of mass democracy. In some cases, they have been very relevant forces in terms of popular support. Despite this fact, they have not received a great deal of attention in past decades from a comparative perspective. Through examination of the role of an important set of factors, this article provides, for the first time, a cross-national empirical account of the variation in voting for RLPs across Western Europe, based on individual-level data. It evaluates the effect of key socio-demographic and attitudinal individual-level variables on the RLP vote. The findings point to the continuing relevance of some social and political factors traditionally associated with votes for RLPs, and to the relevance of attitudinal variables.
1. Studying economic voting 2. Party choice as a two-stage process 3. Hypotheses and data: the theoretical and empirical setting 4. Effects of the economy on party support 5. The economic voter 6. From individual preferences to election outcomes 7. The economy, party competition, and the vote.
The article critically evaluates existing theories and approaches on European Union (EU) politicization to understand how the EU’s democratic politics can potentially work in an era of ‘mediated politics’. Moving beyond questions of why politicization has occurred, and what kind of EU will it lead to, we outline a theoretical perspective on the mechanisms of how the EU’s politicization is taking place. Against the backdrop of a post-functionalist theory of integration, the contours of which have been recently discussed within political science, we think that the dynamics of EU politicization can be better grasped from a public sphere perspective within the framework of what we will call a ‘democratic functionalism’ approach. The Eurozone debt crisis case is used as an example of deep and broad EU politicization to explicate the mechanisms at work.
It's an apposite moment to analyze the European Left Party (EL), one of the newest transnational parties (TNPs) founded in 2004, which gathers a large number of radical left parties situating themselves to the left of social democracy. Despite the ostensibly beneficial crisis environment across the EU, radical left parties as a whole have so far failed to make significant gains. The EL's third congress in Paris in 2010 recognized significant future challenges in order to react to the adoption of the Lisbon treaty and to ‘build a Europe of social change’. In this paper we examine this relatively under-analyzed TNP's organizational development and cohesiveness by focussing on the interaction between national parties, the party at European level and the GUE/NGL (European United Left/Nordic Green Left) European parliamentary group. The EL's 201015.
EL (2010) Agenda for a Social Europe. Joint Action Platform for Resistance and Alternatives in Europe; European Left Third Congress, Paris, 3–5 December 2010 (Brussels: Party of the European Left).View all references congress showed it struggling to combine the ‘deepening’ of its organizational cohesion with the ‘widening’ of its political representation. Although the EL's development to date marks a significant intensification of radical left European co-operation in historical terms, it remains ill-equipped to become an organizationally and strategically effective organization.
In this paper, we explore the different political responses to the euro crisis among European publics since the financial crisis in Europe started in 2008 by concentrating on the two most important organizational vehicles in a democratic polity: political parties and social movements. We examine the political geography of possible shifts in support patterns for competing parties at national elections (in the member states where they have been held) and the geographical distribution of popular protests related to the crisis in 2011–2012. Finally, we address the risks of democratic deterioration by comparing current developments with the interwar period.
This paper asks what explains similar Eurosceptic positions between radical right and radical left parties. In answering this question, it focuses on the paradoxical role of nationalism as an integral part of the discourse of both radical right and radical left wing parties. Although these two party families differ in terms of origins, transnational links and policy and although nationalism is usually associated with parties of the right in the literature, this paper argues that in fact nationalism cuts across party lines and is associated with both party families’ opposition to European integration. In order to test our argument, we employ a mixed methods approach. First, we use a new dataset from the 2009 Euromanifestos Project (EMP), which coded party manifestos. We have isolated questions that refer to nationalism and European integration and examine broad policy parallels between the two party families across Europe. Second, we apply the findings from the quantitative analysis on Greece and France as two countries with a strong presence of both radical right and radical left small parties.
In this article we examine the role of right-wing parties in framing and mobilizing national identity against European integration. Using a multi-level analysis and combining individual-level and contextual data, we analyze public support for European integration within the Western European member states of the European Union from 1992 to 2002. The empirical analysis shows that national identities are contested and constructed within national contexts and that right-wing populist elites act as influential political cues in this process. Populist political entrepreneurs on the right side of the political spectrum play a decisive role in framing opposition to supranational governance with defense of the national community. -- In diesem Papier untersuchen wir die Rolle rechter Parteien bei der Gestaltung nationaler Identität und ihrer Mobilisierung gegen die europäische Integration. Mit Hilfe einer Mehrebenenanalyse und der Kombination von Daten auf der individuellen und der kontextuellen Ebene, analysieren wir die öffentliche Unterstützung für die europäische Integration in den westeuropäischen Mitgliedsstaaten der Europäischen Union von 1992 bis 2002. Die empirische Untersuchung zeigt, dass nationale Identitäten im nationalen Kontext ausgefochten und herausgebildet werden und dass rechte populistische Eliten in diesem Prozess als einflussreiche politische Signalgeber fungieren. Populistische politische Entrepreneurs auf der rechten Seite des politischen Spektrums spielen eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Herausbildung einer Opposition zur supranationalen Regierung im Namen der Verteidigung der nationalen Gemeinschaft.
This article evaluates the impact of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe on the West European communist movement. The state of the movement before 1989 is examined, followed by an analysis of the different trajectories of the parties after the revolutions and an assessment of their future prospects. It is argued that the momentous changes of 1989 have witnessed the passing of the West European communist tradition and that, while some communist parties live on, it is no longer fruitful to regard them and the ex‐communist parties as one ‘family’ or to study them under a common framework.
This article revisits the age-old debate about elite—mass linkages in the European Union (EU) by examining the way in which political contexts shape individual differentiation in Euroscepticism. We argue that the growing uncertainties about the future of European integration among national publics are increasingly politicized by Eurosceptical elites on both the extreme right and left of the political spectrum. To analyse the cueing effects of these extremist parties, we employ a two-level hierarchical linear model which combines individual-level and contextual data. We show that Eurosceptic cues are, indeed, found on both extremes, but for different reasons. Whereas right-wing extremist parties oppose European integration with the defence of `national sovereignty' and successfully mobilize national identity considerations against the EU, left-wing extremist parties resist further integration in Europe on the basis of the neoliberal character of the project and effectively cue voters against the EU on the basis of economic insecurity arguments.
This paper asks where Euroskepticism can be found in the party systems of the European Union. The literature suggests that anti-European parties are generally parties of the opposition, on the ideological fringes, or relatively small. A cross-national analysis of party positions confirms that Euroskepticism is primarily a fringe phenomenon, concentrated on the ideological extremes and among opposition parties. The results suggest that the post-Maastricht decline in public support for the EU has not led to a general adoption of Euroskeptic positions by the major governing parties of Europe. Important exceptions to this generalization do, however, exist. Euroskepticism is unusually strong among the center-right parties in the UK, France, and Poland. Given that decisions in the EU are often made by procedures that permit single states, or fairly small coalitions, to block action, any introduction of Euroskepticism into the mainstream of any party system can have serious consequences for the entire union.Acta Politica (2007) 42, 153-172. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500189
In the last decade, support for European integration has declined and euroscepticism has risen. Using Easton's concept of political support, this paper studies the interrelationship between euroscepticism and European identity. Starting from the hypothesis that identity as a central element of political community serves as a buffer against system-threatening euroscepticism, I develop a hierarchical model of euroscepticism. My results demonstrate that there are three types of eurosceptics, two of which hold opposite implications for European integration — demand for improvement vs a halt to or even an abolishment of European integration. The difference between both types is that the first group has a European identity, while the other does not. I conclude that the large size of the eurosceptic camp challenges European integration.Acta Politica (2007) 42, 287-306. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500188
This paper seeks to apply the relevance of Euroscepticism literature to the study of radical left party outlooks on European integration and by doing so: (1) outlines general patterns of opposition to European integration, by 11 radical left parties that are housed in the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group of the European Parliament, in the 1990s and beyond; (2) assesses the congruence between the outlooks of these parties or the lack thereof; and (3) illuminates the factors conditioning these outlooks by addressing the ideology–strategy debate. To this end, the paper employs two, widely referenced and historically relevant, analytical frameworks of party-based Euroscepticism (by Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak, and by Petr Kopecký and Cas Mudde), and applies them to the radical left as a whole and its various sub-sets, as identified by the literature so far. The analysis leads to the following three findings. First, a moderating approach can be observed on average, thus leading to an increase in overall congruence. Second, congruence increases slightly, as we move towards a more specific typology but overall no systematic congruence is to be found in the radical left as a whole or most of its sub-sets, in the period examined. Third, while ideology carries causal weight, strategy appears more prominent as a conditioning factor of outlooks.
With the recent acceleration of the integration process of the European Union there has been a rise in political parties expressing either scepticism or outright criticism of the nature of the integration process. Using a four–fold differentiation between single issue, protest, established parties and factions within parties, the first part of the article presents an overview of Euroscepticism within EU member states and Norway. This reveals the diversity of sources of Euroscepticism both in ideology and in the types of parties that are Eurosceptical but with a preponderance of protest parties taking Eurosceptical positions. The second part of the article is an attempt to map Euroscepticism in West European party systems through a consideration of ideology and party position in the party system. The conclusions are that Euroscepticism is mainly limited to parties on the periphery of their party system and is often there used as an issue that differentiates those parties from the more established parties which are only likely to express Euroscepticism through factions. Party based Euroscepticism is therefore both largely dependent on domestic contextual factors and a useful issue to map emergent domestic political constellations.
World Development Indicators, the World Bank's respected statistical publication presents the most current and accurate information on global development on both a national level and aggregated globally. This information allows readers to monitor the progress made toward meeting the goals endorsed by the United Nations and its member countries, the World Bank, and a host of partner organizations in September 2001 in their Millennium Development Goals. The print edition of World Development Indicators 2005 allows you to consult over 80 tables and over 800 indicators for 152 economies and 14 country groups, as well as basic indicators for a further 55 economies. There are key indicators for the latest year available, important regional data, and income group analysis. The report contains six thematic presentations of analytical commentary covering: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links.
Previously published as an Appendix to the World development report. Incl. users guide, list of acronyms, bibl., index. The Little data book is a pocket edition of WDI
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