Conservatism, social isolation and political context: Why East Europeans would leave the EU in Exit referendums
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211061453 |
| Author | Sergiu Gherghina,Paul Tap |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211061453
International Political Science Review
2023, Vol. 44(4) 523 –539
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/01925121211061453
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Conservatism, social isolation
and political context: Why East
Europeans would leave the EU in
Exit referendums
Sergiu Gherghina
Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, UK
Paul Tap
Department of International Studies and Contemporary History, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj, Romania
Abstract
The British decision to leave the European Union after the 2016 referendum raises questions about who
could be next. This article analyzes why citizens in East European Member States would vote to leave the
European Union in the event of further referendums. It proposes an analytical framework that seeks to
explain this strong form of Euroscepticism through four variables that are rarely linked to the European
Union: political apathy and alienation, dissatisfaction with domestic democracy and economy, conservative
values, and social isolation. We use individual-level data from the 2018 wave of the European Social Survey
to show that citizens’ conservative attitudes and social isolation are robust determinants of a potential
European Union exit vote in Eastern Europe. We also identify several country-specific causes, which means
that the European Union faces particular challenges across political settings.
Keywords
European Union exit, conservatism, social isolation, referendum, Eastern Europe
Introduction
The post-communist countries in Eastern Europe joined the European Union (EU) in an attempt to
consolidate their democracies, develop their economies and solve social problems. Pre-accession
conditionality ticked many of these boxes and led to extensive support for European integration
among domestic political elites and the public in many countries. However, the post-accession
period marks the rise of secessionist tendencies, poor consolidation of agreed reforms, security
threats, social cleavages, enhanced national identities, tensions between national and European
policies, and democratic backsliding. Several forms of Euroscepticism that emerged prior to the
accession of many East European countries continue to be visible over time and contribute to the
contestation of the European project today.
Corresponding author:
Sergiu Gherghina, Department of Politics University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Building, office 1206, Glasgow G12 8RT, UK.
Email: sergiu.gherghina@glasgow.ac.uk
1061453IPS0010.1177/01925121211061453International Political Science ReviewGherghina and Tap
research-article2022
Original Research Article
524 International Political Science Review 44(4)
Leaving the EU is a specific and very strong form of Euroscepticism. The 2016 Brexit referen-
dum led to a short-term increase in the confidence of Eurosceptic actors in several EU member
states. A few days after the Brexit referendum, the populist radical right Party for Freedom in the
Netherlands called for a Dutch EU Membership referendum. Around the same time, the Czech
president mentioned the possibility to initiate a Czexit referendum. The medium-term effect was
mainly in the opposite direction: Eurosceptic discourses grew moderate and politicians no longer
called for withdrawal from the EU. One exception to this occurred in Poland where the idea of
Polexit emerged in the fall of 2021 after the EU openly criticized a Polish court ruling against EU
legal supremacy. These examples demonstrate how politicians express this specific form of
Euroscepticism, but we know little about what the people believe. Understanding which segments
of society agree with such discourses is important because it indicates which groups may eventu-
ally support withdrawal from the EU if the opportunity arises. Moreover, this could empirically
inform our knowledge of individuals rejecting both the ideas of European integration and the gen-
eral practice of integration; that is, the ‘Eurorejects’ (Kopecký and Mudde, 2002) in the new
Member States.
This article addresses this research gap and analyzes what can trigger this strong form of hard
Euroscepticism in Eastern Europe. We seek to explain why citizens in 10 East European Member
States would vote to leave the EU should a referendum arise. Our analysis focuses on this region
due to the similarities between the countries in terms of previous authoritarian regime and moment
of accession, as well as contradictory trends observable around the accession, and in the post-
accession period. Around the time of accession both political elites and citizens were predomi-
nantly enthusiastic due to the envisaged benefits of membership (Tverdova and Anderson, 2004).
However, during the post-accession period, several governments became increasingly critical of
the EU and adopted strong Eurosceptic stances or political reforms that challenged European
norms (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2020). We use individual-level data from the 9th wave of
the European Social Survey (ESS) (2018), which includes 10 out of the 11 East European countries
that are EU members. The analysis takes place in 2 steps: one comparative analysis including the
respondents from 10 countries, followed by a comparison of 3 countries that display different atti-
tudes toward the EU: Bulgaria, Czechia and Hungary. Case selection is further explained in the
data and methods section.
This specific and strong form of Euroscepticism rests on the concept of ‘Eurorejects’, which
includes people with neither diffuse nor specific support for European integration (Kopecký and
Mudde, 2002: 300–301). We focus on this specific form of Euroscepticism which includes an
implicit behavioral component in addition to attitudes of rejection. People may have the opportu-
nity – which has gained credibility following Brexit – to decide in a potential referendum the fate
of their country’s EU membership. The analytical framework used to explain this specific form of
Euroscepticism goes beyond common indicators such as EU attachment, attitudes toward European
unification, or trust in European institutions. Our analysis controls for these to ensure the robust-
ness of results, but we believe there are particular reasons linked to everyday life and domestic
politics that could drive citizens in this direction. We argue and test the explanatory power of four
main categories of determinants: political apathy and alienation, dissatisfaction with domestic
democracy and economy, conservative values and social isolation.
We contribute to the literature in two ways. First, we show how several variables that are not
directly related to the EU may explain this strong form of Euroscepticism. Some of these, such as
attitudes toward migrants, were included in research on Brexit voting patterns. However, others
such as political alienation, dissatisfaction or social isolation of individuals have not been explored
so far in direct relation to Euroscepticism; one important exception to this rule is the study by Fox
(2021) who links political alienation and support for Brexit. By focusing on these overlooked
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