National political elites, the EU, and the populist challenge
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395718777363 |
| Author | Nicolò Conti |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395718777363
Politics
2018, Vol. 38(3) 361 –377
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395718777363
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National political elites, the
EU, and the populist challenge
Nicolò Conti
UNITELMA SAPIENZA University of Rome, Italy
Abstract
For several years, the European Union (EU) has faced two major crises at the same time – a
global financial crisis that spilled over to the Eurozone countries and an immigration crisis. Those
countries more negatively affected complain that the EU is ineffective in providing solutions, while
better-off countries are reluctant to share the costs of the most exposed countries. In this critical
context, radical populist parties have had specific incentives to offer extreme policy stances on the
EU, signalling clear Eurosceptical positions as a means of breaking into the electoral market; their
stance is now represented in the national parliament of many member states. The article examines
the attitudes of national political elites towards the EU. It shows that the feelings towards the
EU have largely survived acute changes (induced by the crises or changes to elite composition).
Although Euroscepticism is a growing phenomenon within society and party systems, it is less
on the rise among the elites holding public office. However, due to the unprecedented success
of radical populist parties in some countries, Euroscepticism is now on the rise, also among this
segment of elites, and some limited signs of contagion to the mainstream are already visible.
Keywords
attitudes, EU, MPs, political elites, populism
Received: 28th July 2017; Revised version received: 3rd April 2018; Accepted: 12th April 2018
Introduction
The article investigates how national political elites conceive sovereignty and the
European Union (EU) today in the context of multiple crises that have affected the EU
and of mounting Euroscepticism within society. The study of the attitudes of political
elites is a crucial aspect if one wants to understand the future prospects of the EU process.
The very nature of European integration is one of a top-down process initiated and coor-
dinated by elites and subsequently submitted to the wider public. The EU process is based
on the voluntary involvement of member states and on their decision about the distribu-
tion of competences in the European system of multi-level governance, a process that
necessarily entails the integration of national political elites (Best et al., 2012). Indeed,
Corresponding author:
Nicolò Conti, UNITELMA SAPIENZA University of Rome, Viale Regina Elena, 295-00161 Rome, Italy.
Email: nicolo.conti@unitelmasapienza.it
777363POL0010.1177/0263395718777363PoliticsConti
research-article2018
Special Issue Article
362 Politics 38(3)
political elites (along with other economic and social elites) play the dual role of driving
agents of the integration process and legitimating intermediaries before citizens (Haller,
2008). Their role as a ‘legitimating buffer’ of the EU before their national publics is even
more crucial today as the EU has become a more contested issue within society (Hooghe
and Marks, 2009). The analysis that is presented in the article allows to expand our
knowledge about the phenomenon of Euroscepticism and to reflect on elite theory about
European integration.
The focus of the article is on members of the national parliaments (MPs), a fundamen-
tal segment of the party elite holding public office often ignored by empirical research.
MPs are the top tier of national political representation and, therefore, they express the
collective state of opinion among the national political elite (including government and
opposition parties). Recent research shows that the Eurocrisis has heightened the divi-
sions between party public office holders and the parties’ public stance (Charalambous
et al., 2017): while the public stances of parties have become more negative on the EU,
the consensus among party elites serving in public office has remained more stable.
Hence, within the research agenda on Euroscepticism, it is relevant to analyse opposition
to the EU among parliamentary elites as a distinct political phenomenon. In the context of
this Special Issue, it is particularly interesting to study MPs as they represent a segment
of political elites highly exposed to the challenge of populism. Populist parties have
become competitive actors, and in many European countries they are represented in large
numbers in the national parliament. The analysis of MPs allows to ascertain whether the
ideological contours of populism with respect to Euroscepticism have permeated the
national legislature; moreover, it allows to ascertain whether Euroscepticism reverberates
in parliament through other political groups as well.
The article addresses the following questions: How unified on the EU are national
political elites under the multiple crises that affect Europe today? and How do MPs
respond to the challenge of populist Eurosceptical forces? This is done through the analy-
sis of original data that were obtained by a standardised survey questionnaire submitted
to a representative sample of national MPs in 10 countries as part of the European National
Elites and the Eurozone Crisis (ENEC) project.1 The next section provides a theoretical
framework about the impact of different crises and populism on elite consensus on the
EU. The following section presents the data on which the analysis is based. The empirical
part lays out the findings, and the conclusion sums up their main implications in the con-
text of this Special Issue.
Elites, the crises, and Euroscepticism
The occurrence of two major crises in Europe and the rise of populist parties in many
European countries are key factors that may potentially affect elite consensus on the EU.
More than in the past, populist parties are now represented in several national parlia-
ments; this may impact the overall attitude of national legislators towards the EU. At the
same time, the economic and migration crises that have affected the EU have created
diverging interests across the member states that public office holders are supposed to
represent.
To what extent elites are sensitive to the crisis context that has fuelled Euroscepticism
within society (Hernández and Kriesi, 2016) and to the rise of populist parties in the
member states is a relevant problem that is investigated in the article. Research shows that
elites are generally more devoted to the project of European integration than the general
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