A new divide? Assessing the transnational-nationalist dimension among political parties and the public across the EU
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | Seth Jolly,Daniel Jackson |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116520988915 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
A new divide?
Assessing the
transnational-nationalist
dimension among
political parties and the
public across the EU
Daniel Jackson
Department of Political Science, Syracuse University,
Syracuse, NY, USA
Seth Jolly
Department of Political Science, Syracuse University,
Syracuse, NY, USA
Abstract
European politics is increasingly being contested along two dimensions: the economic left-
right dimension and a relatively new dimension focused on European integration and
immigration. We test this framework at the party and individual-levels in the European
Union. First, we use the Chapel Hill Expert Survey to demonstrate that there is no simple
relationship between these dimensions at the party level in many European Union coun-
tries, and in fact the two dimensions are increasingly orthogonal. We then use the 2019
European Elections Study to show that the transnational-nationalist dimension significantly
improves vote choice models relative to models that ignore this dimension. Even more
striking, the transnational-nationalist dimension is not just significant, but actually improves
vote choice models as much or more than the economic left-right dimensio n.
Keywords
Ideology, nationalism, political parties, voting behavior
Corresponding author:
Seth Jolly, Department of Political Science, Syracuse University, 100 Eggers Hall Syracuse, NY 13244-1020,
USA.
Email: skjolly@maxwell.syr.edu
European Union Politics
2021, Vol. 22(2) 316–339
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1465116520988915
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
As the Brexit referendum and success of new parties like the Five Star Movement
make clear, the traditional economic left-right dimension is not the only game in
town. Nativist and populist parties and citizens rally against immigration and
international cooperation in the form of the European Union (EU). Recent schol-
arship has argued that contestation over issues related to transnational integration
on the one hand and national sovereignty on the other has become increasingly
central to political competition in many Western democracies (Clark and
Rohrschneider, 2021; De Vries, 2018a, 2018b; Hooghe and Marks, 2018; Kriesi
et al., 2008; Whitefield and Rohrschneider, 2019). In this article, we build on these
prior analyses by investigating the extent to which the transnational-nationalist
dimension may be driving politics throughout the EU. By taking advantage of the
common questions in the latest European Election Study (EES) and Chapel Hill
Expert Survey (CHES), we are able to conduct analysis under a common theoret-
ical framework at both the party and the individual level in a cross-country anal-
ysis of all 28 EU member-states as of January 31
st
, 2020.
First, we develop the theoretical framework regarding the transnational-
nationalist dimension. Next, we evaluate the argument at the party-level using
the CHES data. Finally, we shift attention to the public by analyzing the relation-
ship between the dimensions and then evaluating the determinants of vote choice.
To preview the findings, we demonstrate that voter positions on the transnational-
nationalist dimension are at least as predictive of vote choice as the economic left-
right in most European countries. Thus, we make two arguments: First, the
transnational-nationalist divide is a useful framework for understanding political
conflict over European integration and the recent rise of nationalism across
Europe, above and beyond the traditional economic and social left-right dimen-
sions. Second, we must analyze this divide at both the individual and party-level if
we are to fully understand the structure of nationalist conflict in Europe.
Issue dimensionality and political contestation in the EU
Political contestation within many EU countries in recent history has primarily
been centered around left-right redistributive economic issues, with parties advo-
cating economic platforms that have been largely consistent over time as well as
representative of the preferences of their voters (Hooghe et al., 2002; Mattila and
Raunio, 2006). Recent scholarship on issue dimensionality within the EU, howev-
er, has demonstrated substantial evidence of an increase in the salience of non-
redistributive issues, particularly related to immigration and EU integration
(Bakker et al., 2018; De Vries, 2018a; Hooghe and Marks, 2008, 2018;
Steenbergen et al., 2007; Thomassen, 2012). This increasing multidimensionality
has the potential to severely disrupt existing party systems across the EU and
dislodge long-dominant parties – a process which may already be evident in a
number of countries (for example, in the United Kingdom (UK), France, Italy,
and Austria) (Bakker et al., 2018; Mattila and Raunio, 2006; Van der Eijk and
Franklin, 2004). Because redistributive economic issues have been the fundamental
Jackson and Jolly 317
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