Responding to growing European Union-skepticism? The stances of political parties toward European integration in Western and Eastern Europe following the financial crisis
| Author | Robert Rohrschneider,Stephen Whitefield |
| Published date | 01 March 2016 |
| Date | 01 March 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116515610641 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Union Politics
2016, Vol. 17(1) 138–161
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116515610641
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Article
Responding to
growing European
Union-skepticism? The
stances of political
parties toward European
integration in Western and
Eastern Europe following
the financial crisis
Robert Rohrschneider
The University of Kansas, USA
Stephen Whitefield
Oxford University, UK
Abstract
Using data from two expert surveys conducted in 2007–2008 and 2013 in 24 European
democracies, we examine the response of political parties—especially mainstream
ones—across the European Union to the growth in public European Union-skepticism
since the onset of the financial crisis. Theoretically, we point to competing spatial and
reputational pressures on mainstream and extreme parties to adjust their integration
positions. We find that mainstream parties respond fairly little over time and that this
has left a representational opening for extreme parties, which is especially filled by new
European Union-skeptic parties.
Keywords
Economic crisis, European Union, extreme parties, mainstream parties, representation
Corresponding author:
Robert Rohrschneider, Department of Political Science, 525 Blake Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence,
KS 66045, USA.
Email: roro@ku.edu
Introduction
To what extent has the economic crisis altered support for European integration
among mainstream political parties? For much of the postwar period, European
integration benefitted from a ‘permissive consensus’ in which large proportions
of mass publics and party elites supported the integration of Europe
(Franklin and Marsh, 1994; Hobolt and Tilley, 2014). However, this consensus
has weakened over the past two decades as the influence of the European Union
(EU) on national policies has grown (Schmitt, 2005; Taggart, 1998), nations’
autonomy has become more restricted (Arnold and Franklin, 2012; Hooghe and
Marks, 2008), and citizens increasingly debate European integration in national
elections (de Vries, 2007; Hobolt and Brouard, 2011). And lately, beginning
with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, public support for
integration is declining at a precipitous rate (de Vries, 2013; Roth et al., 2013;
Serricchio et al., 2013). Even where public support for integration has nearly
returned to precrisis levels as in Germany, some parties like the Alternative for
Germany provide reasons for pro-EU elites to pay greater attention to EU-skeptic
arguments than just a few years ago.
Given the increasingly contested character of European integration among elites
and mass publics, we investigate which parties have moved to represent growing
public Euro-skepticism. Have parties at the left and right extremes of party systems
that have historically articulated EU-critical positions been the most responsive to
growing Euro-skepticism? We refer to this scenario as extreme-party responsiveness.
Clearly, prior research documents the rise of a virulent EU-skepticism on the very
right and very left (Arter, 2013; Lynch et al., 2012; Rovny, 2012; van Kessel, 2013),
suggesting that the extreme-party responsiveness model aptly characterizes
European party systems in the wake of the economic crisis.
Another possibility, however, is that mainstream center-left and center-right
parties have begun to respond to the rise of EU-skepticism by adjusting their
issue positions. For example, British Conservatives, the German CDU/CSU, and
the Dutch VVD have moved toward a more EU-critical stance in public debates.
These developments suggest that the growing controversies over integration and
the decline of public support in many countries may prompt major parties, includ-
ing governing ones, to reduce their support for integration within the EU (Dalton
et al., 2011; Downs, 1957; Rohrschneider and Whitefield, 2012). We term this
scenario mainstream responsiveness because it describes a situation where growing
skepticism over integration pits an EU-critical camp of both extreme and main-
stream parties against a group of pro-EU parties.
Despite the plausibility of both scenarios, prior research does not provide much
methodical evidence as to whether mainstream parties stick to their historically
grounded pro-EU position or whether they began to respond systematically to the
rise of Euro-skepticism. We therefore do not know much about whether the articu-
lation of anti-integration sentiment is largely left to those extreme parties that have
until now ‘owned’ Euro-skepticism. This paper begins to fill this gap by examining
the nature and sources of parties’ EU stances in 24 European countries.
Rohrschneider and Whitefield 139
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