Waking the ‘sleeping giant’ or expressing domestic dissent? Mainstreaming Euroscepticism in crisis-stricken Greece
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| Author | Susannah Verney |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512115577146 |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Political Science Review
2015, Vol. 36(3) 279 –295
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512115577146
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Waking the ‘sleeping giant’ or
expressing domestic dissent?
Mainstreaming Euroscepticism
in crisis-stricken Greece
Susannah Verney
University of Athens, Greece
Abstract
The surge in support for Eurosceptic parties in the 2014 Euroelections is investigated through a case study of
Greece, a country which suffered a dramatic dealignment of its party system after the onset of the Eurozone
crisis. The extent to which crisis-era developments represent a rupture is assessed by setting the recent rise
of party Euroscepticism in its historical context. Eurobarometer data is used to investigate the relationship
between party and popular Euroscepticism and an alternative domestically-driven explanation of causality.
The conclusion is that the crisis era has been a game-changer in attitudes towards European integration. The
rising vote for Eurosceptic parties is not simply a side-effect of domestic protest. Instead the EU has become
a significant electoral target.
Keywords
Eurosceptic parties, public opinion, European integration, Eurozone crisis, elections, Greece
Eurosceptic shock: The 2014 Euroelection
The 2014 elections to the European Parliament (EP) marked a tectonic shift in the political
influence of Euroscepticism. A particularly striking example concerned Greece, the EU’s ninth
largest state. As the country whose sovereign debt mountain triggered the potential crisis of the
banking system, which developed into the Eurozone crisis, Greece has been very much at the
centre of EU attention in recent years. In Greece, the Eurosceptic triumph of 2014 would have
seemed unthinkable at the time of the previous Euroelection. In 2009, the then two major par-
ties, PASOK and New Democracy, both firm supporters of European integration, together won
over three-quarters of the popular vote. In 2014, this dropped to less than one-third, while the
Corresponding author:
Susannah Verney, Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Athens, 6 Themistokleous Street,
Athens, 106 78, Greece.
Email: deplan@otenet.gr
577146IPS0010.1177/0192512115577146Verney
research-article2015
Article
280 International Political Science Review 36(3)
first-ranked party was the soft Eurosceptic SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left). SYRIZA,
a strong advocate of ‘Another Europe’, was chosen by more than one in four Greek voters,
increasing its 2009 vote share from 4.7% to 26.6%. While the pro-integrationist New Democracy
came second, it was followed in third place by the hard Eurosceptic and neo-Nazi Golden
Dawn, a party so extreme that after the election, the leaders of the French and Dutch far right,
Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, were prepared to forego the opportunity of forming an EP
Group rather than allying with it. Golden Dawn’s 9.4% vote represented a meteoric increase
over its 0.29% in the 2009 Euroelection.
This was an impressive change. In the space of a few years, both SYRIZA and Golden Dawn,
one previously a minor parliamentary force, the other languishing on the extra-parliamentary
fringe of Greek politics, had been propelled from the margins of the party system to centre stage.
Nor were they alone. Only three of the seven Greek parties that won EP seats in 2014 were gener-
ally uncritical supporters of European integration in its present form and committed ‘to do what-
ever it takes’ to keep crisis-stricken Greece in the Eurozone. The remaining four had Eurosceptic
programmes of various shades, ranging from SYRIZA’s critical Europeanism to the outright Euro-
rejectionism espoused by the Greek Communist Party. All four were firm opponents of the EU/
IMF bailout packages of 2010–2012 and the conditions laid out in the accompanying Memorandums
of Understanding. Together these four parties won 45.6% of the total national vote and a plurality
(12 out of 21) of Greek seats in the EP. In a nutshell, party Euroscepticism appeared to have
become a mainstream position in Greece.
The key issue after the Euroelections – not only in Greece, but also in other member-states and
for the EU as a whole – is what lay behind these results. In particular, do they imply a real change
in attitudes towards European integration as much media comment has suggested? In practice,
electors usually select the party they will vote for on the basis of a range of factors including the
party’s overall programme and image and not just its stand in one policy area. The period since the
previous Euroelection has coincided with the upheaval within the Eurozone that followed the out-
break of the Greek sovereign debt crisis in 2009. In this context, could the rise of party Euroscepticism
be seen primarily as an expression of domestic discontent by electorates experiencing economic
pressure? Or was it an explicitly Eurosceptic vote, implying growing disaffection with the current
European Union? These are burning questions with clear implications for the sustainability of
European integration. This article will pursue them through a case study of Greece.
Drawing on the literature on Euroscepticism, this study aims to understand how the ‘sleep-
ing giant’ theory (De Vries, 2007; Miklin, 2014; Van der Eijk and Franklin, 2004) may have
played out in a specific country case. It also contributes to the burgeoning literature on the
Greek crisis that, to date, has paid surprisingly little attention to the question of Euroscepticism.
Finally, it contributes to recent scholarship on the electoral impact of the economic crisis in the
Eurozone periphery (e.g. Bellucci et al., 2011; Bosco and Verney, 2012; Magalhaes 2014) by
exploring how attitudes towards European integration might fit into the picture of electoral
change recorded in the region.
The article starts by developing its research questions and then explains why Greece offers
promising terrain for their investigation. Beginning its examination of the case study, the article
first assesses the significance of recent changes in the electoral strength of Greek Eurosceptic
parties by placing them in historical perspective. Next it proceeds to investigate the extent to
which ebbs and flows in the support for party Euroscepticism may have been grounded in public
opinion about European integration. The final part considers an alternative explanation, which
sees the rise of Eurosceptic parties as an expression of domestic protest. The article ends by
considering the implications of the findings from the Greek case for the future of European
integration.
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