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The spreading phenomenon of Euroscepticism is manifested in critical practices in discourse that oppose European integration. This paper explores Euroscepticism as an element of discourse, which cannot only be measured as party positions or individual attitudes. Based on this understanding, our argument is twofold. Firstly, Euroscepticism relates to the unsettled and principally contested character of the European Union (EU) as a political entity: its basic purpose and rationale, its institutional design and its future trajectory. It correlates with pro-European discourse and the attempts to promote the (democratic) legitimacy of the EU. Secondly, we argue that Euroscepticism unfolds primarily through mass media. As such, it is given public expression through general news values, drama and narratives that are targeted to draw the attention of the wider audience. Understanding this responsive and public nature of Euroscepticism leads us, in the end, to a comprehensive typology of six forms of polity evaluation of the EU.

<p>Euroscepticism is explicitly or implicitly considered a product of the crisis, a result of Europe's recent difficult moments. The secondary data analysis of official Eurobarometer results between 2009 (EB71) and the end of 2013 (the latest data available – EB80) in 17 member states, grouped around the axis North – South – East, leads us to the conclusion that Euroscepticism has amplified during the years of economic crisis following a particular pattern. We witness the rise of inequalities in a Union of equals, with significant differences in terms of public opinion in the North and in the South. The great disappointment, the gloom mood of the citizens from Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal and, surprisingly, France, in contrast with the self-confident attitude of Germans and the mild enthusiasm of Eastern European countries suggest that the EU did not emerge stronger as a whole. Multiple divergences have already started to occur between the rich and the poor member states, between competitive regions and regions that lag behind, between debtors and creditors, between the North and the South and, we dare to anticipate, between the West and the East. The game is changing and Euroscepticism is now the expression of confusion and fear, more than of righteous opposition against particular issues or concerns.</p>

Abstract
This study examines the changing role of the EU agenda in Slovak politics. It identifies old and newly emerging faces of Euroscepticism and compares them with general theoretical concepts. Furthermore, it asks to what extent Eurosceptical appeals mobilised Slovak voters in the European Parliament (EP) elections of 2014 and whether Eurosceptical parties represent a meaningful electoral choice for voters. In the past, many analyses have provided evidence that the European agenda is not salient and the EU political arena is perceived as one where there is less at stake. Nevertheless, the economic crisis and so-called Greek bailout were followed by a rise in Euroscepticism and EU-criticism. In some EU countries, this enhanced voter mobilisation in the EP elections. In others – including Slovakia – we saw not only a significant decline in electoral turnout but relatively poor results for Eurosceptical parties as well. This study identifies the factors behind abstention and explores voting patterns in this specific second-order election in Slovakia. Moreover, it investigates how the parties are perceived in terms of their positions on EU integration and the potential impact on voter choices. I conclude that the EU agenda is still not the deciding factor for voters even in the case of EP elections. Eurosceptical appeals are less mobilising in this context, and the public sees no differences among parties' stances on the EU.

Le résultat des élections parlementaires européennes de 2014 est largement perçu comme ayant été une victoire pour l'euroscepticisme et les acteurs politiques qui veulent la sortie de leurs pays de l'UE. Le récit des médias a mis l'accent en particulier sur le succès des eurosceptiques (Szczerbiak & Taggart : 2004) de l'UKIP en Grande-Bretagne et du Front national (FN) en France, qui ont émergé comme les plus grands partis, dans leur pays respectif, avec le vote des élections européennes. Cet article soutient, cependant, que ce récit spécifique débouche sur une conclusion trop nuancée du résultat des élections. Il souligne que le résultat des élections est la nature différenciée des euroscepticismes qui ont émergé à travers l'UE. En examinant plusieurs cas – le cas de l'Irlande, de la France, de la Grèce, de la Pologne, de l'Espagne et du Royaume-Uni – il montre que la nature de l'opposition à l'intégration européenne exprimée par les partis « vainqueurs » des élections européennes dans chaque État varie de façon significative. Voir ces résultats à travers le prisme du 'withdrawalist' du FN et de l'UKIP conduit à exclure l'émergence des opposants à l'intégration européenne dont la position est fondée sur une critique des politiques adoptées par l'UE pour faire face à la crise économique et financière européenne. L'article conclut en replaçant l'émergence de cet euroscepticisme dans le contexte de l'impact catastrophique de la crise sur l'économie européenne, et comment elle n'est pas seulement compréhensible, mais peut-être même mise en sourdine compte tenu de la dévastation causée par la crise.

AbstractThis study compares the media discourses on euroscepticism in 2014 in six countries (the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark). We assessed the extent to which the mass media's reporting of euroscepticism indicates the Europeanization of public spheres. Using a mixed‐methods approach combining latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modelling and qualitative coding, we find that approximately 70 per cent of print articles mentioning 'euroscepticism' or 'eurosceptic' are framed in a non‐domestic (i.e., European) context. In five of the six cases studied, articles exhibiting a European context are strikingly similar in content, with the British case as the exception. However, coverage of British euroscepticism drives Europeanization in other member states. Bivariate logistic regressions further reveal three macro‐level structural variables that significantly correlate with a Europeanized media discourse: the newspaper type (tabloid or broadsheet), the presence of a strong domestic eurosceptical party and relationship to the EU budget (net contributor or receiver of EU funds).

The aim of the paper was to analyse the current level of Euroscepticism in the European Union, to identify the current challenges populist parties face in the Euroscepticism realities and promotion. The main method of research was the observation method, which, together with the comparative method, revealed the selected issues of the paper. The conducted research has shown that the rise of populist parties primarily reflects a response to a wide range of rapid cultural changes undermining the core values and practices of Western societies. At the same time, the pandemic and changes in public consciousness have led to a decline in the activity of political parties and the introduction of Eurosceptic ideas per se. As part of the research, we have argued that the deepening of European integration is not perceived positively by member states as well, given the unnatural order of legal relations in the union. The findings will also require comparison with the results of the forthcoming EU elections, which has been identified as a roadmap for further author's research.

Between 2015 and 2017, the European Union (EU) was confronted with a major crisis in its history, the so-called "European refugee crisis." Since the multifaceted crisis has provoked many different responses, it is also likely to have influenced individuals' assessments of immigrants and European integration. Using data from three waves of the European Social Survey (ESS) — the wave before the crisis in 2012, the wave at the beginning of the crisis in 2014, and the wave right after the (perceived) height of the crisis in 2016 — we test the degree to which the European refugee crisis increased Europeans' anti-immigrant sentiment and Euroscepticism, as well as the influence of Europeans' anti-immigrant attitudes on their level of Euroscepticism. As suggested by prior research, our results indicate that there is indeed a consistent and solid relationship between more critical attitudes toward immigrants and increased Euroscepticism. Surprisingly, however, we find that the crisis increased neither anti-immigrant sentiments nor critical attitudes toward the EU and did not reinforce the link between rejection of immigrants and rejection of the EU. These findings imply that even under a strong external shock, fundamental political attitudes remain constant.

'Knapp zwei Jahre nach dem EU-Beitritt Polens versucht dieser Beitrag festzustellen, inwieweit sich euroskeptische Haltungen und Positionen in Polen verändert haben. Dabei unterscheidet er zunächst zwischen 'direktem Euroskeptizismus' der WählerInnen und 'repräsentiertem Euroskeptizismus'. Ausgehend vom Befund, dass die Wahlen zur Europäischen Parlament im Juni 2004 aus polnischer Sicht als klassische second order elections zu gelten haben, unternimmt dieser Beitrag eine Analyse der Position der verschiedenen Parteien in den Wahlkämpfen zur EP-Wahl und der Bezugnahmen auf den Europäischen Verfassungsvertrag. In einer Gegenüberstellung zweier Modelle zur Erfassung von 'repräsentiertem Euroskeptizismus' wird herausgearbeitet, inwieweit die respektiven Positionen ideologisch bedingt sind oder eher strategisch als Reaktion auf den Parteienwettbewerb zu Stande kommen. Dabei kommt der Beitrag zu dem Schluss, dass die Mehrzahl der euroskeptischen Positionen als strategisch zu bewerten ist.' (Autorenreferat)

The logic behind a recent strain of Euroscepticism advocated by Brexiteers presents an empirical puzzle: how can voters from different economic positions publicly demand compliance with rules for fair market competition (Schmidt & Thatcher, 2014)—a key principle of neoliberal ideology—yet use nationalism to socially delegitimate the EU—whose market competition policy became increasingly neoliberal (Buch-Hansen & Wigger, 2010)? This puzzle is especially relevant given the power of nationalist and neoliberal rhetoric to mobilize popular opposition to the EU leading up Brexit (Andreouli & Nicholson, 2018). We dub this form of Euroscepticism 'nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism' (NNLE) and investigate it empirically. Research on Brexit builds on the Euroscepticism literature that traditionally measures opposition to the EU as an attitude at the individual level (for a summary see Hobolt and de Vries 2016; also Hobolt and Wratil 2015; de Vries 2018). For instance, Hobolt found that support for Brexit "was particularly common among less-educated, poorer and older voters, and those who expressed concerns about immigration and multi-culturalism (2016, p. 1259), while others found that ethnic, economic, and regional differences structured attitudinal support for the EU (e.g. Bonikowski 2017; Flemmen and Savage 2017; Gidron and Hall 2017; Laurence et al. 2019)(Carreras, Carreras, and Bowler 2019). However, both the Euroscepticism literature and these recent works investigate Euroscepticism from the perspective of individual citizens' privately held attitudes or voting behavior rather than by empirically analyzing the socially acceptable forms of Euroscepticism citizens encounter, use, and respond to in everyday life. In this article, we investigate socially acceptable—and thus normative—Euroscepticism. Responding to the aforementioned empirical puzzle, we analyze normative 'nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism' (NNLE). To do so, we must shift our focus from individual British citizens' surveyed pre-Brexit attitudes to social norms that are shared across economic divisions. In our analysis, we investigate this Euroscepticism as it manifests in a 'moral economy'— or popular consensus about moral principles of economic exchange that forms a normative basis of economic action, attitudes, and legitimacy (Thompson 1971; Mau 2003; Svallfors 2006; Sachweh 2012; Koos and Sachweh 2017; Taylor-Gooby et al. 2018). To conduct this analysis, we respond to an important gap in the contemporary literature concerning moral economy in terms of the evolution of normatively based popular outrage against market action. This type of analysis was central to foundational work on moral economy—which stressed the temporal element of moral economies as normative (see, Scott, 1977; Thompson, 1971). Returning to this diachronic comparative approach to moral economy, we study 'nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism' longitudinally as a form of normative market outrage as it developed over time. Our investigation into whether the Euroscepticism of UK citizens can be explained because of the EU's infringement of the nationalist and neoliberal norms at the basis of British citizens' moral economy proceeds in three steps. First, using semi-structured interview data collected right after Brexit (2016 Qualitative Election Study of Britain) we identify popular outrage against the EU as nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism by analyzing how Brexit supporters and opponents socially legitimated their vote. Second, relying on focus group data that predates Brexit by a decade (2005-6 CITAE) we show how the deligitimation of the EU in 2016 can be traced back to shared 3 popular norms regarding EU market action that constitute a moral economy of nationalist neoliberal Euroscepticism. Third, based on our analysis of Celine Belot's semi-structured interview data (1995-6) collected just after the Maastricht Treaty, we identify the beginning stages of this normative anti-EU popular outrage. This final step does not find evidence of a nationalist neo-liberal moral economy, but instead finds what appears to be building blocks of such a moral economy. This three-step analysis then sets the stage for an investigation into this nationalist neo-liberal moral economy as 'normative policy feedback' (Rothstein 1998; Svallfors 2006; Koos and Sachweh 2017)—a perspective that sees moral economy as structured by institutionalized norms of economic exchange. Future work can then investigate this moral economy as a form of policy feedback in order to supplement work on Euroscepticism as structured by socio-economic or ethnic divisions. This paper falls into six sections dealing with the theoretical framework on moral economies, nationalism and neo-liberalism, methodology and data, the three-step analysis and discussion and conclusions.

The logic behind a recent strain of Euroscepticism advocated by Brexiteers presents an empirical puzzle: how can voters from different economic positions publicly demand compliance with rules for fair market competition (Schmidt & Thatcher, 2014)—a key principle of neoliberal ideology—yet use nationalism to socially delegitimate the EU—whose market competition policy became increasingly neoliberal (Buch-Hansen & Wigger, 2010)? This puzzle is especially relevant given the power of nationalist and neoliberal rhetoric to mobilize popular opposition to the EU leading up Brexit (Andreouli & Nicholson, 2018). We dub this form of Euroscepticism 'nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism' (NNLE) and investigate it empirically. Research on Brexit builds on the Euroscepticism literature that traditionally measures opposition to the EU as an attitude at the individual level (for a summary see Hobolt and de Vries 2016; also Hobolt and Wratil 2015; de Vries 2018). For instance, Hobolt found that support for Brexit "was particularly common among less-educated, poorer and older voters, and those who expressed concerns about immigration and multi-culturalism (2016, p. 1259), while others found that ethnic, economic, and regional differences structured attitudinal support for the EU (e.g. Bonikowski 2017; Flemmen and Savage 2017; Gidron and Hall 2017; Laurence et al. 2019)(Carreras, Carreras, and Bowler 2019). However, both the Euroscepticism literature and these recent works investigate Euroscepticism from the perspective of individual citizens' privately held attitudes or voting behavior rather than by empirically analyzing the socially acceptable forms of Euroscepticism citizens encounter, use, and respond to in everyday life. In this article, we investigate socially acceptable—and thus normative—Euroscepticism. Responding to the aforementioned empirical puzzle, we analyze normative 'nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism' (NNLE). To do so, we must shift our focus from individual British citizens' surveyed pre-Brexit attitudes to social norms that are shared across economic divisions. In our analysis, we investigate this Euroscepticism as it manifests in a 'moral economy'— or popular consensus about moral principles of economic exchange that forms a normative basis of economic action, attitudes, and legitimacy (Thompson 1971; Mau 2003; Svallfors 2006; Sachweh 2012; Koos and Sachweh 2017; Taylor-Gooby et al. 2018). To conduct this analysis, we respond to an important gap in the contemporary literature concerning moral economy in terms of the evolution of normatively based popular outrage against market action. This type of analysis was central to foundational work on moral economy—which stressed the temporal element of moral economies as normative (see, Scott, 1977; Thompson, 1971). Returning to this diachronic comparative approach to moral economy, we study 'nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism' longitudinally as a form of normative market outrage as it developed over time. Our investigation into whether the Euroscepticism of UK citizens can be explained because of the EU's infringement of the nationalist and neoliberal norms at the basis of British citizens' moral economy proceeds in three steps. First, using semi-structured interview data collected right after Brexit (2016 Qualitative Election Study of Britain) we identify popular outrage against the EU as nationalist neo-liberal Euroscepticism by analyzing how Brexit supporters and opponents socially legitimated their vote. Second, relying on focus group data that predates Brexit by a decade (2005-6 CITAE) we show how the deligitimation of the EU in 2016 can be traced back to shared 3 popular norms regarding EU market action that constitute a moral economy of nationalist neoliberal Euroscepticism. Third, based on our analysis of Celine Belot's semi-structured interview data (1995-6) collected just after the Maastricht Treaty, we identify the beginning stages of this normative anti-EU popular outrage. This final step does not find evidence of a nationalist neo-liberal moral economy, but instead finds what appears to be building blocks of such a moral economy. This three-step analysis then sets the stage for an investigation into this nationalist neo-liberal moral economy as 'normative policy feedback' (Rothstein 1998; Svallfors 2006; Koos and Sachweh 2017)—a perspective that sees moral economy as structured by institutionalized norms of economic exchange. Future work can then investigate this moral economy as a form of policy feedback in order to supplement work on Euroscepticism as structured by socio-economic or ethnic divisions. This paper falls into six sections dealing with the theoretical framework on moral economies, nationalism and neo-liberalism, methodology and data, the three-step analysis and discussion and conclusions.

There is an established connection between neoliberal British austerity welfare reforms that began in 2010 and British citizens' dissatisfaction with the EU leading up to Brexit. However, scholars have yet to analyze how British citizens delegitimated the EU in the context of Brexit or if these delegitimations were linked to neoliberal EU integration policy. Using abduction, we responded to these two gaps through a longitudinal qualitative investigation of Euroscepticism in the UK from 2005 until the months following Brexit in 2016. We discovered the existence of a moral economy of Euroscepticism that was a hybrid of neoliberal and nationalist ideology. Our study provides evidence that British citizens' delegitimations of the EU—both pre-and post-Brexit—stemmed from this hybrid moral economy. Furthermore, building on the "normative policy feedback" literature, we found that the illegitimacy of the EU–and the legitimacy of Brexit–among British citizens stemmed partially from neoliberal policy reforms.