The geography of EU discontent and the regional development trap

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Lewis Dijkstra and Hugo Poelman

No 2405, Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography

Abstract: While in recent times many regions have flourished, many others are stuck —or are at risk of becoming stuck— in a development trap. Such regions experience decline in economic growth, employment, and productivity relative to their neighbours and to their own past trajectories. Prolonged periods in development traps are leading to political dissatisfaction and unrest. Such discontent is often translated into support for anti-system parties at the ballot box. In this paper we study the link between the risk, intensity, and duration of regional development traps and the rise of discontent in the European Union (EU) —proxied by the support for Eurosceptic parties in national elections between 2013 and 2022— using an econometric analysis at a regional level. The results highlight the strong connection between being stuck in a development trap, often in middle- or high-income regions, and support for Eurosceptic parties. They also suggest that the longer the period of stagnation, the stronger the support for parties opposed to European integration. This relationship is also robust to considering only the most extreme Eurosceptic parties or to including parties that display more moderate levels of Euroscepticism.

Keywords: discontent; Euroscepticism; development trap; economic growth; employment; productivity; regions; EU (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 R11 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-03, Revised 2024-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-geo, nep-tid and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://econ.geo.uu.nl/peeg/peeg2405.pdf Version March 2024 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Geography of EU Discontent and the Regional Development Trap (2024)
Working Paper: The geography of EU discontent and the regional development trap (2024)
Working Paper: The geography of EU discontent and the regional development trap (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egu:wpaper:2405

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) from Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).