The geography of EU discontent

Lewis Dijkstra, Hugo Poelman and Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Support for parties opposed to European Union (EU) integration has risen rapidly, and a wave of discontent has taken over the EU. This discontent is purportedly driven by the very factors behind the surge of populism: differences in age, wealth, education, or economic and demographic trajectories. This paper maps the geography of EU discontent across more than 63,000 electoral districts in the EU-28 and assesses which factors push anti-EU voting. The results show that the anti-EU vote is mainly a consequence of local economic and industrial decline in combination with lower employment and a less educated workforce. Many of the other suggested causes of discontent, by contrast, matter less than expected, or their impact varies depending on levels of opposition to European integration.

Keywords: anti-Europeanism; anti-system voting; populism; economic decline; industrial decline; education; migration; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2020-06-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-geo and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Published in Regional Studies, 2, June, 2020, 54(6), pp. 737 - 753. ISSN: 0034-3404

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101307/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The geography of EU discontent (2020)
Working Paper: The geography of EU discontent (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:101307

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