So what’s wrong with the EU? Motivations underlying the Eurosceptic vote in the 2009 European elections

Joost van Spanje and Claes de Vreese
Additional contact information
Joost van Spanje: University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, J.H.P.vanSpanje@uva.nl
Claes de Vreese: University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

European Union Politics, 2011, vol. 12, issue 3, 405-429

Abstract: In recent decades, ordinary European Union (EU) citizens have been able to express their opinion on the course of the European project on several occasions. Judging from electoral outcomes, there is quite some Euroscepticism among them. What motivations underlie the Eurosceptic vote? Using an extended and comprehensive multidimensional measure of EU attitudes, we investigate which specific attitudes and issue positions were conducive to Eurosceptic voting in the 2009 European Parliament elections. Based on a voter survey in 21 countries, we conclude that concerns about the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, low perceived utility of the EU for the country, negative affection towards the EU, opposition to EU integration, and an absence of EU identity enhance anti-EU voting. In addition, these effects depend on the dispersion of party positions concerning EU matters, so that the more the parties diverge on EU matters, the stronger the effect becomes of each of the five EU dimensions mentioned on party choice. We conclude by setting these findings in perspective and discussing their implications for the future of the European project.

Keywords: elections; Euroscepticism; multilevel modelling; political parties; voter survey; voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116511410750 (text/html)

Related works:
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:sae:eeupol:v:12:y:2011:i:3:p:405-429

DOI: 10.1177/1465116511410750

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Union Politics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().