Theorising Party-Based Euroscepticism: Problems of Definition, Measurement and Causality

Abstract

This paper seeks to address and move forward the debate on these two controversial theoretical issues. It surveys the current Literature and attempts to draw conclusions in terms of where the debate has reached. This paper begins by examining the definitional controversies and, on the basis of the various approaches surveyed, attempts to draw some tentative conclusions about how party-based Euroskepticism should be conceptualized. Section two briefly considers some of the positions and discourses that have, in our view, been wrongly categorized as party-bases Euroskepticism (by ourselves, among others!). Section three examines whether or not (and how) it is possible to measure levels of party-based Euroskepticism and critically evaluates our own earlier attempts to try to do so. Finally, section four reflects on the academic debate on what causes party-based Euroskepticism. This has tended to be portrayed (wrongly, in our view) in dichotomous terms as an argument between those who give priority to ideological¬-programmatic impulses on the one hand and those who stress the imperatives of strategic-tactical positioning on the other. It should be stressed that this is very much a summary of research in progress and that the conclusions it reaches are tentative ones. It is primarily as a synthesis of, and our latest contribution to, an ongoing debate rather than the last word.

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