European Integration and the Radical Right: Three Patterns of Opposition

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Vasilopoulou

AbstractThis article argues that radical right parties can be seen as displaying three patterns of opposition towards European integration: rejecting, conditional and compromising. These three patterns are identified through the careful examination of party attitudes on four different aspects related to European integration and the EU. These include the idea of a common identity of European peoples, the principle of cooperation at a European multilateral level, the EU policy practice and the desire to build a future European polity. In light of this conceptualization of radical right opposition to European integration, the article conducts a qualitative analysis of party literature of 12 radical right parties from 10 European countries during the latter part of the 2000s.

Author(s):  
Sofia Vasilopoulou

This chapter examines the role that the European Union (EU) issue plays in radical right party agendas. It shows that, despite the fact that radical right parties tend to adopt dissimilar positions on the principle, practice, and future of European integration, they all tend to criticize the EU from a predominantly sovereignty-based perspective justified on ethnocultural grounds. The EU is portrayed as posing a threat to national sovereignty, its policies dismantling the state and its territory, as well as being responsible for the cultural disintegration of Europe and its nation-states. The analysis of EU issue positions and salience over time suggests that—despite variations—radical right parties engage in EU issue competition not only by adopting extreme positions but also by increasingly emphasizing these positions over time.


2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Glencross

AbstractThis article analyses the 2005 French referendum debate on the EU Constitutional Treaty as an instance of depoliticization. Particular emphasis is placed on the argumentative strategy of President Chirac as, despite the treaty's focus on institutional reform, he eventually chose to justify the document in terms of social policy: an ultimately unconvincing strategy because voters believed it was contradicted by current EU policy priorities. On this evidence, pace Glyn Morgan, prioritizing a justification of EU finality over that of institutions and policies does not seem appropriate. Rather, the priority for integration is to overcome elites' strategies of depoliticization during referendum campaigns.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Teney ◽  
Onawa Promise Lacewell ◽  
Pieter De Wilde

Globalization pressures result in a new ideological conflict among Europeans. We use detailed items from the Eurobarometer survey on issues of immigration and European integration that measure the ideological perspective underpinning positions toward the EU. This provides a fine-grained analysis of the ideologies underlying the poles of the new globalization-centered conflict line, which we define as cosmopolitan and communitarian. Our results show that, next to socio-demographic characteristics, subjective measurements have a considerable additional power in explaining the divide among Europeans along the communitarian–cosmopolitan dimension. Subjective deprivation, evaluation of globalization as a threat, and (sub)national and supranational identities play an important role in dividing Europeans into groups of winners and losers of globalization in both Western and Central and Eastern European countries. At the country level, the national degree of globalization is associated positively with the communitarian pole and negatively with the cosmopolitan pole in all EU countries.


Author(s):  
David Ellison

Within the context of neofunctionalist and intergovernmental models, European integration—and thus membership in the European Club—is typically seen as a win-win proposition. Viewed through the lens of economic models based on increasing returns or literature on the developmental state, the advantages of European integration become more ambiguous. This essay argues that the incorporation of the Central and East European states into the European Union ultimately favors Western interests. Based on an analysis of Hungary’s Great Transformation, I evaluate the compatibility of the EU policy framework with Hungarian and other Central and East European interests in economic development. Forced to abandon many competitiveness tools, new member states may fi nd the EU policy framework less accommodating and quite possibly more constraining. Western states benefi t from the enlargement by raising the degree of policy control over Eastern states.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (S4) ◽  
pp. 1568-1584
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Parfinenko ◽  
Olena Yevtushenko ◽  
Iryna Panova ◽  
Polina Podlepina ◽  
Maksym Onatskyi

The article is devoted to researching the links between European integration processes and the development of national markets for tourist services. Particular attention was paid to the situation in international tourism in those countries that integrated with the EU in 2004 and 2007. In addition, the article discusses the main modern types of international tourism, as well as factors affecting its development. Finally, attention was also paid to identifying promising directions for the development of international tourism in Eastern European countries – potential candidates for accession to the EU (Republic of Moldova and Ukraine).


Author(s):  
Joop J. M. van Holsteyn

Belgium and the Netherlands are fertile ground for radical right parties, including the Flemish Bloc and its successor Flemish Interest (VB), and the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) and the later Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands. The LPF presented a mix of anti-immigrant and anti-elitist positions; the PVV was strict on immigration and against European integration; the VB was a nationalist/regionalist party that became successful only after adopting the anti-immigration issue. The LPF showed how a successful but badly organized party can both rise and fall quickly. The PVV shows that a strong leader can establish an electorally successful party that is less effective politically, with an uncertain future because of its dependency on the leader. The VB shows that a party that connects with the electorate’s “demands” can have a series of good election results without having direct policy effects and can be vulnerable to more effective competitors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Věra Stojarová

AbstractThe paper looks at the political party scene in Visegrad countries before and after the influx of refugees and compares how much the negative reactions were instrumentalised not only by the extremist and radical right parties but by the newly emerged populist formations as well as the well-established mainstream parties across the whole political spectra. Until the “migration crisis”, the far right parties focused mainly on Roma issue, anti-Semitism, anti-communism, anti-establishment and used anti-NATO, anti-EU, anti-German, anti-Czech, anti-Slovak or anti-Hungarian card. Since 2015, the parties re-oriented against immigrants, more precisely against the Muslims presenting them as a threat and also increased their criticism on the EU. However, the mainstream parties also accepted far right topics and actively promoted them. The result is then mainstreaming of xenophobia, nationalism and marginalization of far right parties as their flexible voters move to the populist subjects.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 744-759
Author(s):  
Anna Brigevich

This article analyses the extent to which radical left parties (RLPs) and radical right parties (RRPs) invoke fear of the EU in their voters by cueing on the economic, immigration and integration dimensions. In the West, mainstream theories of party cueing hold, although not in the predicted direction. RLPs cue on the economic dimension, with more protectionist cues resulting in less EU fear. RRPs are cueing on immigration, although respondents who vote for a more xenophobic party are less Eurosceptic. In the East, RLPs cue on immigration, with the anticipated outcome that a more xenophobic cue conditions greater EU fear. At the same time, RRPs cue on integration directly, with respondents who vote for a more Eurosceptic party exhibiting less fear. Overall, the most Eurosceptic respondents in the West are those who vote for a RRP, while the same is true for RLP voters in the East.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stijn van Kessel ◽  
Nicola Chelotti ◽  
Helen Drake ◽  
Juan Roch ◽  
Patricia Rodi

Populist radical right parties are naturally Eurosceptic. Many responded positively to the British referendum vote to leave the European Union; various observers even spoke of a potential populist radical right-instigated ‘domino effect’. We ask whether this Brexit-enthusiasm prevailed in the proximate aftermath of the UK referendum, by means of a comparative analysis of populist radical right parties’ national election campaigns in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Italy. The analysis considers whether the UK referendum result served as an external stimulus for populist radical right parties to harden their Euroscepticism and politicise the issue of European integration. The results show that this has, generally speaking, not been the case, and that Brexit has also not stimulated or amplified calls for leaving the European Union. Relating our findings to literature on the politicisation of European integration and strategic party behaviour, we argue that populist radical right parties had few incentives to act differently given the uninviting political opportunity structure.


2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Sum

Increasingly, European radical right parties have capitalized on citizen dissatisfaction with the European Union institutions. As a new EU member, to what extent have supporters of the radical right in Romania turned away from Europe? I evaluate this question by tracking the evolution of radical right parties in Romania. I find that supporters of the radical right in Romania are generally do not support or do not trust the EU. The Greater Romania Party is well-positioned to expand its electoral base in the foreseeable future if it can widen its appeal to those Romanians who are ambivalent to the EU.


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