1,721,074 research outputs found
Is ‘Eurorealism’ the new ‘Euroscepticism’? Modern conservatism, the European Conservatives and Reformists and European integration
No full textIn 2009, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron announced the creation of a new pan-European group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). This group, often considered as ‘soft Eurosceptic’ in the existing literature, is mostly composed of right-wing, nationalist and conservative political parties working together to “reform the EU on the basis of Eurorealism, Openness, Accountability and Democracy”. This chapter analyses the evolution of right-wing Euroscepticism at the transnational and pan-European levels, and the development of ‘Eurorealism’ as an alternative to the notion of ‘Euroscepticism’. It attempts to offer a clear definition of this term and to understand why the ECR group was so successful in attracting new parties following the 2014 European elections. More particularly, this chapter aims at explaining why historically pro-European and ‘hard Eurosceptic’ parties switched their stance to adopt a more critical (or more favourable) position on European integration by joining the ECR
Towards an ‘ever more differentiated Union'?: Measuring demand for European (dis)integration
No full textSince the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, the EU has seen a dramatic increase in the use of various mechanisms of differentiation, be it temporal, territorial or functional. As of today, more than fifty percent of EU policies have been affected by differentiation. While much of the existing literature on differentiated integration has focused on the supply side of differentiation, little attention has been paid to the demand for differentiation. Based on party manifesto and Eurobarometer analysis, this chapter attempts to fill a gap in the literature by focusing on two domestic actors that shape demand for differentiation, namely political parties and public opinion. It is argued that given the saliency of this issue, party positions on European integration are now best measured through the lens of preferences on differentiation, per policy area. The chapter further demonstrates that even more needs to be done to analyze how citizens understand the causes and effects of differentiated integration; countries that experience differentiation as a result of referendums tend to display the strongest support for national decision-making in various policy areas
France at the Crossroads : Societal Challenges to the Welfare State during Nicolas Sarkozy's and Francois Hollande's Presidential Terms
No full textFrance has established itself as one of the most ‘generous’ welfare states in the world. The Great Recession of 2007–8 confronted French social policy with escalating unemployment and deepening inequalities. Combined with major pension reforms, these led to strong levels of dissatisfaction across the country, exacerbated by tensions over immigration, Euroscepticism, and internal security problems. This chapter examines how these issues developed in political context and uses material from attitude surveys to analyse existing and future challenges for the welfare state in France. It assesses recent reforms: governments of right and left offered contrasting programmes but failed to win public trust. France now stands at a cross-roads, facing a strong presidential challenge from the anti-immigrant, anti-EU right
Conclusion and Epilogue: Transnational and pan-European Euroscepticism after Brexit
No full textAs Mudde (2012) posits, Euroscepticism has become something of a ‘cottage industry’ that has subsequently expanded significantly. However, in spite of a voluminous body of work outlining different approaches as to how we define a Eurosceptic, a singular idea of what Euroscepticism actually represents is yet to be widely agreed. The complexity of disaggregating criticism of a specific European Union (EU) policy from sustained contestation of the European project has led to the resilience of the basic Taggart-Szczerbiak model of hard/soft Euroscepticism (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2002). More recently this complexity has been accentuated by the increase in velocity of the presence of Euroscepticism in European party systems and civil society. As a result it has become something of an impossible task to adequately develop a taxonomy for understanding opposition to European integration, as it evolves at such a pace
Towards an ‘ever more differentiated Union'?: Measuring demand for European (dis)integration
No full textSince the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, the EU has seen a dramatic increase in the use of various mechanisms of differentiation, be it temporal, territorial or functional. As of today, more than fifty percent of EU policies have been affected by differentiation. While much of the existing literature on differentiated integration has focused on the supply side of differentiation, little attention has been paid to the demand for differentiation. Based on party manifesto and Eurobarometer analysis, this chapter attempts to fill a gap in the literature by focusing on two domestic actors that shape demand for differentiation, namely political parties and public opinion. It is argued that given the saliency of this issue, party positions on European integration are now best measured through the lens of preferences on differentiation, per policy area. The chapter further demonstrates that even more needs to be done to analyze how citizens understand the causes and effects of differentiated integration; countries that experience differentiation as a result of referendums tend to display the strongest support for national decision-making in various policy areas
The Europeanization of the Welfare State: The Case for a 'Differentiated European Social Model'
No full textSince the ratification of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the European integration project has been committed to reducing inequalities between member states. However, social inequalities remain high, and public support for the welfare state varies between countries. Some experts have suggested a common European social policy. This chapter analyses recent developments and future prospects at the European Union level. After discussing the initial ambitions of social policy harmonization, it focuses on the role of the EU during the Great Recession by examining the range of policy responses advocated by Brussels in order to fight against a multi-faceted crisis. These are dominated by the tightening of austerity, but include social investment and greater labour market flexibility. The final section reflects on the future of European integration after Brexit. It argues that further common policy development is only likely through agreements restricted to a particular a number of member states in an ‘ever more differentiated Europe’
Improving the political judgement of citizens: Why the task environment matters
Get PDFInternal political efficacy (that is, beliefs about one's ability to process and participate effectively in politics) is known to be shaped by factors such as levels of interest in politics, trust in institutions and awareness of political developments and debates. In this article, we show that the task environment also has an impact on internal political efficacy, and that little research has been done on this issue. We draw on data from focus groups in Australia, where citizens were asked to make political judgements in contrasting task environments: state elections and the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite. We examine four features of task environments: framing choice; issue content; the nature of available cues; and whether the task environment stimulates cognitive effort. We conclude that concerns about the internal political efficacy of voters should be addressed by exploring how the task environment created for political choice might be made more amenable in order to improve the political judgement of citizens.</p
Introduction: Transnational and Pan-European Euroscepticism
No full textThe term Euroscepticism first appeared in the context of the United Kingdom (UK) in the mid-1980s. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a ‘Euro-sceptic’ as a person who is not enthusiastic about increasing the powers of the European Union (EU; see Harmsen and Spiering 2004: 14). It was, however, not until Delors’s three-phase plan for Monetary Union and the subsequent preparations for the 1992 Treaty on European Union (TEU) that opposition towards the EU fully emerged as a major issue across EU nation states. There is no doubt that Maastricht, as the TEU is commonly labelled, acted as a key turning point in the evolution of the Eurosceptic debate. For many supporters and opponents alike it signalled the new politicisation of European integration with the name change from ‘European Community’ to ‘European Union’ a symbolic confirmation of this development. As Usherwood and Startin (2013) testify, it marked the moment when divisions between European and domestic policy within the member states began to become increasingly blurred both in terms of perception and reality and when opposition to ‘Europe’ changed from being a straightforward question concerning the pros and cons of EU membership to one that was couched much more in terms of the rationale of the route that the European project is taking. After Maastricht EU referendums become a feature of the political landscape in certain member states and, partly as a reflection of negative public opinion, politicians in many countries increasingly utilised Eurosceptic discourse to gain political advantage. The result of these post-Maastricht events has been the emergence of Euroscepticism as a permanent feature of national debates on Europ
Democratic Forums and Welfare State Attitudes
No full textThe Democratic Forum approach makes a major contribution to understanding what people want from the welfare state and what they think is possible and to the framings that connect their ideas. Our work shows how intergenerational solidarity and support for the core welfare state services (healthcare and pensions) remain resilient across Europe, while views on inequality and, most importantly, on immigration differ between countries. Despite conflict, the dominant view across most of Europe is that immigration tensions can be managed through social and cultural integration. In the UK the primary stance is exclusionary and chauvinist.In other policy areas the emphasis in popular ideas is shifting from old to young. The most striking finding is the strength with which social investment policies involving childcare, training, education and support into work are endorsed, for different reasons, in all five countries. Older people, especially in richer countries, are willing to make sacrifices to help their children’s generation.Trust in government plays a strong role in welfare state attitudes, and the UK also stands out in the lack of public confidence in the capacity of its government to sustain decent services.<br/
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