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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Evolution and Trends of Eurosceptic Success

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The evolution of Euroscepticism in the countries of Western Europe has not had a linear character—parties of various ideologies and political colour have taken up the mantle of Euroscepticism over the years, while their success has risen and waned. While the aim here is to provide nomothetic, ceteris paribus results that provide an overview of Eurosceptic Contagion at the level Western Europe as a whole (and makes the argument that the shift in policy positions is an EU15 wide phenomenon), it is important to see how the fate of Eurosceptic Parties has risen and declined at various times in individual, discrete countries. A simple glance at this more descriptive data reveals various interesting things. First, the success of Eurosceptic parties has not evolved similarly in all countries over time. In some countries, it has been growing slowly but steadily, while in others it experienced more sudden changes in support. In some countries, the Eurosceptic scene has identified with one specific party across the years and decades (where the difference between that Eurosceptic leader and other parties was very big). In others yet, several small Eurosceptic parties have each contributed a bit to the cumulative vote total of populist anti-EU actors. In the former situation, the line describing the evolution of the biggest Eurosceptic Party is almost identical to the one describing the evolution of total cumulated votes going to Eurosceptic parties. In the latter, the two trends are distinct. In some instances, both types of evolution can be present in one country, where one period was characterized by Eurosceptic voters split among various populist parties and where one party managed with time to establish itself as the go-to anti-EU alternative: what I term the ‘Flagship’ Eurosceptic party. This chapter provides information on five indicators from each country: Total Vote Percentage for all Eurosceptic Parties (Total EP), Total Vote Percentage for Left-Wing Eurosceptic Parties (Total LEP), and Right-Wing Eurosceptic Parties (Total REP), as well as information on the percentage of votes gained at every election by the then biggest left-wing (Biggest LEP) and biggest right-wing (Biggest REP) Eurosceptic Party. Plotting these trends side by side in each country allows a comparison of the evolution of right-wing and left-wing Euroscepticism in each polity.