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The Eurosceptic Turn and its Impact on European Democracy and Governance

European Union
Political Parties
Populism
P327
Maurits Meijers
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Alexandru Filip
Jacobs University Bremen

Building: Jean-Brillant, Floor: 2, Room: B-2305

Saturday 14:00 - 15:40 EDT (29/08/2015)

Abstract

The contributions of this panel examine the way how radical parties, or niche parties, that typically hold Eurosceptic views have dealt and engaged with the issues of European integration. The contributions depart from the supposition that Eurosceptic radicals can be discarded as mere noise on the fringes. Instead, all four contributions examine the dynamics of Europeanization processes adopting both top-down and bottom-up approaches. In this respect, the four papers gauge the extent to which these parties play a role in European policy-making processes, the influence they can bear on other political actors and the extent to which these parties converge in positional terms. The paper by Maurits Meijers whether the electoral success of Eurosceptic challenger parties influences mainstream party positions on European integration. The paper by Markus Ketola and Johan Nordensvard investigates the extent to which the labour market policies of populist parties in Sweden, Germany and United Kingdom are converging arguing we are witnessing a process of Europeanisation of the populist right politics. In the light of recent financial and euro crisis the paper by Alexandru Filip examines whether mainstream parties maintain their standard discourse and policy positions unaltered or whether they are they forced to qualify their typical pro-European stances. Franziska Schmidtke’s analysis of the parliamentary behaviour of far-right parties during the 7th EP term demonstrates that far-right MEPs tend to be very active in plenum, while they are less involved in committee work. In a second step, the paper examines whether the ideological differences between far right Eurosceptics and other Eurosceptics translate into a differentiation in parliamentary activities.

Title Details
Europeanisation of Welfare Discourses of European Populist Parties? View Paper Details
Far-Right Ideology on Stage: Parliamentary Activities within the European Parliament View Paper Details
Contagious Euroscepticism? The Impact of Radical Right and Left Euroscepticism on Mainstream Parties View Paper Details