Euroscepticism Among Left and Right-Leaning Voters: The Issue Basis of Voter Attitudes Towards European Integration

This paper analyzes to what extent euroscepticism among left-wing voters is rooted in different concerns than euroscepticism among right-wing voters. On the party level, parties on the left and right extremes are eurosceptical for different reasons: radical right parties base their euroscepticism on their monoculturalist position, whereas radical left parties relate it to their defense of the welfare state. However, research on the voter level modeled attitudes towards European integration solely as part of the cultural dimension. This raises the question to what extent left-wing and right-wing voters relate their euroscepticism to distinct issues. Using cross-national data from the European Social Survey 2008, we study the correlations between euroscepticism and economic and cultural issue dimensions, and how these correlations differ between left-wing and right-wing voters. We also assess whether these correlations differ between countries, and whether these differences can be explained by the presence or absence of radical eurosceptical parties.