Gaining Votes in Europe Against Europe? The Electoral Performance of Anti-EU Parties in the 2014 European Elections

In the wake of the harshest economic crisis since WWII, in several European countries there has been a rise of anti-establishment parties that openly oppose EU austerity policies and EU integration. In this framework of growing political and economic instability, 2014 European elections are a fundamental turning point for these parties, since they want to bring anti-Europe protests within the European Union. How could we define these parties? Which factors can explain their performance in 2014 European elections? Are these factors related to political and institutional contexts or to economic frameworks? In this paper we will answer these questions by using a comparative perspective and a quantitative approach with aggregate data. Specifically, in order to explain the electoral performance of anti-EU parties, we will use macroeconomic indicators and also political and institutional variables, also taking into account previous national elections as a term of comparison.