Back or To The Future? The Diverging EU-Attitudes of Voters for Left- and Right-Wing Eurosceptical Parties, 1989-2014

The outcomes of West-European (national and EP) elections are ever more often interpreted as a vote in favour or against Europe. The recent Greek election results even translated into the formation of a ‘eurosceptical coalition’ of the far left and the far right. But to what extent is there an electoral support base for such coalitions? Do voters of left-wing and right-wing anti-EU parties find common ground in their attitudes towards European integration? This paper studies this question by assessing the role of different dimensions of EU-attitudes in voting for eurosceptical (left- and right-wing) parties across Western Europe, using EES survey data from 1989-2014. I find that rather than forming a unified eurosceptic front, left-wing and right-wing voters have drifted further apart: Voters of left-wing eurosceptical parties are moving from hard to soft euroscepticism over time, whereas right-wing eurosceptical parties continue to draw upon euroscepticism in all its possible guises.