The Institutional Roots of the Electoral Rise of the Euroskeptic Parties

The last European elections were characterized by a growth in many countries of the percentage of votes in favor of Euroskeptic parties. However this growth has not been uniform. While for example the Euroskeptic parties have obtained 30.9% of votes in Italy and 34.4% in the Netherlands, in Germany they have not exceeded 8% and they were essentially absent in Spain (De Sio et al. 2014).This paper suggests that the characteristics of the national political institutions, by interacting with macroeconomic conditions, affect the chances for anti-system parties (and in particular the euroskeptic ones) to enhance their electoral fortunes. With reference to the European Elections of 2014, this hypothesis is tested by logistic regression models on data from the European Election Study (Voter Study 2014), integrated by data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (from Module 2nd to 4th) in relation to the previous period.