Understanding the Success of Fringe Anti-European Union Parties at European Parliament Elections in New Democracies

Why do fringe parties keep emerging and winning votes and seats in European Parliament (EP) elections? While the first EP elections have been largely ignored by media, politicians, and voters alike in the 1980s (Reif and Schmitt 1980), the more recent smanifestations of these elections made scholars rethink the ‘second order national elections’ label initially attached to them. It is surprising then that in the context of increased relevance of EP elections’ debates and outcome for EU politics (Hobolt et all 2008), the question of what capacity fringe parties have to emerge and establish themselves as credible competitors has been largely unexplored. This paper attempts to fill in this void and analyzes the capacity of fringe parties to compete and win votes in the last 3 waves of EP elections (2004-2014). As geographical concentration this study focuses specifically on the new democracies that joined the EU in 2004, as an area that shares a weak institutionalized party system, pervasive perceptions of highly corrupt national elites, and substantial variation in overtime positive approval rates of EU membership. The main goal of the paper is twofold: first, it aims to establish a typology of fringe parties’ success at EP elections by focusing on the issues that define these fringe parties, such as the left-right ideological positions, the EU stances, as well as other ethnic and regional specifications. Here, the paper suggests that EP elections constitute institutional opportunities for strong anti-EU parties fulfilling then an essential role in the EU: EP elections, with their secondary role in the hierarchy of electoral contestation, facilitate rather than hinder EU politicization. Secondly, it systematically investigates the factors which facilitate the emergence and success of these fringe competitors across these new EU democracies by paying close attention to changes in macro-economic indicators and electoral system characteristics.