Policy Versus Polity: Changing Euroscepticism at Times of Crisis?

Greece has been a country where party and public Euroscepticism have been historically low. This has been attributed to either utilitarian explanations, as Greece has been recipient of large EU funds, or to cultural reasons, i.e. EU membership representing the modernisation and ‘Westernisation’ of Greek society. Prior to the Eurozone crisis party Euroscepticism was contained to the margins of the party system. The changing context of crisis was associated with the electoral rise of Eurosceptic parties, including Syriza, Independent Greeks and the Golden Dawn. This paper will examine changing patterns of party Euroscepticism in Greece through a theoretical framework that differentiates between on the one hand opposition to EU polity, i.e. how much decision-making authority is acceptable to be given to the EU, and opposition to specific EU policies on the other. Using information from the Chapel Hill expert survey, it will show that marginal parties in opposition primarily focus their Euroscepticism on the policy aspect of the EU whereas government parties express Eurosceptic arguments on specific EU policies. The findings have implications for our understanding of the evolving nature of Euroscepticism as well as how it features in domestic party politics.