Determinants of Euroscepticism in Southern Europe After the Great Recession

One of the most obvious/prominent consequences of the economic and financial crisis in the countries of Southern Europe is the shift in the attitudes towards the European project. The economic crisis has triggered more Eurosceptical or Eurocritical stances both among citizens and political elites in the four countries of “Old Southern Europe”, namely Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. The fact that from the onset of the economic crisis these four traditionally pro-European societies have entered into the group of countries where Eurosceptic attitudes constitute majority opinions has emerged the main research question of explaining the causal mechanism beyond it. Previous studies have tried to provide evidence about it (see e.g. Freire, Moury, Teperoglou 2014; Clements, Nanou & Verney 2014, Serricchio, Tsakatika & Quaglia 2013; Braun & Tausendpfund 2014; Verney forthcoming). Moreover, in these countries there is also some evidence of a politicization of the EU dimension (Schmitt & Teperoglou 2015). However, since the period of economic turmoil at least in some countries is getting behind, a major question is whether the critical stances towards the European project are more conjunctural and related to the economic crisis or more lasting and deep-seated both for voters and political elites. The main aim of the paper is to offer exactly an assessment and identification of any lasting effects of the crisis on the attitudes of Southern European citizens towards Europe. We will explore the evolution of public opinion about European integration and the European institutions in a diachronic and comparative perspective focusing on three different phases: before the onset of the crisis (late 2000) to the explosion/ pick of the crisis and the period of the new equilibrium and stabilization. The second main goal of the paper is to explore at the micro level of analysis the determinants of Euroscepticism over this time frame. Here we aim to fill a gap in the previous literature. From this point of view, we will examine ideology, partisanship, the evaluation of the economic situation as possible mediators. Finally, following the study by van Elsas et al. (2016) another research question is whether there are indeed particular varieties of Euroscepticism in Southern Europe. At the focus of our analysis are the citizens’ attitudes. We will use fresh data from voters’ studies. However, depending on the availability of comparable data comparisons will be also made with the political elites of the countries, aiming to identify points of converge and diverge among the political personnel and the electorate. Overall, the paper aims to provide evidence about the emergence or not of a transnational cleavage (Hooghe & Marks 2018) among the Southern European societies.