Does Euroscepticism Matter? The Effects of Euroscepticism Upon European Integration at the Member-State Level.

A large amount of research has focused upon the causes of euroscepticism, however, very little research has looked at the actual effects of euroscepticism upon European integration. This paper looks at the effect of the aggregative level of euroscepticism in each EU member state upon the time it takes that state to implement EU directives. Using a theoretical framework based upon the existing literature concerning the responsiveness of democratic leaders to citizens’ opinions influence policy outputs, I derive two hypotheses. The first of these hypotheses supposes that the overall level of euroscepticism in a state is positively related to the amount of time between an EU directive being issued and its adoption at the state level. The second of these hypotheses supposes that the effect of euroscepticism will not be uniform across all issue areas. These hypotheses are tested using a unique dataset that combines euroscepticism measures from annual Eurobaromemter surveys and data derived from the official government sources of the European Union and its member states. Due to the nature of the dependent variable as a count variable negative binomial regression is used to test these hypotheses with predicted probabilities reported.