Why Do Some Eurosceptic Parties Capitalise on EU Issue Voting While Others Fail? A Radical Right Party Perspective from Southern Europe

Scholarship has long documented growing signs of declining public support for the EU, most visibly through rising anti-EU sentiment and Eurosceptic voting. At the same time, as European integration has shifted from a sleeping giant to a salient and contested political issue, parties across the ideological spectrum have increasingly been able to mobilise voters by articulating their EU positions more forcefully. By emphasising their stances on Europe, these parties have become more effective at attracting supporters whose EU preferences align with their own. Through a longitudinal analysis of EU member states, with a particular focus on Southern Europe—where the radical right has gained substantial support—we show that parties gain or lose electoral support depending on how closely their positions on the EU align with those of voters. This effect is particularly strong when all key components of EU politicisation are present—namely heightened EU salience, a broader range of actors expressing diverse EU positions, and increased polarisation on EU matters. Contrary to the established literature on Eurosceptic mobilisation, we also show that, over time, party pro-EU salience and pro-integration positions have become electorally more advantageous, whereas Eurosceptic stances—after years of successful mobilisation—have started to backfire. In the wake of a series of overlapping crises that have affected the EU in recent decades, a dynamic of pro-EU issue voting has emerged and persisted, sustaining a “Europhile momentum” that began with Brexit and continues today. If Europhile parties have become more competitive and increasingly capable of securing electoral gains on the EU dimension, not all forms of Euroscepticism have lost their appeal. We show that some hard-line Eurosceptic positions, especially of radical right parties, continue to mobilise segments of the electorate. We therefore investigate why some Eurosceptic parties continue to capitalise on EU issue voting while others do not. By adopting a radical right party perspective, we provide a comprehensive account of party–voter congruence on Euroscepticism and its electoral consequences, both in general and in the context of Southern Europe.