Red Europe versus no Europe? The impact of attitudes towards the EU and the economic crisis on radical-left voting

The 2014 European Parliament election saw a relatively large increase in the size of radical-left parties (RLPs), particularly in Western Europe. This article aims to provide new ways of thinking about the dynamics of radical-left voting by analysing the changing role of attitudes towards the European Union in explaining support for RLPs at European Parliament elections during the Great Recession. It is argued that the Europeanisation of economic issues during the financial crisis, together with the particular kind of Euroscepticism advocated by these parties, have enabled them to successfully attract a heterogeneous pool of voters. Using the 2009 and 2014 European Election Studies, it is shown that the effect of negative opinions about the EU on support for RLPs increased significantly during the crisis. In addition, support for RLPs also increased among voters with positive views of the EU who were nevertheless highly dissatisfied with the economic situation.     

Clinching the ‘Return to Europe’: The Referendums on EU Accession in Estonia and Latvia

There are two salient features of the referendums on EU membership in Estonia and Latvia. Firstly, the results with decisive pro-EU majorities went easily beyond expectations based on previous opinion poll trends, where these two Baltic states had shown less public enthusiasm for integration than other Central and East European countries. This fact owed much to convincing arguments about abandoning international isolation and about geopolitical choice, with strong historical overtones. The anti-accession cause in both countries suffered from various weaknesses even though, in Estonia though not in Latvia, Eurosceptical attitudes were in evidence. Secondly, there was much less support for EU entry among the strong Russian minorities in both countries. This difference was partly due to the higher incidence of economic circumstances in determining voting behaviour but also to the fact that pro-EU (hence, pro-West) arguments were implicitly and sometimes explicitly unfriendly to Russia. In turn, this also showed that the Soviet legacy was particular to these Baltic countries compared with other accession states from CEE.     

For Whose Benefit? Fear and Loathing in the Welfare State

This article contributes to the debate on the relationship between marketing and propaganda through an analysis of social marketing as a mode of governing in permanent campaigning. The working hypothesis is that social marketing operations are agitational rather than propagandistic. The conceptual approach stems from a comparison of propaganda and marketing with Fordist and post-Fordist modes of production and governance. The research into the role of agitation involves an empirical study of the UK government campaign against benefit fraud, the most expensive of its kind. Using a combination of methodologies, the political context is framed through a discourse analysis that charts the historical emergence of the problem of benefit fraud and the material effects of this discourse on welfare spending allocation, content analysis is used to identify correspondences between different newspapers’ rhetoric and policy under different governments, and semiotic analysis helps to decode the message of the campaign against benefit fraud, as it relates to the overall government's strategy on this issue. The study offers insights into the political strategy of the government of New Labour between 1997 and 2010 and its resort to agitational techniques, exposing the limitations of government marketing and public relations in the context of an overall crisis of its political legitimacy, in both economic and political terms.     

Adapting to Europe? Regional MPs' Involvement in EU Affairs in Germany

The Lisbon Treaty has led to an expansion of the rights of parliaments in scrutinizing EU decision making, including—for the first time—also regional parliaments. Yet, theoretically informed empirical work on how regional legislatures adapt to the increasing relevance of the EU for subnational jurisdictions remains scarce. Drawing on data from an original survey of 251 MPs, conducted in seven German Länder in 2011, we explore regional MPs' involvement in EU affairs. We find strong variation among MPs' level of EU involvement. Exploring different sets of explanations, we show that individual-level factors—the perceived salience of the EU and MPs' perceived influence in EU matters—hold the highest explanatory power.     

First or Second Order Referendums? Understanding the Votes on the EU Constitutional Treaty in Four EU Member States

This article uses post-referendum Flash-Eurobarometer surveys to analyse empirically voter attitudes towards the EU Constitution in four member states. The theoretical model used incorporates first and second order variables for voting to ascertain whether the outcome of the vote was a reflection of either first or second order voting behaviour. It is hypothesised that the cleavage politics over integration in the European arena had a major impact on the four votes, as captured by three first order variables: ‘Europhile’ and ‘Constitution-phile’ attitudes and ‘Egocentric Europeanness’, respectively. The quantitative analyses – controlling for a number of dimensions – strongly supports the hypothesis when compared with a model using solely second order party identification variables. These findings establish that how voters understood the EU polity, in particular whether membership is beneficial to one's own country, was a crucial factor in all the referendums. Implications for future research include the need to discover the cues or proxies influencing first order voting within domestic politics.     

Perils of development funding? The tale of EU Funds and grand corruption in Central and Eastern Europe

Given the unprecedented scale of intergovernmental development funding and the importance of institutional quality for human well‐being, it is imperative to precisely understand the impact of development funds on corruption. In Europe, European Union (EU) Funds provide a boost to public spending in recipient member states while introducing additional corruption controls. We investigate whether EU Funds increase high‐level corruption in the Czech Republic and Hungary in 2009–2012. We analyze newly collected data from over 100,000 public procurement contracts to develop objective corruption risk indicators and link them to agency level data in the public sector. Propensity score matching estimations suggest that EU funds increase corruption risk by up to 34 percent. The negative effects are largely attributable to overly formalistic compliance and EU Funds overriding domestic accountability mechanisms in public organizations entirely dependent on external funds. The policy implications are profound: governments should reduce barriers to market entry by lowering red tape and prevent excessive concentration of funds.     

Is anyone listening? Mass and elite opinion cueing in the EU

The paper analyses the connections between elite and mass opinion in the European Union. It considers both the ways in which mass publics use heuristics supplied by political elites to form their EU opinions, and the ways in which political elites respond to the opinions of the mass publics they represent. The paper employs data from simultaneously-conducted elite and mass surveys carried out in sixteen European countries in 2007. The results show that masses and elites in Europe do appear to take cues from one another in forming their EU opinions. Political elites base their individual-level opinions on the average position taken by their respective (national) party supporters. Mass respondents base their opinions on the average position taken by elite members of the (national) party with which they identify.     

Implementing Social Europe in Times of Crises: Re-established Boundaries of Welfare?

This volume examines the state of social Europe when European Union principles and policies have to be implemented in the member states while the EU legitimacy crisis and the Great Recession prevail. The volume explores diverse processes, stages and subjects of implementation in a variety of social policies to identify different institutional dynamics and actor behaviours at play. The individual contributions examine the transposition of the patients’ rights directive to the Europeanisation of pension reforms; the role of national parliaments in transposing social Europe; judicial Europeanisation; and the multi-level enforcement of EU decisions. Theoretically, the volume highlights that implementation is often conditioned by domestic politics or comes as a ‘random walk’ due to organisational and cognitive constraints. Empirically, the volume has three main findings. First, the constitutive components of the EU tend to have a contradictory impact on the EU’s social policies and the national welfare systems. Second, crises influence the implementation of social Europe, at times leading to a modification of fundamental principles and content, but not across the board. Third, as a result, there is evidence of differentiated Europeanisation.     

Blackening Skies for Chinese Investment in the EU?

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment (COFDI) in the European Union (EU) has recently increasingly drawn attention because of the opacity of...     

Why does bureaucratic corruption occur in the EU?

Why does bureaucratic corruption occur in the EU system? Several examples suggest that bureaucratic corruption exists and that the Commission’s anti-fraud agency, OLAF, is not a fully independent authority. We thus develop a novel interpretation of the principal-supervisor-agent model to cope with non-independent anti-fraud units. This model shows that corruption is likely to occur when the expected value to the client from bribing the agent is larger than the expected value to the principal of truth-telling by the supervisor. Overall, this analysis points to the risks of flawed incentives and the lack of institutional independence among principal, agent, supervisor and client. Our main policy recommendations as a result of these findings are that OLAF should be placed outside the Commission, and that whistleblowers should receive adequate protection.     

UK Labour and the EU Single Market: ‘Social Europe’ or ‘Capitalist Club’?

This article looks at the UK Labour Party’s view of the EU single market over the last four decades, focussing on three case study periods when this issue was particularly salient: first, the time of the single market’s introduction under Neil Kinnock’s leadership; second, the A8 accession with Tony Blair as Labour Prime Minister; and third, between the 2016 European referendum and 2019 general election during Jeremy Corbyn’s time as party leader. This historical narrative uses the theoretical approach of Harvard economist Dani Rodrik—of a ‘trilemma’ faced by national policy makers in response to globalisation—as a lens to describe a clear arc in Labour’s policy towards the single market across the three case studies. A position of initial scepticism moved to support under Kinnock’s leadership, and then active encouragement under Blair, before coming back again under Corbyn to uncomfortable non-commitment. This arc directly correlates with the ebb and flow of the party’s overall economic approach—first the Keynesian, national Alternative Economic Strategy at the time of the party’s 1983 general election defeat; then, the deviation under Blair to a policy that actively encouraged cross-border market liberalisation; and finally the return to an Alternative Economic Strategy-style approach under Corbyn.     

Does the UK Have Influence in the EU Legislative Process?

The UK has influenced some major EU policies, such as the creation of the single market and enlargement. But how influential are the UK government and British MEPs in the day‐to‐day EU legislative process? To answer this question, this article analyses recent data from the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. The evidence is mixed. In the Council, in recent years the UK government has been outvoted more often than any other EU government, yet UK officials remain well connected ‘behind the scenes’. In the European Parliament, British MEPs are now more likely to be on the losing side than are the MEPs of any other member state, yet British MEPs still win key committee chairs and rapporteurships. The evidence suggests that if the UK votes to remain in the EU, Britain's political elites will need to re‐engage with Brussels politics if the UK is to avoid becoming further marginalised from mainstream EU politics.     

Concede and Move On? One Nation Labour and the Welfare State

The idea that Labour has already lost the argument on welfare with the Conservatives, and with it the general election, is probably overplayed. If truth be told, Labour's construction and subsequent defence of the welfare state has always been something of a double‐edged sword for the Party, earning it brickbats as well as support, and sometimes as stranding it in the past, committing it to promises that were undeliverable and ultimately self‐defeating. The political response by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to the welfare trap set for them by David Cameron and George Osborne owes as much to New Labour as it does to ‘One Nation Labour’. That said, the latter does seem to be informing the Party's policy response, in particular its emphasis on restoring the contributory principle. Whether, however, this is practical politics given the inherently hybrid nature of Britain's welfare state and its heavy skew toward help for the elderly is a moot point. And whether ‘One Nation’ actually helps or hinders the Party in its quest for workable policies and a winning electoral formula is similarly debateable. Certainly, however much it is tempted to do so, Labour shouldn't waste too much valuable time trying to counter widespread myths about welfare. Nor should it overreact and obsess about the issue—or, indeed, pour out detailed policy too soon, if at all. Obviously, Labour needs to provide a direction of travel. However, that should focus not so much on welfare itself but on what the Party is proposing on the economy, on housing and on wages.     

Immigration and the sociocultural divide in Central and Eastern Europe: Stasis or evolution?

Immigration has historically been of low salience in Central and Eastern Europe. Yet, the region has consistently higher levels of ethnocentrism than the rest of Europe. Scholars argue that the East's limited politicization of immigration is due to its status as a region of emigration and the presence of ethnic minority ‘others’. I argue that this is changing. The politicization of the European refugee crisis by domestic elites has begun to refocus the sociocultural dimension on the immigration issue. Using structural equation models, I compare European Values Study data from 2008 and 2017 across 10 East European EU member states. I find evidence that traditionalist attitudes are more strongly related to anti-immigration attitudes since the crisis, particularly for those who are interested in politics. Further, immigration attitudes are polarizing across the GAL-TAN dimension and by education. Hence, immigration is bolstering a pre-existing, socially structured divide around both nationalist and traditionalist values.     

American Republican Religion? Disentangling the Causal Link Between Religion and Politics in the US

Recent research in American political behavior has examined at length the link between evangelical Protestants and the Republican Party. These works however do not consider the idiosyncratic nature of religiosity in the US, and insist on treating religion as an ‘unmoved mover’ with respect to political contexts. The question posed herein is: during the participation of religious communities in partisan politics, should we expect politics to eventually constrain religious behavior? Motivated by a political social identity approach, I use American National Election Study panel data and structural equation modeling techniques to explore the untested possibility that religious and political factors are linked through reciprocal causation. Conditional upon religious and temporal context, findings highlight the causal impact of ideology and partisanship in shaping religious behavior.     

Financial Centre and Monetary Outsider: How Precarious is the UK's Position in the EU?

The UK's negotiating position in the area of ‘economic governance’ started from the assumption that there is a deep dividing line between insiders and outsiders of the ‘euro zone’. To protect the outsiders, the UK government did not ask for a veto, but for a safeguard mechanism that can postpone a decision in the euro area. This is exactly what David Cameron achieved in the negotiations with Council President Tusk. This article explains why the UK demands were so modest. Key is the peculiar situation of the UK being the major financial centre for a currency union to which it does not belong. Hence, the UK taxpayer needs protection from the City, and EU membership has helped to provide this. There is not much else a UK government could ask for.     

Democracy and Security in the EU’s Eastern Neighborhood? Assessing the ENP in Georgia,Moldova, and Ukraine

This article explores the European Union’s (EU) democratic and security objectives in the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) toward three post-Soviet states: Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. By discussing the ENP’s objectives, this study concludes the following: first, despite long-term ENP democracy promotion, there have been very limited democratic developments in the partner states between 2005 and 2014; second, security challenges remain in partner states in the breakaway regions in Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk in Ukraine. Therefore, EU’s Kantian view of security through democracy has failed, and its ambition to create a ring of Eastern friends has not led to improved relations in the Eastern neighborhood. On the contrary, the EU’s push eastward has instead intensified insecurity in its partner states due to limited democratization.     

The fly in the ointment? Chinese dissent and US–China relations

After the Tiananmen massacre of 4 June 1989 many Chinese pro-democracy activists have been able to settle in the USA. They have attempted to federate all the opposition forces overseas in an organization which aimed at influencing the US government’s policy toward China. However, plagued by factionalism, the opposition in exile has not been able to put to an efficient use the capital of sympathy that it enjoyed at the time of Tiananmen. After the failure of political organizations, Chinese dissidents have created NGOs which are regularly consulted by the Administration and the Congress. Since the mid-eighties, they represent a substantial factor in the making of American policy towards China.