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Category: Project

Description: Ample literature studies bargaining in the Council of the European Union (EU) and how it is driven by electoral politics and responsiveness to voters’ preferences. Much less attention was given to studying the reverse causal link, i.e., whether Eurosceptic parties in national governments that use this position to act against European integration receive greater electoral support in national and European elections. We argue that pro-EU voters support (desert) mainstream parties in government that act to promote (frustrate) European integration, and anti-EU voters support (desert) Eurosceptic parties in government that act to frustrate (promote) European integration. However, anti-EU voters will not support mainstream parties in government even if they act to frustrate European integration. In contrast, pro-EU voters will not support Eurosceptic parties in government even if they act to promote European integration. Eurosceptic voters reward mainstream governments that deliver a greater share of benefits because they value relative gains, while pro-EU voters also appreciate measures that promote European integration. However, support for Eurosceptic governments is less responsive to such benefits if they are deemed as a signal that the government has sacrificed its Eurosceptic agenda and engaged in mainstream-type compromise. We test our arguments using both model-based analysis and experimental design. For the former, we use data on EU budget allocations since the 1970s, nationally-aggregated Eurobarometer data, and party manifesto coding. For the experimental part, we intend to implement a paired-profile conjoint experiment among citizen-residents of Italy.