Paper Titles & Abstracts

This paper seeks to provide a framework of analysis to examine Euroscepticism at the public opinion level. Paul Taggart defined party-based Euroscepticism, as 'encompassing', expressing 'the idea of contingent or qualified opposition' (1998: 365-366), and later proposed a framework to study party based Euroscepticism (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2002). Current debates examine Euroscepticism also at the public opinion and civil society levels and address whether the same framework can be applied to different subjects of analysis (Usherwood et al. 2012). This study investigates the position of British citizens and follows the analysis on 'The Vanishing Voter' by Thomas Patterson (2003) and results on the study of attitudes in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (Guerra 2013). In CEE, three main types of attitudes towards EU integration can be detected: the first is in favour and seeks out more information (Euroenthusiast), the second is in favour but has little knowledge of the EU and is not interested in seeking it out (Euroneutral), and the third opposes EU membership (Eurosceptic) (Guerra 2013). This analysis suggests that Eurosceptic attitudes can be explained by 'alienation' (angry and bitterness towards the EU) at the political or economic level; 'disenchantement' ('spawned by negative news'); 'apathy' (little interest in the EU), with Euroneutral attitudes; and (pro-EU) Euroenthusiast views.