Democratic Legitimacy and Euroskepticism

York Hall A101. Discussant: Prof. Heather MacRae

How National Circumstances Change Attitudes Towards Deepening or Widening the EU

Victoria Zbrzezniak
Over time, the European Union has progressively evolved into what aspires to be an “ever closer union”, among the peoples of Europe. In 50 years, the European Union has managed to grow from six members, to twenty eight. Two leading schools of thought have often been mentioned when speaking about the future development of the European Union; either deepening or widening. However, since the European sovereign debt crisis in 2009, and the European migrant crisis, beginning in 2015, public opinion surrounding the two schools of thought has shifted. Through the use of Eurobarometer data, this essay will analyze citizens opinions and support for
deepening or widening , and a large focus will be placed on the difference in support for either school of thought based on the member states’ time of joining, GDP and economic success, and overall education levels throughout the country.

Victoria Zbrzezniak is a fourth year international political science student with a certificate in law and social thought, at Glendon university. Her research interests include the pros and cons surrounding further integration and development of the European Union, as well as examining how the organization impacts and effects other organizations and countries around the world, for example Canada through CETA. She intends on pursuing her studies in Canada, and completing  master’s degree in public policy, where she will continue to do further research on Canada’s
relations with the EU.

Doomed to Alienate? How European Integration Feeds Euroscepticism

Yoav Raskin and Tal Sadeh (non-presenting co-author)

European integration has been progressing for decades without necessarily being accompanied by stable domestic political support. This is a puzzle, given that the EU is a democratic organization. Post-functionalist literature has theorized and explained how public attitudes to integration affect the ability of European integration to progress (bottom-up explanations). Equally puzzling though, is how European integration feeds back to shape domestic EU politics (top-down explanations). Existing literature shows that political parties affect voters’ attitudes towards the EU, and point to extreme and disadvantaged parties as to the main drivers of EU politicization. Yet, the mechanism in which integration enables them to do so remained largely unexplored. We aim to fill this gap and argue that extreme parties (on the left-right scale), which are motivated to communicate EU issues to the voters, take advantage of integration events occurring close to national elections, as a substantial source of credibility to Eurosceptic electoral campaigns. We support this argument using data on all parties that contested elections in almost all of the EU member states from 1979 to 2017, and a new dataset of all substantial integration events dates. We find that integration events occurring two months before election day can boost the vote for Eurosceptic campaigns by about 25%. However, in contrast to Post-functionalist expectations, we also find that extreme parties with a Eurosceptic agenda do not gain an advantage in difficult economic times, or in member states that are net contributors to the EU budget. 

Yoav Raskin is a doctoral student in the Ph.D. program at Tel Aviv University and a Fox International Fellow at Yale University. His focus is on policy responsiveness in the context of EU supranational governance. He is a lead researcher in a quantitative research group on the Sustainability of the Eurozone, in which he co-authors two papers on the distribution of gains in the EU and the technocratization of bureaucrats. Yoav is also a policy consultant to the strategic department in the Ministry of Education, coordinating national policy initiatives. As an undergraduate, he was first of his class and included twice on the Rector’s list and six times on the Deans’ lists, in the School of Political Science and the Interdisciplinary Program in the Humanities.

Ideological Crisis, Extreme-Centre and the Economic and Monetary Union

Thibault Biscahie

France is experiencing an acute ideological crisis, whose primary symptom has been the election of extreme-centrist Emmanuel Macron in May 2017. This former banker was able to skilfully co-opt French political figures in his movement En Marche, while rejecting traditional parties. His project nonetheless does not alter the fundamental structures and relations of power inherent to neoliberalism. This situation echoes what Antonio Gramsci called a “passive revolution,” a developmental project of a reactionary kind that fails to involve the masses. Gramsci identified passive revolution as the possible outcome of what he termed an “organic crisis,” the stage beyond a mere economic or political crisis. During such junctures, the relationship between the economic base and the superstructures significantly weakens, the old is dying but the new cannot be born, and the equilibrium of forces is heading towards catastrophe (Gramsci 1971, 219). Because the European Union has barely recovered from the 2008 crisis of capital accumulation and has witnessed the rise of ‘populist’ forces, this paper contends that the Gramscian notion of organic crisis is still very relevant to understand the stalemate of European integration along progressive lines. Taking France as a case study, this paper argues that three interrelated dynamics explain this ideological crisis and the subsequent advent of Macronism. First, the stalemate of the class struggle, with the failure of labour to mobilise against capital, the weakening of corporatist institutions, and an ideological refusal to think antagonism along class lines. The depoliticisation of society is also to blame: individualism and atomisation best define the behaviour of the masses, who have now disaffected traditional political parties. Lastly, the Left/Right cleavage is deemed anachronistic: to govern efficiently and survive in globalisation, it is prescribed to govern in the centre and to undo social protections in order to enhance ‘competitiveness’ in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) framework. Several political entrepreneurs have capitalised on these three factors, such as Tony Blair in the UK, or Matteo Renzi in Italy. Extreme-centrist governments often invoke EMU rules to legitimate their domestic liberalising policies. Indeed, Eurozone member-states have accepted to relinquish a significant part of their prerogatives: the loss of monetary sovereignty means that countries cannot set interest rates and do not have the lender of last resort facility in times of sovereign debt crises. Besides, the fiscal constraints enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty prevent them from investing in public services. The economy is not managed according to the democratic rules of political competition, but according to technocratic homogenizing procedures. In other words, “the ordoliberal iron cage is deeply and structurally embedded” (Ryner 2015, 287). This narrowing of policy options favours the resort to extreme-centrist solutions, characterised by authoritarian tendencies, a weakening of legislative power, a prevalence of discourse and symbols over ideas, and a further entrenchment of neoliberal measures. This ideological crisis, in a wider context of European organic crisis, should invite us to rehabilitate the role of strife in social life and to envisage democratic conflict as a healthy process.

Thibault Biscahie is a doctoral Candidate in the Department of Politics at York University (Toronto), where he specializes in political economy, international relations and comparative politics. His doctoral research examines the election of Emmanuel Macron through a Gramscian lens and aims to understand the implications of Macron’s neoliberal policies and Caesarist governance in a French and European perspective.

The Influence of Religion in the Far-Right Politics of the European Union

Kelsilyn Norman

Far-right political parties have been on the rise throughout the European Union, as can be seen from the results of both national elections as well as European Parliament elections from the recent years. Out of the 28 member states, 17 have influential far-right political parties, with two states having two different major far-right parties. In the European Union, far-right parties tend to have several similarities in ideology, including opposition to immigration (especially from the Muslim world), eurosceptisism, and adherence to traditional family values. Many of these parties use Christianity as a base for their ideology, and many are either Anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, or both, however the relationship between the political party and religion changes from country to country. Studying this relationship can give an idea of why these parties are gaining support, and analyzing the recent history of these 17 countries can give insight into why each party uses religion in their platforms. This study aims to identify the relationship between these 19 far-right political parties and religion, and asks: to what extent does religion influence the platforms of these far-right political parties? First, the election results of national general elections (focusing on elections for the legislative body of government) and European Parliament elections from 1999 to 2019 are analyzed in order to establish trends of the far-right movement in Europe. Then, the platforms of these 19 parties are discussed in terms of their references to religion (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) in relation to policy and ideology, looking to the recent history of these 17 countries to give insight into potential reasons for these relationships.

Kelsilyn Norman is a fourth year student at the State University of New York at Cortland in Cortland, New York, and in May 2020 she will be graduating with three Bachelors degrees in French, Spanish, and International Studies (Area Concentration: Europe). Her primary interest in International Studies is conflict resolution, and she studies about terrorism and counter-terrorism, war crimes, and the political far-right. Her current research is focused on far-right politics in the European Union in relation to religion. After finishing her undergraduate studies, Kelsilyn will go on to pursue a Masters degree in International Peace and Security, followed by a PhD.