National identity and political orientation in Europe - Дипломная работа

FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES National identity and political orientation in Europe. Radical left and right euroscepticism. Field of Study in Sociology Master’s Program “Comparative Social Research”, academic group № CSR141 Dracheva Alina Moscow 2016 Table of Contents Introduction 1. Theoretical background 1.1 Literature review: individual-level drivers of euroscepticism 1.2 Nationalism and radical left- and right-wing party euroscepticism: mirrored at the individual level? 1.3 Ethnic nationalism, ethnic identity and radical right euroscepticism 1.4 Civic nationalism, civic identity and radical left euroscepticism 2. Data, methodology & results 2.1 Database 2.2 Measurement of euroscepticism 2.3 Measurement of radical left- and right-wing political orientation 2.4 Measurement of national identity 2.5 Control variables 2.6 Method 2.7 Results Conclusion References Appendix Introduction euroscepticism ethnic nationalism Public euroscepticism in Europe has gained considerable ground during the last decennium. Failed ratification of the European Constitution, delayed signature of the Lisbon Treaty, infamous economic crisis of the Eurozone, social unrest and contention over austerity measures led to the historically low levels of public confidence in the institutions and policies of the European Union. Many Europeans started to blame the EU for the failure of euro currency and for the loss of some vital resources in local communities due to austerity measures, as well as for the crisis of democracy that manifested itself in the lack of legitimacy of the EU institutions. The results of 2009 and 2014 European Parliament elections showed growing support for radical political parties that had launched harsh criticism towards further European integration. More recently, the immigration crisis in Europe that sparked in 2015 fueled far-right euroscepticism. Radical right-wing politicians accused the EU of its immigration policy as they deemed it inefficient and largely imposed by Germany. Euroscepticism as a social and political phenomenon becomes an issue that needs to be studied and understood, its reasons and underlying mechanisms have to be revealed. Euroscepticism is mostly found on the opposite extremes of left-right political spectrum. Radical left- and right-wing parties in Europe have put forward a shared anti-integration agenda and have demonstrated their capacity to mobilize the electorate and gain significant support. In France, the Front National, a radical right eurosceptic party, won the European Parliament election in 2014 with 24.85% of the vote; on the other side of the political spectrum, Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the Left Front, opposed the Lisbon Treaty and condemned economic liberalism of the European union. In Greece, the governing coalition of the radical right, represented by Independent Greeks, and the radical left (Syriza) exemplifies unified eurosceptic stances on both ends of the left-right divide. Existing research on radical left- and right-wing parties underlies the differences in these parties’ origins and their ideological stances (Halikiopoulou, Nanou & Vasilopoulou, 2012). Ideologically, the radical right of the political spectrum is closely tied with nationalism. In their agendas, radical right-wing parties focus on the importance of external threats, socio-economic as well as cultural, that are coming from the outside of the national borders (Hainsworth, 2008) and policies unfavorable for refugees and migrants (Mudde, 2007). The ideology of radical left is centered on the three common elements: rejection of the free market economy and values of the capitalist society; protection of people’s social and economic rights in order to approach economic equality and social justice; and the pursuit of international communication between states in order to deal with shared problems (March & Mudde, 2005). However, despite all these differences between radical left- and right-wing parties, there is evidence for a common ideological element - nationalism - that leads to their shared views on the European Union (Halikiopoulou et al., 2012). Radical left-wing parties appear to oppose European integration due to their nationalist narratives, which they theoretically should confront on ideological grounds. Although there are a number of studies on how party positions on the issue of European integration are structured, there is not much theoretical and empirical work done as to how the public opinion towards the EU is structured with regard to political ideology. A recent article by van Elsas, Hakhverdian and van der Brug shows evidence for different motivations of left- and right-wing euroscepticism: according to their research, the former is driven mainly by economic reasons, while the latter is motivated by cultural concerns (van Elsas et al., 2016). However,