Potential for contestation on European matters at national elections in Europe

Introduction: the differentiated politicisation of European governance

“…The Habermasians understand more public debate as a precondition for democratic collective will-formation and for holding those in power to account (Rauh and Zürn 2014;Risse 2015;Statham and Trenz 2015). Elitists rather focus on the articulation of conflict, and its pressure on partisan elites to take a stance on Europe to offer voters a meaningful choice during elections (Follesdal and Hix 2006;Van der Eijk and Franklin 2004). Finally, consociationalists warn about the centrifugal effects of conflict in heterogeneous polities like the EU whose stability relies on the capacity of elites to make compromises behind closed doors (Bartolini 2006;Papadopoulos and Magnette 2010).…”

Modelling the dynamics of support for a right-wing populist party: the case of UKIP

“…See also Clarke et al (1992: ch. 4);Schofield (1993); Steenbergen and Scott (2004); Van der Eijk and Franklin (2004);Nagel and Wlezien (2010);Stevens (2013). See also Dalton (2013), Lewis-Beck, Nadeau and Foucault (2013).…”

Cautious Voters -Supportive Parties

“…Thus they argued that, whereas policy representation may be failing on specific EU policy issues, it does seem to work fairly well as far as the overall development of integration is concerned. Finally, using data from the 1999 European Election Study (EES), in which voters were asked to place both themselves and the parties on the anti/pro-integration dimension, Van der Eijk and Franklin (2004) showed that the diversity of opinion among the electorate was not reflected at the level of the parties. There was thus, according to those authors, 'potential for contestation' on EU matters, with the EU issue being a 'sleeping giant' in European politics.…”