Dr Simona Guerra

How we study and see the European Union (EU) affect how we engage with it. Recent works on biographies of relevant women for the European integration process and on gender and EU politics contribute to the mainstreaming of gender in EU studies. Yet, we still lack the presence of women in the narrative on the early stages of European history and politics, where women’s absence is well visible in their persistent marginalization. This analysis contributes to this debate by suggesting the definitive establishment of studies on the women of these early years as makers and shapers of European integration. La façon dont nous étudions et voyons l'Union européenne (UE) affecte notre interaction avec celle-ci. Des travaux récents sur les biographies de femmes qui ont joué un rôle central pour le processus d'intégration européenne ainsi que sur le genre et la politique de l'UE contribuent à l'intégration du genre dans les études européennes. Pourtant, les femmes restent encore largement absentes et marginalisées dans les récits des premières étapes de l'histoire et de la politique européennes. Cet article contribue à ce débat en suggérant l’établissement définitif d’un champ d'études sur les femmes et leur rôle de créatrices et façonneuses de l’intégration européenne.

When in 2001, levels of public support for the European Union (EU) suddenly dropped to 53 per cent, commentators and analysts looked at Poland as the new Eurosceptic member state, even defined as the (new) 'awkward' partner of the EU. Despite the comments, support for the EU has remained stable and as high as 87 per cent since the first few years of membership, in 2004-2006. This chapter introduces the main theories to explain public support for the EU and addresses the salience of an 'unconditional support', before the social costs of the negotiation process were experienced prior to joining the EU. After accession benefits immediately materialised and affective and economic reasons make Poland one of the most supportive EU member states.

This paper examines the long-term impact of the economic crisis on citizens’ trust towards the EU. Political trust is expected to support the foundation of the institutions and, in this case, it reflects a diffuse form of support. The analysis studies what factors affect trust (additive index, 0 to 10) towards the EU, by using the 2007 and 2018 EB data. Findings demonstrate that the crisis affected lowering levels of trust towards the EU, but not how trust is structured. By applying a similar framework of analysis to examine support for the EU, the analysis finds that trust is explained by both affective and rational utilitarian dimensions, and the comparative research design stresses the distinctiveness of the domestic politics of EU integration. Education and the economy are likely to be critical factors across Eastern Europe; national identity holds a consistent negative relationship across Western Europe; and attachment towards the EU is always the most predominantly significant factor in Southern Europe.

This chapter provides an overview of trends in public opinion towards the European Union (EU). The chapter also discusses the key factors thought to explain differences in mass opinion regarding the EU. These include political economy and rationality; that is, opinions stemming from calculations about the costs and benefits of the EU; perceptions of the national government (domestic proxies); the influence of political elites; political psychology, including cognitive mobilization (attentiveness to politics) and concerns about the loss of national identity; and, finally, the role of the mass media in driving opinions regarding the EU.

In this chapter, we approach the ideological trajectory of 19 th century Russian populism, focusing on the challenges and contradictions that the Narodniki faced in their aspirations and practices. By rejecting the time's politico-economic and social developments occurring in the West, the Narodniki hoped to advance a grassroots revolutionary movement without resorting to politics, and to develop socialism in Russia without passing through capitalism. The tactics developed by different Narodniki groups in their efforts to connect with the peasantry, did not bring the expected results to overthrow the tsarist autocracy and develop socialism. Therefore, some Narodniki groups came to engage with conspiratory activities, while others came closer to Marxism. Our analysis foregrounds the features of the Narodniki, their theoretical and political relations and differences with Marxism in particular, and at the same time, it also discusses the affinities and differences of the Russian populists with contemporary populist phenomena.

Populism has gained new momentum in Southern Europe during the financial crisis. Germany’s role as top creditor fueled anger toward traditional political elites in Greece, whereas Podemos exploited the same crisis in Spain to “generate discursively a popular identity that [could] be politicized.” Drawing upon Derrida’s aporetic notion of hospitality, the article argues that left-wing populism in Greece and Spain projects an antagonistic Other. This Other, both threatening and welcomed at the home of the people, oscillates ambiguously between images of the EU and corrupted national political elites. To support this argument, our narrative proceeds with comparative discourse analysis, looking at speeches of political leaders in the run-up of elections in the two countries.

The 2004-07 EU enlargement towards the post-communist region showed that the long waiting for EU membership could impact on levels of public support for the EU. This article examines citizens' trust towards national and international institutions after joining the EU in Poland, in comparative perspective. In the post-Communist region, levels of trust towards national institutions are generally lower compared to the European and international ones. Politicians and political parties are the most distrusted actors, undermining the social and political fabric in the region. An overview of political participation and levels of trust with focus on national data sets and the European Social Survey shows that levels of trust are quite low and a share of the population is concerned with sovereignty vis-a-vis EU integration. This analysis addresses how the relationship between citizens and institutions have changed and how this may affect not just the EU's policies towards candidate countries and third countries, but how it can also affect citizen participation during the process of democratization and after joining the EU. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California.

Historical legacies play an important role in the rise of radical right parties in Central and Eastern Europe. This article conducts an in-depth study of the trajectory of a particular radical right party, the League of Polish Families, in a particular Central and East European country, Poland. The central objective of the article is to highlight that, although there are important similarities between the League of Polish Families and other radical right parties in both Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe, the League of Polish Families differs in some respects, such as the composition of electorate and ideology from these parties. The article shows that the observed differences have their roots in the Polish historical legacy, that on some accounts deviates from the historical legacies present in other Central and East European countries. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California.

Through the analysis of the crisis, and its impact on European identity and on politics and party systems, this review provides three contributions. First, the persistence of crisis throughout the history of European integration is explained as a significant factor strengthening the EU and triggering the emergence of the social construction of embedded narratives. These tensions deal with identity, culture and attitudes towards the EU, but also with the EU at the political level and the role of the EU as global actor. This leads to the second debate, with a focus on the different impact the crisis has had, by examining the case of the United Kingdom, Poland and Germany. The crisis indicates the salience of the national contexts, institutions, actors and narratives, shaping the responses, while the domestic experiences, towards the responses themselves, stress divergences and differences across member states. Third, the focus on Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, and their party system, addresses the possible prolonged long-lasting crisis, characterizing the Southern member states. As Jean Monnet wrote, it is not the institutions that create the EU, but the people who shape the institutions. Further research can address how the EU is differently represented, experienced and articulated.

This article examines the 2016 British EU referendum and the domestic debates through the citizens’ voices in the media, specifically on the emotions and narratives, on The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Express, the week before the referendum. British citizens felt, in their words, “bullied because of [their] political correctness” and pointed their anger and dissatisfaction against the EU (and Merkel’s) “obsession for open borders”. The analysis underlines that these emotions and narratives, combining immigration and sovereignty, have remained embedded in the post-Brexit days, and go back not just to Billig’s banal nationalism (1995), but show that voting Leave represented respect towards true British values, the “core country” as conceptualised by Taggart (2000). Powellism (Hampshire 2018) and Wright’s “encroanchment” of Englishness (2017), and the analysis on the immigration narrative explain how anti-immigration and sovereignty discourse is persisting and is influencing, more broadly, the social and political relation of Britain with Europe.

This chapter draws upon the findings of the previous chapters of this book. In Chapters 2 and 3 the analysis stressed increasing levels of Euroscepticism in the run-up to accession. Also, the comparative analysis highlighted the parallel electoral success of populist parties. Here, the chapter presents a theme that the in-depth examination of the Polish case brought to light: after the opening of the negotiation process and the long period of waiting, it is easier for populist parties to channel citizens’ dissatisfaction, particularly pointing to Euroscepticism, using it as external face of their empty ideological box – in their ‘chameleonic’ nature (Taggart, 2000). It is likely that favourable institutional settings, high volatility rates, and the new politics – absorbed by the CEE countries (Wisniowski, 2000) – together with a large agrarian sector (as in Poland and Romania) and the success or failure of the economic transition (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2001) can favour the emergence of the accession populism, that type of populism rising specifically on the verge of accession and using Euroscepticism as its external face.

How public support for the EU is structured in the short term in Poland may offer insight into the way in which it will develop in all the CEE states. In addition, findings can suggest patterns of support well beyond this comparative perspective and be applied to the EU member states and current candidate countries. This study contends that the Polish study can be examined in the comparative framework of CEE, applied to the EU28, and beyond.

Euroscepticism has become more and more embedded both at the EU and national levels (Usherwood et al. 2013) and persistent across domestic debates (Usherwood and Startin 2013). This study presents an in-depth analysis of contemporary narratives of Euroscepticism. It first introduces its question related to understanding public Euroscepticism, following the British EU referendum campaign and outcome, to then present the established literature, and the analysis of the British case study. A survey run in Britain in May 2019 shows that, as already noted by Oliver Daddow (2006, 2011), Euroscepticism is very much identifiable in the traditional narratives of Europe as the Other. Context accountability (Daddow 2006) is still cause for concern in Britain and by assuming a more positive view of a European Britain (Daddow 2006) does not make the debate more informed. Images, narratives and specific issues to reform the Eurosceptic toolbox into a more neutral, but informative, instrument could be applied at the grassroots level, as the post-referendum demonstrations and manifestations have shown. British citizens are reclaiming their own European citizenship, and deconstructing existing Euromyths can be a first small step forward.

Analyses on the 2004 EP elections found that information plays a fundamental role in citizens’ choices (Wessels, 2007), particularly visibility ‘matters’ (De Vreese et al., 2006). As this book is primarily concerned on how and why attitudes change, information, as knowledge on the EU, can represent an important factor. The comparative overview on the role of information in the 2004 and 2009 EP elections stresses the correlation between information and turnout. Focus groups carried out in Central and Eastern Europe in 2007 and 2009 confirm information matters. This chapter explores whether citizens are interested in the EU and if they felt they received the information they expected in the run-up to the accession referendum and European elections.

How we study and see the European Union (EU) affects how we engage with it. Recent works on biographies of relevant women for the European integration process and on gender and EU politics contribute to the mainstreaming of gender in EU studies. Yet, we still lack the presence of women in the narrative on the early stages of European history and politics, where women's absence is well visible in their persistent marginalization. This analysis contributes to this debate by suggesting the definitive establishment of studies on the women of these early years as makers and shapers of European integration.

The European Union referendum was supposed to be a significant moment for political engagement and ownership in the UK. This article looks at how the two official European Union referendum campaigns (Vote Leave and Remain) framed discussions about the UK’s membership of the European Union, as well as the impact of the campaign on women’s political activation. Using data from a survey questionnaire conducted two weeks after the European Union referendum (in July 2016), we analyse women’s sense of political efficacy and engagement with European politics. We project those findings on a frame analysis, where we assess the footprint of each campaign in terms of issue coverage and the salience of gender as a campaign issue. Our findings shed light on the way in which issue framing and confidence affect the quality of political engagement among ‘weak publics’.

The public image of the European Union (EU) has met increasingly negative evaluations since the economic and financial crisis hit its peak. Although opposition towards the EU has been pitched as a temporary phenomenon, it has now become a distinctive characteristic of European integration, described as ‘embedded’. Recent analyses on citizens’ attitudes towards the EU underline a rational utilitarian dimension, stressing that EU attachment is affected by future life expectations. Are rationalist perspectives the only possible explanation behind the rise of Euroscepticism, though? This article offers an alternative approach, by using discourse analysis, and examines how emotions, as embedded in Eurosceptic discursive frames and practices, may affect attitudes towards the EU. We argue that an analysis of citizens’ opposition through emotions when the salience of the EU increases can show how a Eurosceptic emotion-laden public discourse may become prominent at the domestic level.

During the 1990s and the 2000s, Spain, Italy and Greece experienced a considerable growth of immigration. In just two decades, the immigrant population has multiplied more than fivefold in all three countries and by the end of the 2000s, residents of immigrant origin already accounted for 7 per cent of the overall population in Italy, 8 per cent in Greece and 13 per cent in Spain, respectively. This accelerated demographic change has put pressure on the democratic representative system of these countries, with large numbers of new residents and new citizens wishing to have a voice in the direction of collective affairs. Yet, their possibilities of securing political representation might have been constrained not only by the institutional and partisan setting in these “new” countries of immigration in Europe, but also by the fact that the public opinion has become increasingly concerned about immigration and immigrants’ integration in all three cases. As we will show, the levels of descriptive representation of citizens of immigrant origin (CIOs) are still very reduced and quite distant to those found in other European countries, thus pointing to a common ‘South European’ pattern. The paper examines how the above-mentioned institutional and societal factors have affected parties’ strategies in relation to the incorporation of CIOs into elected office and how issues relating to timing, the size of the CIO electorate (as opposed to the CIO resident population), and party competition dynamics might help us understand the descriptive representation gaps. The paper further explores their substantive political representation, by systematically comparing the behaviour of CIO and non-CIO elected representatives in the parliamentary arena in Spain, Italy and Greece.

In the first chapter, this book introduced its research question (Q) What drives support before and after accession in Poland? Previous research (Cichowski, 2000) pointed to analyses at one point in time, while patterns in citizens’ attitudes could be expected to change over time. This book answers to how determinants of public support for the EU change before and after EU accession. This study also presents what determines support for and opposition to EU integration in a post-Communist EU member state after accession.

After the Danish rejection of the Treaty on European Union (EU) (1992), the legitimizing relationship between public opinion and European integration acquired more salience, as the ‘readiness of European political elites to use’ referendums provoked uncertain developments around the EU project (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2005). As the ‘permissive consensus’ was not assured, mass attitudes became ‘both a measure and a determinant of the process of EUropean integration’ (Gabel, 1998a, p. 9). EU politics was no longer an elite-driven process, and the role of public opinion became a determinant in shaping its agenda. The question of what determines public support for the EU has been widely examined, focusing on the domestic context (Anderson 1998; Gabel, 1998a), political parties (Ray, 2003a, b), and perceived cultural threats (Carey, 2002; McLaren, 2006). Further contributions to the study of public support for the EU stressed the importance of cultural factors, where one of the ‘most vital … elements is religion’ (Nelsen et al., 2001, p. 192; Nelsen et al., 2011).

In 2004 the EP elections brought citizens of 27 EU countries out to vote, highlighting a wide ‘Eurogap’ between the old member states, plus Malta and Cyprus, and the eight post-Communist member states. About 55.63 per cent voted in the ‘old Europe’ and Malta and Cyprus, compared with only 31.19 per cent who casted their vote in the new EU member states. When Bulgaria voted in May 2007, turnout was at 29.22 percent and in November 2007 in Romania it halted at 29.47 per cent. In 2009 the general average decreasing trend, registered since the first EP elections took place, did not alter. Also, the ‘Eurogap’ between old member states plus Malta and Cyprus (54.01 per cent) and the post-Communist new EU member states (22.93 per cent) was almost unvaried.

Recent works on biographies of relevant women for the European integration process and on gender and EU politics contribute to the mainstreaming of gender in EU studies. Yet, we still lack the presence of women in the books and narrative on the early stages of the European integration process. The lack of women's representation is still visible whenever we open a textbook on EU studies. We can read about the Founding Fathers and main politicians of the early years in the initial pages, but we can find no reference to women. This study addresses the structural lack of women's representation in this 'his-story', and that part of history already defined as incomplete, by introducing the history and political contribution of the early women of European integration. Even though it is true that there were less women in politics at the time, a few of them still sat in the Common Assembly, also holding important national, European and international roles. The analysis of the minutes of meetings and the in-depth archival research, this study outlines how these women actively contributed to the process of European integration in the early years. As the Founding Fathers, they show an extraordinary life that have simply gone undocumented.

Peter Mair argued that the lack of an institutional framework that facilitates the contestation over European politics makes European integration politics a “zero-sum game”. Yet, in the time following this statement the dynamism of Euroscepticism has allowed it to evolve its strategy beyond national contestation of the EU into a ‘transnational European political space’ (FitzGibbon et al. 2016). The centralisation of economic and financial supervision in response to the ‘Eurocrisis’ has provided Eurosceptics with the opportunity for structuring a new form of pan-European contestation that has adapted to these new policy realities. Understanding this evolution of Eurosceptic strategy helps, in part, to explain why a nativist politician, Matteo Salvini, is now calling for a pan-Eurosceptic alliance. This development gives rise to important questions; principally can this form of transnational contestation be described as Euroscepticism? And, if so, what type? We argue that the recent 2019 EP elections demonstrate opposing (successful) transnational Eurosceptic collaborations: on the right, opposing EU integration on the political and economic side, protecting national sovereignty, in particular with regard to the immigration agenda; and on the left, adopting a Euro-alternative agenda, pointing to accountability, transparency, legitimacy, democracy, the role of the ECB, and a border-free Europe. This is a significant development as the EP has long been the arena in which the ‘zeitgeist’ of Euroscepticism has manifested itself and the surface of new forms of contestation (Caiani and Guerra 2017) towards the EU.

While research tends to explore questions of power and leadership at the national level, populism in Europe has moved beyond national borders, with an increasing number of transnational movements and organizations. This article investigates the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) and its leadership’s main speeches. Informed by both discourse theory and Michel Foucault’s work on parrhesia (veridiction), the analysis draws on readings of transnational Euroalternativism and populism, pointing out the conflicting logic of bringing them together at the transnational level. Our findings thus stress the increasing politicization of European integration as an opportunity to mobilize transnational activities, which are based on the populist ‘people vs. the elites’ dichotomy and against Brussels’ unaccountable elites (see FitzGibbon & Guerra, 2019), while indicating the limits of leadership in a populist transnational movement (de Cleen, Moffitt, Panayotu, & Stavrakakis, 2019; Marzolini & Souvlis, 2016).

This article examines the 2016 British EU referendum and the domestic debates through the citizens’ voices in the media, specifically on the emotions and narratives, on The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Express, the week before the referendum. British citizens felt, in their words, “bullied because of [their] political correctness” and pointed their anger and dissatisfaction against the EU (and Merkel’s) “obsession for open borders”. The analysis underlines that these emotions and narratives, combining immigration and sovereignty, have remained embedded in the post-Brexit days, and go back not just to Billig’s banal nationalism (1995), but show that voting Leave represented respect towards true British values, the “core country” as conceptualised by Taggart (2000). Powellism (Hampshire 2018) and Wright’s “encroanchment” of Englishness (2017), and the analysis on the immigration narrative explain how anti-immigration and sovereignty discourse is persisting and is influencing, more broadly, the social and political relation of Britain with Europe.