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European Integration and the Radical Right: Three Patterns of Opposition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Sofia Vasilopoulou
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Abstract

This article argues that radical right parties can be seen as displaying three patterns of opposition towards European integration: rejecting, conditional and compromising. These three patterns are identified through the careful examination of party attitudes on four different aspects related to European integration and the EU. These include the idea of a common identity of European peoples, the principle of cooperation at a European multilateral level, the EU policy practice and the desire to build a future European polity. In light of this conceptualization of radical right opposition to European integration, the article conducts a qualitative analysis of party literature of 12 radical right parties from 10 European countries during the latter part of the 2000s.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , 2011 , pp. 223 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011.

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References

1 Hainsworth, P., The Extreme Right in Western Europe, New York, Routledge, 2008, p. 85 Google Scholar.

2 Marks, G. and Wilson, C. J., ‘The Past in the Present: A Cleavage Theory of Party Response to European Integration’, British Journal of Political Science, 30: 2 (2000), pp. 433–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; L. Hooghe, G. Marks and C. J. Wilson, ‘Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration?’, in G. Marks and M. Steenbergen (eds), European Integration and Political Conflict, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

3 Taggart, P., ‘A Touchstone of Dissent: Euroscepticism in Contemporary Western European Party Systems’, European Journal of Political Research, 33: 3 (1998), pp. 363–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Mudde, C., Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hainsworth, The Extreme Right.

5 Hooghe, L., Bakker, R., et al., ‘Reliability and Validity of Measuring Party Positions: The Chapel Hill Expert Surveys of 2002 and 2006’, European Journal of Political Research, 49: 5 (2010), pp. 689–703 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The scale is structured from 1 to 7, where 1 indicates a strongly opposing position and 7 a strongly favourable position.

7 R. Harmsen and M. Spiering, ‘Introduction: Euroscepticism and the Evolution of European Political Debate’, in R. Harmsen and M. Spiering (eds), Euroscepticism: Party Politics, National Identity and European Integration, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2004, p. 16.

8 M. Spiering, ‘British Euroscepticism’, in Harmsen and Spiering, Euroscepticism, p. 128.

9 Harmsen and Spiering, ‘Introduction’, p. 17.

10 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, p. 159.

11 Taggart, ‘A Touchstone of Dissent’, p. 366.

12 P. Taggart and A. Szczerbiak, ‘Parties, Positions and Europe: Euroscepticism in the EU Candidate States of Central and Eastern Europe', Opposing Europe, Sussex European Institute Working Paper 46, Brighton, 2001, p. 10.

13 Ibid.

14 A. Szczerbiak and P. Taggart, ‘Introduction: Researching Euroscepticism in European Party Systems: A Comparative and Theoretical Agenda’, in A. Szczerbiak and P. Taggart, Opposing Europe? The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism, Volume 2: Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 2.

15 This idea is largely based on Mair, P., ‘Political Opposition and the European Union’, Government and Opposition, 42: 1 (2007), pp. 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 D. Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1965.

17 Kopecky, P. and Mudde, C., ‘The Two Sides of Euroscepticism: Party Positions on Euroscepticism in East Central Europe’, European Union Politics, 3: 3 (2002), pp. 300–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Ibid.

19 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, pp. 161–5.

20 Ibid., p. 162.

21 C. Sørensen, ‘Love Me, Love Me Not: A Typology of Public Euroscepticism’, Sussex European Institute Working Paper 101, Brighton, 2008.

22 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, p. 16.

23 For reasons of space, only the prominent typologies in the literature have been discussed. Others, by no means less important, include C. Flood, ‘Euroscepticism: A Problematic Concept’, paper presented at the UACES 32nd Annual Conference and 7th Research Conference, Queen's University Belfast, 2002; and Ronvy, J., ‘Conceptualising Party-Based Euroscepticism: Magnitude and Motivations’, Collegium, 29 (2004), pp. 31–47 Google Scholar. It is worth mentioning that the Eurosceptic patterns identified below may be seen as overlapping with Flood's rejectionist, revisionist and minimalist categories. However, Flood's categories are broad and, unlike the present article, they ‘are not intended to convey any suggestion of a specific content to the positions which they describe, beyond basic stances towards the EU's development’, Flood, ‘Euroscepticism’, p. 5.

24 Note that these three patterns build on the author's previous work: Vasilopoulou, S., ‘Varieties of Euroscepticism: The Case of the European Extreme Right’, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 5: 1 (2009), pp. 3–23 Google Scholar.

25 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, pp. 169–70.

26 European Union, ‘Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union 1992’, Official Journal of the European Communities (2002), p. 9. Capitals in the original. The TEU has been selected as it is the major treaty establishing the European Union with which all member states are obliged to comply.

27 Mair, ‘Political Opposition’, p. 5.

28 Ibid.

29 European Union, ‘Consolidated Version of the Treaty’, p. 11.

30 Ibid., p. 10.

31 Ibid., p. 9.

32 Taggart and Szczerbiak, ‘Introduction’, p. 8.

33 A. Szczerbiak and P. Taggart, ‘Theorizing Party-Based Euroscepticism: Problems of Definition, Measurement and Causality’, in Szczerbiak and Taggart, Opposing Europe?, p. 252.

34 Note that this definition of European identity directly applies to the radical right's world view and may not necessarily be shared by other parties or the European public. For a detailed discussion of European identity from the citizens' perspective, see M. Bruter, Citizens of Europe? The Emergence of a Mass European Identity, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

35 To clarify, the patterns suggested here are devised in order to provide useful information regarding party discourse. They have indeed an ordinal character, namely ranging from more to less opposition against the EU. However, measuring the exact distance between them is outside the scope of this article.

36 Sørensen, ‘Love Me, Love Me Not’.

37 This article does not consider the Greater Romanian Party because of the lack of linguistic skills on the part of the author.

38 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, p. 26.

39 For the appendix see Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, pp. 305–8. This article also studies the Italian National Alliance. Recent academic discussions have pointed out the party's steady evolution towards a mainstream right-wing party under Gianfranco Fini's leadership. For example, see Ignazi, P., ‘Legitimation and Evolution on the Italian Right Wing: Social and Ideological Repositioning of Alleanza Nazionale and the Lega Nord’, South European Society and Politics, 10: 2 (2005), pp. 333–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar. While I agree with the conclusions in the literature, it is indisputable that the party has its origins in right-wing radicalism, given that it is the offspring of the fascist Italian Social Movement, and as such it is included in the current study.

40 I acknowledge that in order to assess party positions on European integration a greater diversity of documents would have to be analysed. However, due to limited space the analysis is based on party manifestos and some secondary sources on the parties. National election manifestos have been selected instead of European manifestos; this has been a deliberate choice as it is arguable that national manifestos represent the parties' world view as a whole. European manifestos are more likely to be manipulated by opportunistic party actors, who can criticize the EU more severely as they try to exploit the protest character of European elections.

41 Mair, ‘Political Opposition’, p. 1.

42 Front National, Programme de Gouvernement de Jean-Marie Le Pen, Front National, 2007.

43 P. Hainsworth, C. O'Brien and Paul Mitchell, ‘Defending the Nation: The Politics of Euroscepticism on the French Right’, in Harmsen and Spiering, Euroscepticism, p. 47.

44 League of Polish Families, The LPR Program, LPR, 2008.

45 British National Party, Rebuilding British Democracy: British National Party General Election Manifesto, BNP, 2005, p. 5.

46 Tricolour Flame, Programma Politico, Tricolour Flame, 2007, p. 2.

47 A. Pelinka, ‘Austrian Euroscepticism: The Shift from the Left to the Right’, in Harmsen and Spiering, Euroscepticism, p. 216.

48 Ibid., p. 222.

49 Austrian Freedom Party, Dafür stehen wir!, Austrian Freedom Party, 2007.

50 Original in English. A. Mölzer, ‘The FPO and Europe’, 2007, available at http://www.andreas-moelzer.at/index.php?id=62.

51 Austrian Freedom Party. Dafür stehen wir!.

52 Flemish Interest, The Manifesto of Vlaams Belang, Flemish Interest, 2007.

53 N. Conti, ‘Party Attitudes to European Integration: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Italian Case’, European Parties Elections and Referendums Network Working Paper 13, Brighton, 2003, p. 27.

54 L. Quaglia, ‘Euroscepticism in Italy and Centre-Right and Right Wing Political Parties’, Opposing Europe, Sussex European Institute Working Paper 60, Brighton, 2003, p. 18.

55 Northern League, Errori ed orrori del programma Prodi e dell'Unione, Northern League, 2006, p. 26. Original text in Italian.

56 Danish People's Party, Den Europæiske Union, Danish People's Party, 2008.

57 Popular Orthodox Rally, Πλαίσιο Θέσεων, Popular Orthodox Rally, 2007, p. 23.

58 Attack, Προδραмнα cxema, Attack, 2009.

59 Conti, ‘Party Attitudes to European Integration’, p. 26.

60 National Alliance, Ripensare il centrodestra nella prospettiva europea, National Alliance, 2008, p. 13.

61 For Fatherland and Freedom, Tēvzemei un Brīvībai/LNNK programma, LNNK, 2008.

62 Marks and Wilson, ‘The Past in the Present’.

63 A. Treschel and P. Mair, ‘When Parties (Also) Position Themselves: An Introduction to the EU Profiler’, EUI Working Papers 65, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European Union Democracy Observatory, 2009, p. 2.