"Nationalism and anti-EU mobilization in postsocialist Europe"

Beichelt, Timm. (2003) "Nationalism and anti-EU mobilization in postsocialist Europe". In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 2003 (8th), March 27-29, 2003, pages 25, Nashville, TN.

Abstract

In this paper, anti-EU mobilization in post-socialist EU accession states is treated as a relevant phenomenon both on attitude and parliamentary level. It is argued that Euro-skepticism is not an isolated phenomenon but has to be interpreted as an issue in party competition which is rooted in socio-cultural and socio-economic conflict. Two party families are bound to rely on the EU issue in their efforts to attract voters: nationalist and post-communist parties. Whereas nationalist forces tend to reject the whole idea of integration for ideological reasons, post-communist forces throw an eye on the redistributive effect of Brussels' structural funds and therefore are somewhat contradictory as to the scope of EU rejection.