Project: Determinants of Eurosceptical Voting Behavior in CEE Countries and Party Responses

 

Funded by the European Union under the Marie Curie Fellowship program.

The project focused unexplained attitudinal differences between mass publics in the CEE states and Western Europe. In doing so, it addresses empirically one of the central questions of contemporary European politics, the perception of European integration and the causes of the growing disenchantment on a part of the European public. The central argument is that the success of the Eurosceptic label in CEE party politics is not entirely a function of anti-EU sentiments but in part a response to mainstream party convergence and the perception of widespread corruption among domestic elites. By operationalizing and empirically testing these propositions with country-level and individual-level data from the region, it is possible to parse out the relative importance of these questions. Specifically, the project will implement surveys in representative CEE country(ies) where one can observe sufficient variation in type and strength of protest parties. The project has already been completed.

 

Key Publications

2021

  • Heinisch, Reinhard / Steven Saxonberg / Annika Werner / Fabian Habersack (2021). The Effect of Radical Right Fringe Parties on Main Parties in Central Eastern Europe: Empirical Evidence from Manifesto Data, in: Party Politics, 27(1), 9-21.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068819863620.

2017

2014

  • Heinisch, Reinhard / Bernd Schlipphak (2014). Wenn Europa zum Problem wird – die Effekte der Finanzkrise auf Euroskeptizismus und nationales Wahlverhalten in Mittel- und Osteuropa, in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft , 8(5), 177-196.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-014-0204-y.