Search

This paper seeks to apply the relevance of Euroscepticism literature to the study of radical left party outlooks on European integration and by doing so: (1) outlines general patterns of opposition to European integration, by 11 radical left parties that are housed in the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group of the European Parliament, in the 1990s and beyond; (2) assesses the congruence between the outlooks of these parties or the lack thereof; and (3) illuminates the factors conditioning these outlooks by addressing the ideology-strategy debate. To this end, the paper employs two, widely referenced and historically relevant, analytical frameworks of party-based Euroscepticism (by Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak, and by Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde), and applies them to the radical left as a whole and its various sub-sets, as identified by the literature so far. The analysis leads to the following three findings. First, a moderating approach can be observed on average, thus leading to an increase in overall congruence. Second, congruence increases slightly, as we move towards a more specific typology but overall no systematic congruence is to be found in the radical left as a whole or most of its sub-sets, in the period examined. Third, while ideology carries causal weight, strategy appears more prominent as a conditioning factor of outlooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political marketing is making headway around the world. However, this development is not uniform in nature. Research to date into political marketing has offered limited insights into different national contexts and involves only the study of political parties or of particular political campaigns. Research into government policy-making and political marketing is also immature. The present analysis of political marketing and EU integration addresses this gap in the research. More specifically, following a deductive approach, this paper investigates whether EU policy-making conforms to the Lees-Marshment political organisation behaviour model, in particular, its market-orientation element. It argues that the decline in popular support for European integration is the result of a lack of market orientation in EU policy-making. Group social psychology is deemed to be at the root of public dissatisfaction with EU policy-making and the lack of market orientation of the latter. While pressure from voters (the market) should not feed directly into EU policy-making without any input from political organisations, public consultation on EU policy should take place at all stages of the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]