Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Previous research has looked at how Eurosceptic challenger parties can cause mainstream parties to change their policy positions and bring about adjustments to their programmes. We explore whether this contagion effect extends to the parliamentary behaviour of mainstream parties in European Union (EU) affairs. The empirical analysis is based on a large-scale study of 6215 statements made by national parliamentarians in the European Affairs Committee of Sweden between 1995 and 2016. A dynamic panel analysis of the data shows that the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties has a significant impact on the opposition statements made in EU affairs by mainstream parties. These findings have important implications for the general understanding of factors that drive national EU opposition.

Keywords

Euroscepticism political opposition party behaviour mainstream parties

Introduction

The Brexit vote and the growing support in national elections for parties that oppose the European project illustrate how European issues have been brought to the fore in domestic politics. Eurosceptic challenger parties are not only capable of politicising European integration in national elections and referendums (De Vries and Hobolt, 2012; Hooghe and Marks, 2009; Hutter and Grande, 2014). Empirical research has also shown that the electoral success of Eurosceptic challenger parties can result in party position shifts on European integration among mainstream parties (Filip, 2021; Meijers, 2017). Other studies, however, have found that the influence of Eurosceptics on the political mainstream is marginal because mainstream parties have no incentives to politicise European integration (Green-Pedersen, 2012; Rooduijn et al., 2014). Thus, there is no agreement among scholars on the influence of Eurosceptic challenger parties on the political mainstream.

While this growing body of research has dealt with the question of how mainstream parties react to the electoral success of Eurosceptic challenger parties and how that reaction affects their policy positions, little is known of how Eurosceptics influence the oppositional behaviour of the mainstream. Focus has been on inter-party dynamics in terms of the saliency and ownership of issues, party position changes and programmatic adaptation that results from changing patterns in political competition (Meguid, 2005). Few attempts have been made to study parliamentary party behaviour in European Union (EU) affairs from the theoretical perspective of political opposition (for notable exceptions, see Karlsson and Persson, 2022; Louwerse and Otjes, 2019; Rauh and De Wilde, 2018; Senninger, 2017; Tuttnauer, 2018; Van de Wardt, 2015). We seek to address this research gap by studying parties’ oppositional behaviour in national parliaments.

This article aims to explore whether Eurosceptic opposition is contagious by examining the connection between the behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties and the behaviour of mainstream parties in EU affairs. We therefore ask the following question: How and to what extent does the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties affect the behaviour of mainstream parties? Political opposition may appear in a number of different settings, but parliaments are the cornerstones of representative democracies and no arena is more important than the legislature when it comes to expressing opposition. The paramount importance of the parliamentary arena makes it the natural choice for examining the possible influence Eurosceptic challenger parties have on mainstream parties. By examining whether or not Euroscepticism is contagious, we answer the call for studies that account for how ‘Euroscepticism has shaped and continues to shape domestic politics and European integration’ (Vasilopoulou, 2013: 163).

There are strong theoretical reasons for focussing on opposition. To see why, we need to recognise that there is more to political opposition than criticism directed at the government as a means for controlling it. Expressing opposition is also about presenting alternatives to the government, thereby introducing choice in politics. Without a functioning opposition, we are left with a political system where no real alternatives exist. This problem is alleged to be especially severe in EU affairs since mainstream parties have tried to depoliticise ‘decision-making at the national level, tending therefore to bring even the member states to the status of polities without politics’ (Mair, 2007: 8). When clear policy alternatives are absent, it becomes more likely that critics will turn to opposing the political system, which is how Eurosceptics have organised their opposition in EU affairs. A full account of the extent to which Euroscepticism is contagious will thus have to build on the distinction between two types of opposition: Expressing critique and presenting alternatives.

To explore the extent to which the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties affects the behaviour of mainstream parties in parliament, we pursue a case study of the content of parliamentary deliberations in the European Affairs Committee (EAC) in the Swedish Riksdag for the period from 1995 to 2016. There are two main reasons why Sweden is a good case in point. First, Sweden is characterised by having mainstream parties that are explicitly pro-European – unlike, for example, the United Kingdom, where the Conservative Party is Eurosceptical. Swedish mainstream parties have not made EU affairs an issue on which they compete for the support of voters in general elections. Furthermore, previous studies have shown that mainstream parties in Sweden engage in cross-party cooperation in the EAC with the aim of manufacturing consensus in national EU policy (Damgaard, 2000: 158; Hegeland, 2015: 437). The upshot of this is that any recorded changes in oppositional behaviour are unlikely to stem from mainstream parties adjusting their behaviour as a result of a competitive struggle with other mainstream parties, as has clearly been the case in, for example, the UK.

The second reason why Sweden is a good case for examining whether Eurosceptic oppositional behaviour is contagious or not is the fact that the seat share of Eurosceptic challenger parties in the parliament increased drastically after 2010 due to the electoral success of the Eurosceptic Sweden Democrats. Since entering the Swedish Riksdag, the party has acted as a ‘hard’ Eurosceptic party by advancing a principled critique against the EU system (Persson et al., 2019). The electoral success of the Sweden Democrats in 2010 therefore brought a third Eurosceptic party into parliament in addition to the Green Party and the Left Party. The sharp increase in Eurosceptic party members sitting in the Swedish Riksdag provides a good opportunity for detecting a possible contagion effect when it comes to oppositional behaviour in EU affairs. However, given the long-standing consensus among mainstream parties when it comes to the EU, our expectation is that the impact of Eurosceptic challenger parties should be relatively small. Recent studies have shown that despite changes in the Swedish party system, surprisingly little has changed in terms of the distinguishing traits of Sweden’s parliamentary democracy (Lindvall et al., 2020).

The remainder of this article is organised into five main sections. First, we review previous research on Eurosceptic opposition and present our theoretical points of departure. In the second section, we introduce key concepts and develop our hypotheses. Next, we present operationalisations, data and methods. The fourth section presents the empirical results based on several dynamic panel models. Finally, we offer our conclusions and make suggestions for future research.

Previous research on Eurosceptic opposition

An important strand of research has focused on the electoral success of Eurosceptic parties and its effect on party systems and public discourse. Several studies have shown how Eurosceptic challenger parties have been successful in increasing the saliency of EU issues and politicising European affairs in national elections (e.g. De Vries and Hobolt, 2012; Hooghe and Marks, 2009; Hutter and Grande, 2014). This research has demonstrated how EU politics have become increasingly important in national elections due to the successful mobilisation of Eurosceptic challenger parties. Similarly, evidence suggests that European issues are becoming increasingly contested in national parliaments (Rauh and De Wilde, 2018; Winzen, 2012). In the words of Hooghe and Marks (2009: 5), EU affairs have gone from a ‘permissive consensus’ to a ‘constraining dissensus’, where decision-making is heavily restricted by public opinion.

Following the classic work of Mayhew (1974), the literature has highlighted that the behaviour of MPs in parliament is conditioned by concerns over how to boost their chances of re-election. However, in institutional settings with stronger party control over MPs’ chances of being re-elected, other incentives and norms can play a decisive role for behaviour in legislatures (Strøm, 1997). In this study, we cannot with any certainty determine the true motives for MPs’ oppositional behaviour in parliament, but we can explore the strategic responses of mainstream political parties to the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties.

There is widespread agreement that Euroscepticism has become increasingly important, but what impact Eurosceptic challenger parties have on the political mainstream is still contested. When scholars examine the programmatic reactions to the rise of populist parties, they find evidence of no or only limited adjustments from mainstream parties (Green-Pedersen, 2012; Rooduijn et al., 2014). Green-Pedersen (2012) argues that mainstream parties have no incentives for contributing to a politicisation of European integration. Similarly, Rooduijn et al. (2014) examined election manifestos in five European countries and found no evidence that mainstream parties change their programmes in response to the challenge posed by populist parties.

In terms of policy influence, however – not least in immigration policy – there is evidence to suggest that populist radical right parties have influenced the positions taken by mainstream parties (Han, 2015). Van Spanje (2010) found that electoral pressures from anti-immigration parties have a contagious effect on other parties’ immigration policy positions. Similarly, when comparing party manifestos, speeches and policies of European mainstream parties to those of populist parties, Schumacher and Van Kersbergen (2016) found that mainstream parties adapt to populist parties on welfare chauvinism. Other studies show that niche parties, such as green and radical right parties, have been successful in influencing the policy agendas of mainstream parties (Abou-Chadi, 2016).

With regard to issues related to European integration, scholars have found that the electoral success of Eurosceptic challenger parties may increase the saliency of EU affairs and cause adjustments of party positions among mainstream parties (Filip, 2021; Meijers, 2017; Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2013). Van de Wardt (2015) shows that mainstream parties, in particular mainstream opposition parties, respond to niche parties by increasing their attention to issues such as European integration and immigration. Similarly, using data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, both Meijers (2017) and Filip (2021) show how Eurosceptic challenger parties influence mainstream parties to shift their positions on European integration.

Notwithstanding the important contributions made by previous research, there is still an important gap in the literature, as these studies mainly have examined the impact that Eurosceptic challenger parties have on the emphasis of EU affairs (i.e. issue competition), and the adjustments made by mainstream parties when it comes to policy positions (i.e. spatial party competition). It is striking that so little attention has been devoted to exploring how Eurosceptic challenger parties affect the oppositional behaviour of mainstream parties; however, recently we have seen studies that have advanced our understanding of opposition by studying actual party behaviour in parliament. Tuttnauer (2018), for instance, examines voting behaviour in parliament from the viewpoint of political opposition. Voting against the government in parliament is a key indicator of oppositional behaviour as it manifests a party’s disagreement with the government. But voting behaviour cannot give us the full picture of oppositional behaviour since voting only reveals whether an actor is for or against a government proposal. To reveal the full picture of oppositional behaviour, we need to examine the actual content of parliamentary deliberations.

Even more informative, therefore, are the positions taken by political parties in parliamentary documents – for example, committee reports, motions and written questions – and minutes of plenary proceedings and committee deliberations. For instance, when examining plenary speeches on EU issues in four countries, Rauh and De Wilde (2018) find proof of an ‘opposition deficit’ in national parliaments. In another recent study, Hoerner (2017) examines party variation in terms of support for the government’s position on EU policies in five countries and find that Eurosceptic parties express more opposition than mainstream parties, a finding supported by a comparison of EAC deliberations in Denmark and Sweden (Persson et al., 2019). In a study of the Danish Parliament, Senninger (2017) examines EU-related parliamentary questions and finds that Eurosceptic parties are more likely than mainstream parties to focus on general polity-related aspects of EU affairs, whereas mainstream parties are more prone to focus on specific policy-related issues. Most importantly, however, the extent to which Eurosceptic behaviour is contagious has not been addressed in previous studies from the perspective of political opposition. We therefore have very little knowledge of how oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic parties affects the behaviour of mainstream parties.

Key concepts and hypotheses

What makes our study different from previous work is that we emanate from oppositional behaviour rather than policy positions or the salience and ownership of issues for political competition (Meguid, 2005). Our examination proceeds from an understanding of opposition that draws on Dahl (1966), which states that opposition is an expression of disagreement with the government. This is a useful starting point, since it highlights the strategic choice parties in parliament face: To cooperate with the government or to seek conflict (Moury and De Giorgi, 2015). The deliberations in the EAC usually revolve around the government’s bargaining position on upcoming and ongoing negotiations in the Council of Ministers. During such deliberations it has been shown that not only representatives of opposition parties, but also backbenchers of governing parties will try to influence the government’s bargaining position by voicing disagreement in the EAC (Saalfeld, 2005).

Two distinctions need to be made in order to get an analytical tool to help us examine oppositional behaviour. First, we need to distinguish between two different types of disagreement. On the one hand, there is opposition expressed as critique, which simply means that an MP voices disagreement with the government’s policies and programmes. Such criticism serves two purposes. It works as a means for controlling the government by reminding it of the fact that it may, at any time, be called on to publicly justify its actions (Garritzmann, 2017: 2). Furthermore, by providing critique, opposition parties distance themselves from the government and make themselves more visible to voters (Norton, 2008: 238). However, opposition is not only about critique and a second type of disagreement is equally important: Sometimes MPs are not content with simply expressing critique, in addition they present alternatives to the government’s policies (Garritzmann, 2017: 2). The difference between expressing critique and presenting alternatives is crucial as it is only by having real choices that citizens will see elections as meaningful; opposition in terms of presenting alternatives is thus a prerequisite for democratic legitimacy.

Second, we need to distinguish between three modes of opposition. A key distinction in the literature is that between ‘classical’ opposition and ‘opposition of principle’ (Kirchheimer, 1957). This well-known dichotomy is discussed under different labels. Hutter et al. (2016) speak of ‘policy-related versus ‘constitutive issues’, like transfer of competence, membership and institutional reform. We draw inspiration from Mair (2007: 5) and simply refer to these modes as policy and polity opposition, that is, disagreement directed at the policies or the political system as such. The third mode is procedural opposition, which means that an expression of disagreement is directed towards the government’s conduct. A common example of procedural opposition is critique against the government for failing to keep parliament sufficiently updated on ongoing negotiations in Brussels.

With these distinctions in mind, how can we understand the impact that Eurosceptic challenger parties have on opposition in EU affairs? The logic that we present here draws on the cartel party theory (Katz and Mair, 1995). The basic idea is simply that mainstream parties, in order to evade public control, have been reluctant to present voters with any clear policy proposals in EU politics. Political parties that are serious contenders for forming the next government – that is, those that belong to the political mainstream – have a common interest of not having ‘their hands tied by the constraints of popular democracy’ (Mair, 2007: 7–8). This shared interest drives them to abandon policy opposition on EU issues, which in turn leaves the field wide open for Eurosceptic parties to capitalise on the existing vacuum.

In the absence of any policy opposition voiced within the cartel, Eurosceptic challenger parties can act as political entrepreneurs that exploit EU issues in order to get increased attention from the voters and succeed at the polls. However, as noted above, party scholars are divided in their assessments of a possible contagion effect of Eurosceptic parties on the political mainstream. Why, then, would we expect Eurosceptic challenger parties to provide incentives for mainstream parties to change their oppositional behaviour in EU affairs? Here, our study is based on the theoretical paradigm that has been used by scholars analysing parties’ strategies to adjust their policy positions and programmes in order to reap electoral gains. This research is mainly founded on the spatial theory of party competition (Downs 1957), which suggests that parties will adjust their policy positions and programmes in response to shifts in public opinion or policy shifts by their competitors. Based on manifesto data from nearly 200 parties in 25 countries, Adams and Somer-Topcu (2009) find evidence to support that political parties do adjust their policies in response to rival parties’ policy shifts.

With regard to the issue of European integration, this adaptation pressure would imply that mainstream parties may have to adjust their positions in reaction to the competition posed by Eurosceptic challenger parties. In contrast to this standard version of spatial theory, Meguid (2005) recognises that strategies used by mainstream parties not only impact niche parties’ issue positions but also the saliency and ownership of issues. By adopting either an accommodative or adversarial strategy, the mainstream parties contribute to having the niche party’s issue dimension included in the general political debate (Meguid, 2005: 357).

We extend this reasoning to the oppositional behaviour of political parties – more specifically, their way of expressing parliamentary opposition to the policies pursued by the current set of office-holders. Consequently, we argue that mainstream political parties can react to the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties in a similar fashion as they would in terms of position changes (Filip, 2021; Meijers, 2017). In order to not lose ground to their main contenders on a specific issue, particularly when that issue is becoming more salient, mainstream parties can be expected to shift their oppositional behaviour in the same direction. Based on this logic, we expect mainstream political parties to respond to the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties by expressing more opposition themselves.

H1: An increase in the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties will prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition in EU affairs.

This general hypothesis can be further specified in terms of types and modes of opposition. When it comes to different types of disagreement, it has been assumed that expressing critique is Eurosceptic challenger parties’ preferred modus operandi. Hoerner, for instance, found that parliamentary resolutions initiated by Eurosceptic challenger parties are highly critical but ‘rather short and contain little detail’ (Hoerner, 2017: 320). Mainstream parties, on the other hand, are contenders for forming the next government, and as such, they should have stronger incentives to compete for votes by presenting alternatives to the positions taken by the current government. We therefore expect the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties to have more influence on the willingness of mainstream parties to offer alternatives than on their propensity to deliver critique in EU affairs.

H2: An increase in the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties will prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition in EU affairs, primarily in the form of presenting alternatives rather than delivering critique.

The increased resistance to the EU as a political system was foreseen by Mair (2007) as a logical consequence of the limited amount of policy opposition present in EU affairs. In terms of modes of opposition, previous research has also found that policy opposition mainly is organised along the traditional left-right dimension (Hooghe and Marks, 2009), whereas new conflict lines appear in connection to polity issues. Senninger has shown that Eurosceptic challenger parties tend to focus on ‘issues about the EU’ (2017: 301) rather than policy issues. In contrast, mainstream parties are more engaged in policy issues than Eurosceptic parties, and tend to avoid competing on the polity dimension of EU affairs (Mair, 2007: 12). This difference in behaviour seems reasonable since Eurosceptics are fundamentally critical of the EU as such, while mainstream parties in general are supporters of European integration but disagree on specific policies. We therefore expect mainstream parties to respond to the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties mainly by voicing more disagreement on policy issues.

H3: An increase in the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties will prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition in EU affairs, primarily in the form of policy opposition rather than polity opposition.

Data and methods

Above we made the argument that an examination of oppositional behaviour requires that we examine the content of parliamentary deliberations in EU affairs. Such deliberations take place in two key arenas: The plenary and the EAC. Both forums are important, but in Sweden, it is the EAC that is the key arena for policy shaping and deliberations in EU affairs. Based on previous rankings of parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms and activities in EU affairs, Sweden’s EAC is ranked as one of the most powerful parliamentary committees of its kind and generally considered as the most important forum to investigate as we set out to uncover oppositional behaviour (Auel et al., 2015: 79–82).

It is only by gathering data over time that it will be possible for us to examine if, and to what extent, the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties is contagious. We therefore analyse data on oppositional behaviour over the entire period of the Swedish EU membership, 1995–2016. For each legislative period, we draw a random sample of 30 protocols from all EAC committee meetings – on average, about 170 per legislative period. We therefore analyse in total 180 EAC meetings, consisting of a total of 6215 statements made by the MPs in deliberations with government representatives over EU affairs. This should be sufficient to ensure reliable estimates of oppositional behaviour in each time period (see the Online Appendix Table A1).

Our study is based on statements made by individual MPs during EAC meetings in response to presentations made by government representatives before and during negotiations in the Council of Ministers. As discussed above, an expression of opposition is one of two different types: It provides criticism or proposes alternatives. However, in order to get the full picture of the deliberations taking place in the EAC and the extent to which these are characterised by oppositional behaviour, we also need to chart the presence of support for the government’s bargaining position. By combining the distinction between alternatives, critique and support on the one hand with the three modes of opposition identified above – policy, polity and procedural opposition – on the other, we constructed a variable, ‘type of statement’, with nine categories, plus a final category that contains all neutral statements made by MPs (e.g. questions or requests for clarification directed at the government representative, see the Online Appendix Part III).

Our primary interest here is with the strategic responses of mainstream political parties to the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties. In order to measure the overall behaviour of mainstream parties, we constructed six different dependent variables based on the variable ‘type of statement’. The first dependent variable, ‘Mainstream opposition’, measures the proportion of all statements made by a mainstream party in a given parliamentary session that contains opposition, either in the form of alternatives or critique, regardless of whether it is related to policy, polity or procedural matters. This variable is used to evaluate H1. Similarly, two additional dependent variables aim to divide the opposition coming from mainstream parties into two main types: Alternatives and critique. They measure the proportions of the statements that contain ‘Mainstream alternatives’ and ‘Mainstream critique’, respectively. These variables are used to evaluate H2. The fourth, fifth and sixth dependent variables tap into the proportion of all oppositional statements made by a mainstream party that qualify as ‘Mainstream polity opposition’, ‘Mainstream policy opposition’ and ‘Mainstream procedural opposition’, respectively, regardless of whether they deliver alternatives or critique. These variables are used to evaluate H3. All dependent variables are continuous and run between 0 and 1. Figure 1 shows a time series graph of the variation in the six dependent variables over the entire period of investigation. (For descriptive statistics of all variables, see the Online Appendix Table A3.)

Figure 1.

Time series of the six dependent variables, proportion of statements per session 1995–2016. Note: The dependent variables measure the proportion of all statements made by mainstream political parties that contain each kind of opposition, in a given parliamentary session. The variable ‘Opposition’ measures the overall proportion of all statements made by mainstream political parties that contain any kind of opposition.

The dataset has a party-year structure, where each year corresponds to a parliamentary session running approximately from September in one year to September the following year (each legislative period contains four such parliamentary sessions). Starting out from the 6215 statements that we coded, the proportions reflected in our dependent variables were calculated for each mainstream party and parliamentary session. Our final dataset includes six mainstream parties that account for a total of 109 party-year observations. The classification of parties into mainstream parties and Eurosceptic challenger parties builds on the widely accepted distinction developed by De Vries and Hobolt (2012). It is furthermore essential to separate government parties from opposition parties (Schumacher and Van Kersbergen, 2016; Van de Wardt, 2015), which we do by including the dummy variable ‘Government party’. Since previous research (Saalfeld, 2005) has shown that representatives of government parties may be expected to express opposition during deliberations in the EAC, we found it important not to exclude government parties from our analysis. (For information on our classification of the parties, see the Online Appendix Table A2.)

The three Eurosceptic challenger parties account for a total of 49 party-year observations on which the main independent variables are based. Our main independent variable is Eurosceptic ‘Challenger opposition’, which measures the proportion of all opposition statements made by challenger parties in the previous parliamentary session, regardless of whether they are related to policy, polity or procedural matters. To ensure that the behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties precedes the behaviour of the mainstream parties, this variable has a time lag of one parliamentary session (one year), which is the shortest possible time period we may use given our sampling strategy. The time period in which the parties are expected to react to one another is undertheorized in the literature (Meijers and Van der Veer, 2019: 1245). Still, we believe that a lag of one year reflects the dynamics of parliamentary behaviour reasonably well, and we expect that changes in behaviour mainly will occur over the medium and long term rather than the short term.

Additionally, we construct six independent variables measuring the oppositional behaviour of the Eurosceptic challenger parties in a way that corresponds to each of the abovementioned dependent variables. For instance, the independent variable ‘Challenger policy opposition’ measures the proportion of all statements made by challenger parties in the previous parliamentary session that contain policy opposition, regardless of whether they present alternatives or express critique.

Moreover, we include the following control variables, which feature in the literature as potentially significant factors in explaining party behaviour: The party position on, and saliency of, European integration for mainstream parties (De Vries and Hobolt, 2012), their left-right position and GAL-TAN position (Meijers, 2017; Williams and Ishiyama, 2018), and size measured as their vote share (Budge, 1994; Somer-Topcu, 2009). Furthermore, we control for the following factors related to the Eurosceptic challenger parties: Size measured as their vote share, the saliency they attach to European integration (Meijers, 2017) and their ‘extremeness’, which we simply measure by including a dummy that reflects the absence versus presence of the only radical right Eurosceptic party in parliament: The Sweden Democrats. There are obviously numerous other contextual factors that could affect mainstream party behaviour that we will not be able to include here. However, to control for natural trends in the data, we do add the variable ‘Session’, which measures time.

In order to examine the effect of Eurosceptic challenger party opposition on mainstream party behaviour, we estimate dynamic panel models using ordinary least squares regression. In order to account for serial correlation and panel-specific heteroscedasticity, all models include a lagged dependent variable, and panel-corrected standard errors (Beck and Katz, 1995). Since our data only covers 22 parliamentary sessions, using party fixed effects to account for unit-specific heterogeneity would lead to biased coefficients (Nickell, 1981: 1418). Party fixed effects are therefore not included. The following basic model is estimated:

Mainstream Opposition_i,t = β₀(Mainstream opposition_i,t-1)+ β₁(Challenger opposition_i,t-1) + β₂(Government party_i,t) + β₃(EU position_i,t) + β₄(EU salience_i,t) + β₅(Left/right position_i,t) + β₆(GAL/TAN position_i,t) + β₇(Vote share_i,t) + β₈(Challenger vote share_i,t) + β₉(Challenger EU salience_i,t) + β₁₀(Pre/post SD_i,t) + β₁₁(Session_i,t) + ε_i,t

Results

How and to what extent does the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties affect the behaviour of mainstream parties? Table 1 presents the result of six regression models with ‘Challenger opposition’ as the independent variable. As shown in Model 1, the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties has a significant effect on the behaviour of mainstream parties when controlling for other factors. The regression coefficient for ‘Challenger opposition’ was 0.26, which indicates that a one per cent increase in opposition statements delivered by Eurosceptic challenger parties in the previous parliamentary session will, on average, induce a 0.26 percentage point increase in opposition statements delivered by the mainstream parties. This effect was significant at the 99% level of confidence, which lends strong support to the proposition that an increase in the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties will prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition in EU affairs (H1).

Table 1.

Regression analysis of the effect of challenger opposition on six forms of mainstream opposition.

	Mainstream opposition	Mainstream critique	Mainstream alternatives	Mainstream policy opposition	Mainstream polity opposition	Mainstream procedural opposition
Lagged dependent variable	0.02	0.09	−0.10^**	0.13^**	−0.21^***	−0.07
Lagged dependent variable	(0.04)	(0.09)	(0.04)	(0.06)	(0.05)	(0.07)
Lagged challenger opposition	0.26^***	−0.01	0.23^***	0.28^*	−0.13^***	0.17^***
Lagged challenger opposition	(0.09)	(0.10)	(0.06)	(0.15)	(0.03)	(0.06)
Government party	−0.25^***	−0.13^***	−0.13^***	−0.14^***	−0.02^***	−0.07^***
Government party	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.01)	(0.02)	(0.00)	(0.01)
EU position	−0.04^***	−0.01	−0.04^*	−0.03^***	−0.01	0.01
EU position	(0.01)	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)
EU saliency	0.03^***	0.01	0.03^***	0.01	0.02^***	−0.00
EU saliency	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Left-right	0.01^*	0.01^**	−0.00	0.01	0.00	−0.00
Left-right	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.00)	(0.00)
GAL-TAN	−0.00	−0.01	0.01	−0.00	0.00	−0.00
GAL-TAN	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.00)	(0.00)
Vote share	0.00^***	0.00^**	0.00^***	0.00^**	0.00	0.00^***
Vote share	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)
Challenger vote share	0.00^**	−0.00	0.00^***	−0.00	0.00^***	0.00
Challenger vote share	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)
Challenger EU saliency	−0.05^***	0.03^**	−0.08^***	−0.03	−0.02^***	−0.01
Challenger EU saliency	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.01)	(0.03)	(0.00)	(0.01)
Pre/post SD	0.09^**	0.10^***	−0.01	0.14^***	−0.02^*	−0.04^**
Pre/post SD	(0.03)	(0.03)	(0.02)	(0.05)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Session	−0.00^***	−0.00^*	−0.00	−0.01^***	0.00^***	0.00
Session	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)
Constant	0.59^***	0.07	0.55^***	0.52^***	0.04	0.04
Constant	(0.09)	(0.09)	(0.11)	(0.13)	(0.05)	(0.09)
R2	0.46	0.39	0.19	0.48	0.19	0.21
Observations	102	102	102	102	102	102

Note: Panel-corrected standard errors in parentheses.

p < 0.10, ^** p < 0.05, ^*** p < 0.01.

As we moved on to test the hypotheses that take into account the distinction between different types and modes of opposition, the influence of Eurosceptic challenger parties on mainstream party behaviour was strengthened. In terms of the different types of disagreement, we hypothesised that an increase in oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties would prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition in EU affairs, primarily in the form of alternatives rather than critique (H2). Our results lend support to this proposition. As demonstrated in Model 2, there was seemingly no significant effect of Eurosceptic ‘Challenger opposition’ on ‘Mainstream critique’. However, as shown in Model 3, which tapped into the influence of ‘Challenger opposition’ on ‘Mainstream alternatives’, the regression coefficient was 0.23, and the effect was significant at the 99% level of confidence. The results thus support the claim that mainstream parties will respond to challenger party opposition primarily by presenting more alternatives rather than expressing more critique.

In terms of the different modes of opposition, we hypothesised that an increase in oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties would prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition, primarily in the form of policy opposition rather than polity opposition (H3). Again, our findings lend support to this proposition. As indicated by the results in Model 4, there is a significant relationship between Eurosceptic ‘Challenger opposition’ and ‘Mainstream policy opposition’. Before jumping to conclusions, one should note that this effect was only significant at the 90% level of confidence. However, these findings were strengthened by the results in Model 5, which show a negative relationship between Eurosceptic ‘Challenger opposition’ and ‘Mainstream polity opposition’ (significant at the 99% level of confidence). This suggests that the more opposition that is expressed by Eurosceptic challenger parties, the less polity opposition will be expressed by mainstream parties. Moreover, Model 6 demonstrated that there is a positive relationship (significant at the 99% level of confidence) between Eurosceptic ‘Challenger opposition’ and ‘Mainstream procedural opposition’. This finding is in line with the cartel party theory (Katz and Mair, 1995), according to which mainstream parties are assumed to spend proportionately more time than challenger parties discussing the way politics is conducted (procedural matters) instead of focussing on policy matters or questioning the political system. Taken together, these findings provide solid support for H3, according to which the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties prompts mainstream parties in particular to present more policy opposition than polity opposition.

Our results show mixed support for the control variables included. The most convincing finding is that the variable ‘Government party’ is significant in all six models at the 99% level of confidence. The negative regression coefficient across all the models shows, unsurprisingly, that mainstream opposition parties are more affected by the behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties than mainstream government parties. As expected, MPs representing mainstream government parties are more moderate in their oppositional behaviour than MPs from mainstream opposition parties. In addition, the mainstream parties’ ‘EU position’ seems to have a negative impact on their oppositional behaviour, which makes sense since parties with a more positive view of European integration can be expected to express less opposition in EU affairs (significant effects in Models 1, 3 and 4). Similarly, the mainstream parties’ ‘EU saliency’ has a seemingly positive effect on their propensity to express opposition (significant effects in Models 1, 3 and 5). The mainstream parties’ ‘left-right position’ seems to have a limited impact on their oppositional behaviour (significant effects only in Models 1 and 2), and mainstream parties’ ‘GAL-TAN position’ had no significant effect in any model. The size of mainstream parties (measured as their ‘Vote share’) had a significant but very small effect in Models 1–4 and 6.

We also ran a regression with an interaction variable included (Challenger opposition x Vote share), to check whether the contagion effect appears to be conditional on the size of the mainstream party. This analysis shows no consistent pattern speaking in favour of such an interaction effect (see the Online Appendix Table A5). Similar mixed results apply to the size of challenger parties (measured as ‘Challenger vote share’), the ‘Challenger EU saliency’, and the effect of the ‘extremeness’ of challenger parties (measured as ‘Pre/post SD’), where the latter suggests that the impact of Eurosceptic oppositional behaviour became stronger when the Sweden Democrats entered parliament (positive and significant effects in Models 1, 2 and 4). Collectively, these results furnish additional support for our hypotheses, when controlling for the abovementioned factors. To corroborate our findings, we ran a series of jackknife tests and the contagion effect appears to be robust (see the Online Appendix Table A4).

To further examine the influence of Eurosceptic challenger parties on mainstream party behaviour, we studied whether different kinds of oppositional behaviour affect the corresponding behaviour of mainstream parties (i.e. matched independent and dependent variables). The Online Appendix Table A6 presents the result of six regression models with corresponding measures of mainstream party behaviour to different forms of Eurosceptic parties’ oppositional behaviour. When matching independent and dependent variables in this way, we found significant effects only in two models (Models 7 and 10). The first model, Model 7, is in fact identical to Model 1 in Table 1, as it taps into the effect of ‘Challenger opposition’ on ‘Mainstream opposition’ when controlling for a number of other factors. However, once we moved on to test the hypotheses that take into account the distinction between different types and modes of opposition using matched independent and dependent variables, the influence of Eurosceptic challenger parties on mainstream party behaviour can only be confirmed in Model 10, which displays a significant effect of ‘Challenger policy opposition’ on ‘Mainstream policy opposition’. This finding suggests that mainstream parties will match the behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties in terms of delivering policy opposition, but not when it comes to other forms of oppositional behaviour. The control variables again received mixed support, and the findings were in accordance with the results found in Models 1–6.

Taken together, these results confirm the proposition that an increase in the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties will prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition in EU affairs. We also found that the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties primarily prompts mainstream parties to present more policy opposition, rather than polity opposition. Furthermore, our findings provide evidence to suggest that presenting alternatives is more important for mainstream parties than presenting critique. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the impact of Eurosceptic challenger parties on the behaviour of mainstream parties as well as for the general understanding of the factors that drive national parliamentary EU opposition.

Conclusions

In this article, we set out to assess the impact of Eurosceptic challenger party opposition on the parliamentary behaviour of mainstream parties. Previous research has looked mainly at how Eurosceptic challenger parties can cause mainstream parties to change their policy positions and bring about adjustments to their programmes. We explored whether this contagion effect extends to the oppositional behaviour of mainstream parties in EU affairs, which is, up until now, an unexplored topic.

Our main finding is that oppositional behaviour is indeed contagious as the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties has a significant effect on the behaviour of mainstream parties. First, the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties seems to prompt mainstream parties to express more opposition in EU affairs. Second, the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties seems to cause mainstream parties to express opposition in the form of presenting alternatives rather than delivering critique. Third, the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties seems to induce mainstream parties to focus their efforts on discussing EU policies rather than the EU polity. Fourth, the behaviour induces mainstream parties to deliver more procedural opposition. All forms of mainstream oppositional behaviour, except the propensity to deliver critique, are thus affected by Eurosceptic challenger party behaviour.

The finding that mainstream parties become more oppositional in EU affairs as a result of the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties, is compatible with the view that the growth of Eurosceptic parties reflects an increasing salience of European issues in national politics. Once Eurosceptic parties enter parliament, they act as entrepreneurs for increased EU opposition among mainstream parties by giving voice to their disagreements with the government (De Vries and Hobolt, 2012). Our results also suggest that the oppositional behaviour of MPs who belong to mainstream opposition parties is more affected by Eurosceptic challenger parties than MPs who belong to mainstream government parties. This finding was expected, given the well-known dynamic between government and opposition parties (Schumacher and Van Kersbergen, 2016; Van de Wardt, 2015).

The broader consequences for democracy of the identified contagion effect are difficult to assess. On the one hand, since the increase in oppositional behaviour by mainstream parties mainly comes in the form of presenting alternatives rather than delivering critique, our findings indicate that the contagion effect primarily results in voters having more choice in EU politics. This is a positive consequence, since providing citizens with choice and real alternatives is a prerequisite for an improved democratic process (Dahl, 1966; Garritzmann, 2017: 2). Furthermore, and in contrast to the claim made by Mair (2007: 7) that ‘we are […] almost forced to organise opposition to the EU’ as a political system because there is no opposition to its policies, we found that mainstream parties primarily increase their policy opposition (rather than their polity opposition) in response to the competition offered by Eurosceptic challenger parties. This means that Eurosceptic challenger parties contributes to increasing the amount of ‘classical’ opposition in EU affairs (Kirchheimer 1957), and this, too, enhances the quality of the democratic process.

On the other hand, in order to provide the electorate with real choice in EU politics, the policy alternatives presented should be clear enough and realistic, rather than political pipe dreams disguised as policy proposals. Additionally, merely presenting alternatives in the EAC will not automatically help reduce the alleged opposition deficit in EU politics (Rauh and De Wilde, 2018). In order for this to happen, the alternatives will have to reach the electoral arena and be presented to the voters. As this study was not able to examine the publicity and quality of the alternatives presented in the EAC, the impact of Eurosceptic challenger parties on the functioning of domestic democracy in EU politics is, to some extent, still hanging in the balance.

What we can establish, however, is that we found evidence of an accommodative strategy among mainstream parties in Sweden to the oppositional behaviour of Eurosceptic challenger parties. This finding is well in line with previous research that demonstrates the party position adjustments and programmatic adaptations made among mainstream parties in response to niche party success (Meguid, 2005). Or as put by Brack and Startin (2015: 242), as the political conflict regarding EU issues has intensified, Euroscepticism has ‘moved from the margins to the mainstream’. Our findings have important implications for this research field since it extends the concept of Eurosceptic contagion to the parliamentary behaviour of mainstream parties, and contradicts the claim that we are witnessing a waning of opposition in EU affairs due to the behaviour of the parties inside ‘the mainstream cartel’ (cf. Karlsson and Persson, 2018). Our study thus provides evidence for the great impact that Eurosceptic challenger parties have on domestic politics, although more studies are needed to determine whether this influence exists beyond Sweden, in other EU member states. The fact that this case was strategically chosen, as we expected the impact of Eurosceptic challenger parties to be relatively small in the Swedish EAC, should go some way to increase the generalisability of our results. However, it is only by extending this analysis to other political systems and arenas, that we will eventually gain a thorough understanding of how Euroscepticism shapes domestic politics and European integration over time.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-ppq-10.1177_13540688211051663 – Supplemental material for The influence of Eurosceptic challenger parties on mainstream party behaviour: Is oppositional behaviour contagious?

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-ppq-10.1177_13540688211051663 for The influence of Eurosceptic challenger parties on mainstream party behaviour: Is oppositional behaviour contagious? by Thomas Persson, Christer Karlsson and Moa Mårtensson in Party Politics

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Timothy Bergfalk for his excellent research assistance. We are also very grateful to Kåre Vernby,the three anonymous reviewers and the journal editor for constructive comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation and the Swedish Research Council granted financial support for this research.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research,authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation grant_number MMW 2014.0011 and Vetenskapsrådet grant_number VR 2017-02931.

ORCID iDs

Thomas Persson

Christer Karlsson

Moa Mårtensson

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Thomas Persson is Associate professor of political science at the Department of Government,Uppsala University. His research interests include European Union politics,party behaviour and parliamentary democracy.

Christer Karlsson is Professor of political science at the Department of Government,Uppsala University. His recent research concerns political opposition,party behaviour and climate change politics.

Moa Mårtensson is a researcher at the Department of Government,Uppsala University. Her research interests are in the areas of European Union politics,political opposition,political equality and welfare politics.

References

Abou-Chadi

(2016) Niche party success and mainstream party policy shifts – how green and radical right parties differ in their impact. British Journal of Political Science 46(2): 417–436.

Adams

Somer-Topcu

(2009) Policy adjustment by parties in response to rival parties’ policy shifts: Spatial theory and the dynamics of party competition in twenty-five post-war democracies. British Journal of Political Science 39(4): 825–846.

Auel

Rozenberg

Tacea

(2015) To scrutinise or not to scrutinise? Explaining variation in EU-related activities in national parliaments. West European Politics 38(2): 282–304.

Beck

Katz

(1995) What to do (and not to do) with time-series-cross-section data. American Political Science Review 89(3): 634–647.

Brack

Startin

(2015) Introduction: Euroscepticism, from the margins to the mainstream. International Political Science Review 36(3): 239–249.

Budge

(1994) A new spatial theory of party competition: Uncertainty, ideology and policy equilibria viewed comparatively and temporally. British Journal of Political Science 24(4): 443–467.

Dahl

(ed) (1966) Political Opposition in Western Democracies. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Damgaard

(2000) Conclusion: The impact of European integration on Nordic parliamentary democracies. Journal of Legislative Studies 6(1): 151–169.

De Vries

Hobolt

(2012) When dimensions collide: The electoral success of issue entrepreneurs. European Union Politics 13(2): 246–268.

10.

Downs

(1957) An Economic Theory of Democracy. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.

11.

Filip

(2021) Eurosceptic Contagion: The Influence of Eurosceptic Parties in West-European Party Systems. Switzerland: Springer Nature.

12.

Garritzmann

(2017) How much power do oppositions have? Comparing the opportunity structures of parliamentary oppositions in 21 democracies. The Journal of Legislative Studies 23(1): 1–30.

13.

Green-Pedersen

(2012) A giant fast asleep? Party incentives and the politicisation of European integration. Political Studies 60(1): 115–130.

14.

Han

(2015) The Impact of radical right-wing parties on the positions of mainstream parties regarding multiculturalism. West European Politics 38(3): 557–576.

15.

Hegeland

(2015) The Swedish parliament and EU affairs: From reluctant player to Europeanized actor. In: Hefftler

Neuhold

Rozenberg

, et al. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of National Parliaments and the European Union. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

16.

Hoerner

(2017) Real scrutiny or smoke and mirrors: The determinants and role of resolutions of national parliaments in European Union affairs. European Union Politics 18(2): 307–322.

17.

Hooghe

Marks

(2009) A postfunctionalist theory of European integration: From permissive consensus to constraining dissensus. British Journal of Political Science 39(1): 1–23.

18.

Hutter

Braun

Kerscher

(2016) Constitutive issues as driving forces of politicisation? In: Hutter

Grande

Kriesi

(eds) Politicising Europe: Mass Politics and Integration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

19.

Hutter

Grande

(2014) Politicizing Europe in the national electoral arena: A comparative analysis of five West European countries, 1970–2010. Journal of Common Market Studies 52(5): 1002–1018.

20.

Karlsson

Persson

(2018) The alleged opposition deficit in European Union politics: Myth or reality? Journal of Common Market Studies 56 (4): 888–905.

21.

Karlsson

Persson

(2022) Comparing oppositional behaviour in European Union affairs: Empirical evidence from six member states. West European Politics 45(2): 286–310.

22.

Katz

Mair

(1995) Changing models of party organizations and party democracy: The emergence of the cartel party. Party Politics 1(1): 5–28.

23.

Kirchheimer

(1957) The waning of opposition in parliamentary regimes. Social Research 24(1): 127–156.

24.

Lindvall

Bäck

Dahlström

, et al. (2020) Sweden’s parliamentary democracy at 100. Parliamentary Affairs 73(3): 477–502.

25.

Louwerse

Otjes

(2019) How populists wage opposition: Parliamentary opposition behaviour and populism in Netherlands. Political Studies 67(2): 479–495.

26.

Mair

(2007) Political opposition and the European Union. Government and Opposition 42(1): 1–17.

27.

Mayhew

(1974) Congress: The Electoral Connection. New Haven: Yale University Press.

28.

Meguid

(2005) Competition between unequals: the role of mainstream party strategy in niche party success. American Political Science Review 99(3): 347–359.

29.

Meijers

(2017) Contagious Euroscepticism: the impact of Eurosceptic support on mainstream party positions on European integration. Party Politics 23(4): 413–423.

30.

Meijers

Van der Veer

(2019) Issue competition without electoral incentives? a study of issue emphasis in the European parliament. The Journal of Politics 81(4): 1240–1253.

31.

Moury

De Giorgi

(2015) introduction: Conflict and consensus in parliament during the economic crisis. The Journal of Legislative Studies 21(1): 1–13.

32.

Nickell

(1981) Biases in dynamic models with fixed effects. Econometrica 49(6): 1417–1426.

33.

Norton

(2008) Making sense of opposition. The Journal of Legislative Studies 14(1/2): 236–250.

34.

Persson

Mårtensson

Karlsson

(2019) Eurosceptic challenger parties and political opposition in European Union politics: Part of the problem or part of the solution? Scandinavian Political Studies 42(3/4): 245–269.

35.

Rauh

De Wilde

(2018) The opposition deficit in EU accountability: evidence from over 20 years of plenary debate in four member states. European Journal of Political Research 57(1): 194–216.

36.

Rooduijn

De Lange

Van der Brug

(2014) A populist Zeitgeist? Programmatic contagion by populist parties in Western Europe. Party Politics 20(4): 563–575.

37.

Saalfeld

(2005) Deliberate delegation or abdication? Government backbenchers, ministers and European Union legislation, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 11(3–4): 343–371.

38.

Schumacher

Van Kersbergen

(2016) Do mainstream parties adapt to the welfare chauvinism of populist parties? Party Politics 22(3): 300–312.

39.

Senninger

(2017) Issue expansion and selective scrutiny – how opposition parties used parliamentary questions about the European Union in the national arena from 1973 to 2013. European Union Politics 18(2): 283–306.

40.

Somer-Topcu

(2009) Timely decisions: The effects of past national elections on party policy change. Journal of Politics 71(1): 238–248.

41.

Strøm

(1997) The journal of legislative rules, reasons and routines: Legislative roles in parliamentary democracies. Journal of Legislative Studies 3(1): 155–174.

42.

Taggart

Szczerbiak

(2013) Coming in from the cold? Euroscepticism, government participation and party positions on Europe. Journal of Common Market Studies 51(1): 17–37.

43.

Tuttnauer

(2018) If you can beat them, confront them: Party-level analysis of opposition behavior in European national parliaments. European Union Politics 19(2): 278–298.

44.

Van de Wardt

(2015) Desperate needs, desperate deeds: Why mainstream parties respond to the issues of niche parties. West European Politics 38(1): 93–122.

45.

Van Spanje

(2010) Contagious parties: Anti-immigration parties and their impact on other parties immigration stances in contemporary Western Europe. Party Politics 16(5): 563–586.

46.

Vasilopoulou

(2013) Continuity and change in the study of Euroscepticism: plus ça change? Journal of Common Market Studies 51(1): 153–168.

47.

Williams

Ishiyama

(2018) Responding to the left: The effect of far-left parties on mainstream party Euroskepticism. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 28(4): 443–466.

48.

Winzen

(2012) National parliamentary control of European Union affairs: A cross-national and longitudinal comparison. West European Politics 35(3): 657–672.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.45 MB