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Euroscepticism in Belgium: Issue-Voting Against the Odds

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The Eurosceptic 2014 European Parliament Elections

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics ((PSEUP))

Abstract

The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections saw unprecedented support for eurosceptic parties. This chapter aims to examine what message voters intended to send by voting for radical parties in Belgium. Drawing on the literature on citizens’ attitudes toward Europe, we analyze to what extent this surge of support for eurosceptic parties was about Europe. We rely on data from the 2014 PartiRep survey and test four models on the Belgian case. We show that despite strong depoliticization of European Union (EU) issues, Europe now matters even in Belgium. Citizens who voted for a radical and eurosceptic party did so not as a protest against the government or because of utilitarian or identity-related considerations, but to express anti-EU sentiments.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.europarl.europa.eu/atyourservice/en/20150201PVL00053/Post-election-survey-2014 (webpage consulted May 2016).

  2. 2.

    These separate analyses showed no relevant differences with the analysis presented in 3.

  3. 3.

    As their response to the question: ‘In politics, we often speak of the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. Could you position yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 meaning ‘left’, 5 ‘at the center’, and 10 ‘right’? We recode 10 and 0 to 5, 9 and 1 to 4, 8 and 2 to 3, 3 and 7 to 2, 4 and 6 to 1 and 5, ‘in the center’, to 0.

  4. 4.

    The five items included are trust in political parties, the regional (Flemish/Walloon) government, the federal government, the federal parliament and politicians. Cronbach’s alpha = 0.922.

  5. 5.

    As mentioned, European citizenship, included in model 3, may also be considered to fit this explanation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. FRS-FNRS, Cevipol, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

    Nathalie Brack

  2. Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

    Louise Hoon

Authors
  1. Nathalie Brack
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  2. Louise Hoon
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Julie Hassing Nielsen

  2. European University Institute, Florence, Italy

    Mark N. Franklin

Appendix

Appendix

Table 9.4 Binary logistic regression for casting a Eurosceptic vote in the regional elections
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Table 9.5 Binary logistic regression for casting a Eurosceptic vote in the federal elections
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Table 9.6 Frequency table: gender
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Table 9.7 Frequency table: occupational status
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Table 9.8 Frequency table: education
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Table 9.9 Cronbach’s alpha for sum scales: European citizenship, positive attitudes toward immigration and trust in national political institutions
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© 2017 The Author(s)

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Brack, N., Hoon, L. (2017). Euroscepticism in Belgium: Issue-Voting Against the Odds. In: Hassing Nielsen, J., Franklin, M. (eds) The Eurosceptic 2014 European Parliament Elections. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58696-4_9

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