National identity and political orientation in Europe

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FEDERAL STATE AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL

INSTITUTION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

National identity and political orientation in Europe. Radical

left and right euroscepticism.

Field of Study in Sociology

Master's Program “Comparative Social Research”,

academic group № CSR141

Dracheva Alina

Moscow 2016

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Theoretical background

1.1 Literature review: individual-level drivers of euroscepticism

1.2 Nationalism and radical left- and right-wing party euroscepticism: mirrored at the individual level?

1.3 Ethnic nationalism, ethnic identity and radical right euroscepticism

1.4 Civic nationalism, civic identity and radical left euroscepticism

2. Data, methodology & results

2.1 Database

2.2 Measurement of euroscepticism

2.3 Measurement of radical left- and right-wing political orientation

2.4 Measurement of national identity

2.5 Control variables

2.6 Method

2.7 Results

Conclusion

References

Appendix



Introduction

euroscepticism ethnic nationalism

Public euroscepticism in Europe has gained considerable ground during the last decennium. Failed ratification of the European Constitution, delayed signature of the Lisbon Treaty, infamous economic crisis of the Eurozone, social unrest and contention over austerity measures led to the historically low levels of public confidence in the institutions and policies of the European Union. Many Europeans started to blame the EU for the failure of euro currency and for the loss of some vital resources in local communities due to austerity measures, as well as for the crisis of democracy that manifested itself in the lack of legitimacy of the EU institutions. The results of 2009 and 2014 European Parliament elections showed growing support for radical political parties that had launched harsh criticism towards further European integration.

More recently, the immigration crisis in Europe that sparked in 2015 fueled far-right euroscepticism. Radical right-wing politicians accused the EU of its immigration policy as they deemed it inefficient and largely imposed by Germany. Euroscepticism as a social and political phenomenon becomes an issue that needs to be studied and understood, its reasons and underlying mechanisms have to be revealed.

Euroscepticism is mostly found on the opposite extremes of left-right political spectrum. Radical left- and right-wing parties in Europe have put forward a shared anti-integration agenda and have demonstrated their capacity to mobilize the electorate and gain significant support. In France, the Front National, a radical right eurosceptic party, won the European Parliament election in 2014 with 24.85% of the vote; on the other side of the political spectrum, Jean-Luc Mйlenchon, leader of the Left Front, opposed the Lisbon Treaty and condemned economic liberalism of the European union. In Greece, the governing coalition of the radical right, represented by Independent Greeks, and the radical left (Syriza) exemplifies unified eurosceptic stances on both ends of the left-right divide.

Existing research on radical left- and right-wing parties underlies the differences in these parties' origins and their ideological stances (Halikiopoulou, Nanou & Vasilopoulou, 2012). Ideologically, the radical right of the political spectrum is closely tied with nationalism. In their agendas, radical right-wing parties focus on the importance of external threats, socio-economic as well as cultural, that are coming from the outside of the national borders (Hainsworth, 2008) and policies unfavorable for refugees and migrants (Mudde, 2007). The ideology of radical left is centered on the three common elements: rejection of the free market economy and values of the capitalist society; protection of people's social and economic rights in order to approach economic equality and social justice; and the pursuit of international communication between states in order to deal with shared problems (March & Mudde, 2005). However, despite all these differences between radical left- and right-wing parties, there is evidence for a common ideological element - nationalism - that leads to their shared views on the European Union (Halikiopoulou et al., 2012). Radical left-wing parties appear to oppose European integration due to their nationalist narratives, which they theoretically should confront on ideological grounds.

Although there are a number of studies on how party positions on the issue of European integration are structured, there is not much theoretical and empirical work done as to how the public opinion towards the EU is structured with regard to political ideology. A recent article by van Elsas, Hakhverdian and van der Brug shows evidence for different motivations of left- and right-wing euroscepticism: according to their research, the former is driven mainly by economic reasons, while the latter is motivated by cultural concerns (van Elsas et al., 2016). However, theoretically it ignores the common ideological feature of the radical left and right - nationalism - that drives euroscepticism of both political extremes, and empirically it does not focus on the radical left and right. The hypothesis suggesting that there is a connection between national identity and radical left- and right-wing euroscepticism has never been empirically tested on the individual level. It presents an important gap in current research on euroscepticism, and the purpose of this study is to fill this gap.

We expect that party-level political structures can be mirrored at the individual level because parties and individuals of the same political ideology can be assumed to have the same values and endorse the same principles. As we expect euroscepticism to a certain extent to be motivated by these values and principles, these structures would be also reflected at the individual level. In our study, we aim at revealing the relation between eurosceptic views of individuals voting for radical right- and left-wing parties and their national identity - ethnic and civic. We hypothesize that (1) there is a positive relationship between euroscepticism and voting for radical left- and right-wing parties and that (2) ethnic identity is a strong predictor of right-wing euroscepticism, whereas radical left-wing euroscepticism is positively affected by civic identity; (3) we also check for the interaction effect between civic identity and radical left-wing voting with regard to their influence on euroscepticism, as we expect civic identity to have a conditional effect on individual-level euroscepticism, depending on the adherence to the radical left.

In order to test our hypotheses we draw on data from the module National Identity III (2013) of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). The main statistical method used is multilevel linear regression.

Our study proceeds as follows. First, we classify existing studies of individual-level euroscepticism and provide a short literature review on the current state of affairs in euroscepticism research. Second, we build our theoretical argument and provide it with a theoretical framework. Third, we describe our data, measurement strategy and methods used. Then we proceed to the description and explication of the results of our analysis. We conclude with discussion of our study's contribution to the debate on motivations of euroscepticism.



1. Theoretical background

Literature review: individual-level drivers of euroscepticism

The study of euroscepticism has become remarkably proliferate beginning from the 1990s. It began with the article of Paul Taggart, “A Touchstone of Dissent: Euroscepticism in Contemporary Western European Party Systems” (1998), from where it expanded on studies of political party positions and public opinion. Taggart was the first to use the tools of Comparative politics to try to explain the opposition to the European union integration overall it appeared to be the first research paper, which showed patterns that could describe this phenomenon (Vasilopoulou, 2013). Since then, scholarly research on public opinion towards the European integration has been ample. However, it hardly addressed the problem of ideological underpinnings of Euroscepticism in terms of differences between the left and the right at the citizen level.

In the studies of public attitudes to the European union, scholars used mostly Eurobarometer surveys to determine factors motivating individuals to oppose European integration. As for the theories on euroscepticism, there are several principal approaches that can be highlighted. Building on Gabel (1998), we classify theories on euroscepticism at the individual level according to two major groups of explanations: economic, or utilitarian, explanations and political explanations. These explanations, with the focus on economic ones, have been also referred to as `hard factors' of individual-level euroscepticism. To these, we add another group that is commonly referred to as `soft factors', which are related to identity, affective and culturally motivated characteristics (Klingeren, Boomgaarden & Vreese, 2013).

First to appear were economic explanations of euroscepticism. It is usually explained by the fact that in its first, pre-Maastricht, period European integration was merely about economic issues (Hooghe & Marks, 2005; Klingeren et al., 2013). Economic explanations of euroscepticism, or `hard factors', are based on the rational choice theory. It aims to explain human behavior in terms of calculative rationale: people tend to take actions that will bring them reward and try to avoid doing things that appear to be disadvantageous (Coleman, 1973; Scott, 2000). So, with regard to euroscepticism, people are thought to encounter different costs and benefits from the European union membership and, accordingly, to have different views on European integration (Gabel & Palmer, 1995). The main idea is that people who find themselves in economically favorable circumstances brought to them by the European union are less inclined to adopt eurosceptic views. Therefore, in this line of research lower occupational groups are expected to be eurosceptic as they are more at risk to be replaced by immigrants from the European union and elsewhere whose work is cheaper. For them, further integration and elimination of barriers with more countries would mean the influx of immigrant workforce that presents more competition and, consequentially, more threat to their well-being (Rodrik, 1997; Gabel, 1998). Inversely, higher educated and higher occupational groups are expected to derive more benefits from European integration: in an international setting they have more chances to fulfill their potential and apply their knowledge. Moreover, internationalization would open more investment opportunities with the opening of financial markets (Gabel, 1998).

Political explanations of euroscepticism at the citizen level are mostly based on the proposition coming from political science: individuals who are less politically informed are thought to be more susceptible to adopt eurosceptic views (Lubbers & Scheepers, 2007). Inglehart `cognitive mobilization' theory states that certain skills are necessary to understand what exactly is the European union (Inglehart, 1970). Therefore, higher educated people are expected to be less eurosceptic. In the same line of reasoning age and sex were also taken into consideration: women and younger people were found to be lest interested in politics, and, accordingly, less politically educated (Gabel 1998).

One of the first studies that brought attention to the lack of `soft factors' in previous explanations of euroscepticism was McLaren's article in which she claimed that the importance of perceived immigrant threat, rejection of different cultures and nationalism had been largely ignored (McLaren, 2002). Since then, it has been argued that national attachment is one of the strongest drivers of negative attitudes to the European union, expressed through threat and mistrust. It has been even argued that identity factors are more significant while explaining individual-level euroscepticism than economic explanations (Hooghe & Marks, 2005; Klingeren et al., 2013). These studies were mainly backed up by social identity theory, which states that people's actions and views on various issues are formed by the desire to be part of social groups and institutions (Tajfel & Turner, 2001). Connections to a social group have a great influence on people's attitudes (Ellemers, Spears & Doosje, 2002). Creating a positive image of the social self is important for most people, and it is achieved by perceiving their in-group superior to the out-groups. Individuals attribute positive characteristics to their group through the process of `social identification' and they view negatively those from the out-groups through `social contra-identification' (Levine & Campbell, 1972; Lubbers & Scheepers, 2007). Thus it was hypothesized that in-group bias translates into valuing national traditions highly, and that national sentiments lead to the opposition to European integration, as many people perceive the EU as a power that is taking away national sovereignty and eroding national culture (Lubbers & Scheepers, 2007).

As this short review shows, neither of these studies pointed at different ideological underpinnings of euroscepticism. Only a recent article by van Elsas, Hakhverdian and van der Brug (2016) addressed this issue, focusing on different motivations of radical left and radical right citizens to adopt eurosceptic views. The authors showed that individuals who are situated on the extremes of left-right political orientation scale tend to be more eurosceptic and that those who lean to the left are so due to economic concerns, particularly their support for redistribution. What motivates those who lean to the right of the self-placement political orientation scale to be eurosceptic is mostly their national sentiments and anti-immigrant attitudes (van Elsas et al., 2016). However, the unspoken assumption behind their analysis seems to be that, in their negative attitude towards European union, radical left individuals are driven by `hard', economic factors only; that they are rationally refuting European integration on the grounds of economic inequality. Radical right citizens, on the other hand, are assumed to be driven by `soft', identity factors; they are thought to be motivated by nationalist and anti-immigrant `sentiments'. Thus, nationalism is viewed as a feature of the radical right, but does this assumption hold true? In this study, on the contrary, we argue that nationalism is a deep-rooted phenomenon that can be found at both extremes of the political spectrum.

Nationalism and radical left- and right-wing party euroscepticism: mirrored at the individual level?

The only study that pointed to the common roots of euroscepticism among the radical left and the radical right to date is Halikiopoulou, Nanou and Vasilopoulou article (2012), in which they argued that nationalism cuts across party lines and is a common denominator of radical left- and right-wing parties' euroscepticism (Halikiopoulou et al, 2012). The theoretical framework they used is based on the integration of two principal approaches to explaining party-level euroscepticism - the so-called Sussex school and the North Carolina school.

The Sussex and the North Carolina schools present ultimately different views on the study of euroscepticism that originate from different ontologies and epistemologies behind social reality (Vasilopoulou, 2013). Consequently, the two schools provide different analytical strategies to the research on euroscepticism. The Sussex school focuses on national-specific party systems and explains parties' euroscepticism in terms of strategic considerations of political parties. The main argument of this school is that in order to gain the electorate, radical parties of both left and right choose common opposition strategies and adopt eurosceptic propositions in order to gain potential voters. Thus, most important factors of euroscepticism among radical left- and right-wing parties include a party's peripheral position in the national party-system (Taggart, 1998), probability to access office and positions of political allies and enemies (Vasilopoulou, 2013), and the like.

The second camp, known as the North Carolina School, focuses on the ideological underpinnings of party programs. The main argument of this school is that behind euroscepticism of political parties lies a complex system of values and beliefs (Marks & Wilson, 2000). Scholars of this school emphasize historical ideological cleavages in Western Europe, which can explain various party positions on European integration. Hence, a close examination of a party's historical predispositions might predict its attitude towards a new issue like European integration. The `horseshoe', or `inverted U' theory suggests that the radical right and left, although situated on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, can share their view of some issues, particularly their attitude towards the European union (Hooghe et al., 2002). According to this approach, radical right euroscepticism is largely driven by its opposition to immigration, its cultural protectionism and the defense of national sovereignty, whereas the radical left tends to adopt eurosceptic positions due to its negative attitude towards European union neoliberal politics.

Halikiopoulou et al. (2012) argue that these two approaches are not as contradictory as it might seem, as in practice it is often hard to distinguish a party's strategy from its ideology. The authors use an integrative approach and argue, on the one hand, that nationalism is a common ideological feature of both the radical left and right, and, on the other hand, that the particular kind of nationalism depends on party's strategic considerations. In this study we argue that ideological underpinnings of radical left- and right-wing parties' euroscepticism, as well as strategic elements of their party politics, can be mirrored at the individual level. There are two main reasons supporting our argument. The first one is related to ideology: left and right ideologies are connected to distinct sets of values and principles that are, on the one hand, shared by individuals of the same ideological positions and, on the other hand, influence party politics. Therefore, assuming that attitudes towards European integration are also shaped by these values and principles, it can be argued that political parties and citizens at similar ends of the political spectrum to a certain extent share these attitudes (van Elsas et al., 2016). The second one is related to strategy: there is some research, which has shown that elites form public opinion towards the European union (Ray, 2003; Gabel and Scheve, 2007; Steenbergen et al., 2007). At the same time there are studies showing that party positions are largely driven by voters' preferences (Carrubba, 2001). Hence, we can expect that different types of nationalism drive radical right and left wing euroscepticism on the individual as much as on the party level.

Building on Halikiopoulou et al. (2012), this study suggests that nationalism, as the achievement and defense of unity, identity and autonomy of a national community (Breuilly, 2005), is an important ideological feature of both radical right- and left-wing parties. The radical right euroscepticism is driven by predominantly ethnic reasons as it perceives cultural identity of a nation to be endangered by the expanding European union. Parties of the radical left adopt eurosceptic positions mainly due to civic reasons as they equate further expansion of the European union with intervention of great imperialistic powers and a menace to the territorial sovereignty of the nation-state (Halikiopoulou et al., 2012). Nationalism here is regarded as an ideology, the key principle of which is the unity of national and political units (Gellner & Breuilly, 2008). This ideology is rather consistent and systematic, when it is viewed as being linked to the intention to keep a nation's unity and autonomy and as giving an answer to the national question. However, as it has been suggested by several studies, nationalism does not provide coherent answers to the questions of social welfare and justice (Freeden, 1998; Halikiopoulou et al., 2012). This makes it a `thin', or `sticky' ideology that can attach itself to any other ideology that provides such answers, and that can become both a reactionary movement and a progressive social force, right- and left-wing, authoritarian and democratic (Heywood, 1992; Hetcher, 2000). This characteristic of nationalism made it possible to identify its two different types: ethnic nationalism that is exclusive, organic and is confined to a native community of birth and distinct culture; and civic nationalism that is inclusive, voluntary and that is based on a political union and a civic culture (Kohn, 1961; Smith, 1991; Zimmer, 2003; Halikiopoulou, 2012).

According to Freeden (1998: 752), nationalism's core element is its capacity to develop a `sense of belonging and membership in which sentiment and emotion play an important role' (cit. in Halikiopoulou, 2012). Hence, nationalism has a potential for radicalization, which, regardless of it being left- or right-wing, induces radical negative attitudes towards European integration. Halikiopoulou (2012) argues that the radical left endorses civic elements of nationalism and the radical right wing - its ethnic elements due to the different targeted constituencies of both party families. We expect this line of reasoning to be transmitted to the level of citizens, with an allowance for national identity, which takes place of nationalism on the individual level.

Ethnic nationalism, ethnic identity and radical right euroscepticism

Various studies have shown the congruence of right-wing radicalism and particular forms of nationalism (Freeden, 1998; Hechter, 2000; Halikiopoulou, 2012). Ideologically, nationalism of the radical right is based upon the idea of the superiority of the national type of community, which at its very best is culturally identical and uniform. Its political aim is the equivalence of the nation and the state, nation being an ethnic group of native inhabitants (Gellner & Breuilly, 2008). Therefore, radical right political parties endorse this ethnic vision of a nation as a closed community of natives and seek to transmit the values of common race, ancestry and birthplace to wider population.

The European union is a heterogeneous entity, and as such it naturally becomes the target of the radical right. Its labour policies and the promulgation of cultural mobility is attacked by radical right-wing parties on the grounds of a perceived cultural and socio-economic threat coming from immigrants. Their main message is the incongruity of the European union with ethnic values, and their main point is that it is detrimental to a national culture to allow foreigners of different `native communities' and different religions in (Hainsworth, 2008). This message is then taken up at the individual level by citizens leaning to the radical right.

Thus we expect radical right individuals to be more eurosceptic than those who are situated in the center of the political spectrum. Regarding their motivations, we expect radical right voters attitudes towards the European union to be formed by their ethnic identity. Hence, our hypotheses are the following:

H1. There is a positive relationship between euroscepticism and voting for radical right-wing parties.

H2. Ethnic identity is a strong predictor of right wing euroscepticism.

Civic nationalism, civic identity and radical left euroscepticism

The radical left is usually seen as nationalism's ideological enemy, with its fierce opposition to global capitalism and rent owners, its support for equal redistribution of resources in the world at large, its endorsement of common social and economic rights and its internationalism (March & Mudde, 2005). In radical left thought, class is deemed to be the only thing that truly divides the society, regardless of national and other sorts of identities, which are perceived to be superficial and fundamentally false. However, Halikiopoulou et al. (2012) argue that nationalism is an important element of the radical left.

The argument is that, as providing a national programme is essential to radical left-wing parties and movements in order to provide legitimacy and survive in the political battle at the national level, and as class interests can be politically defended only on a nation state's territory (Breuilly, 2012), it results in radical left equating nation with class (Halikiopoulou et al., 2012). National unity and autonomy are thus perceived as the ideals pursued in the name of global justice and equality. The relationship between the radical left and nationalism is traced back to the йpoque of the Enlightenment and the French revolution, where nation was equated with people struggling from elite domination (Hobsbawm, 1992; Smith, 2004; Halikiopoulou, 2012).

According to Halikiopoulou et al. (2012) argument, by equating nation with class the radical left does not stress the homogeneity of a nation; rather, it `seeks emancipation and independence from great powers which are seen as exploitative of the popular classes. It focuses on territory and presents itself as more inclusive and civic. In the radical left we may discern a nationalism characterized by a fervent opposition to imperialism and domination, support for a strongly anti-Western foreign policy and a critique of domestic collaborationists' (Halikiopoulou et al., 2012: 512). Hence, radical left euroscepticism is predominantly associated with the ideals of civic nationalism. However, we would like to add to that one more argument for the civic nature of radical left euroscepticism, which has not yet been pronounced in euroscepticism research.

We argue that civic nationalism of the radical left is closely tied with left-wing cultural protectionism. Its ideological history can be traced to the Frankfurt school and such authors as T. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, G. Marcuse and others, who pointed at the detrimental effect of global neoliberal culture (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944; Marcuse, 1964). In a capitalist society `cultural industry' is composed of factory produced standardized cultural goods, such as films, magazines etc. (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944). Neoliberalism is viewed by the radical left as culturally imperialistic, as in today's world economic threat translates into a cultural threat. People already live in a `global village' (McLuhan, 1962), and the spoken language of this village is English. Complex hegemonic processes underpin the ongoing domination of the English language (Phillipson, 1992). This radical left-wing perception of the capitalist world makes individuals leaning to the radical left protective of their culture, in as much as it is related to civic ideals and the right to speak one's native language. Contrary to the radical right, the radical left does not protect culture against the immigrant threat, as immigrants are equally perceived to be victims of the capitalist system. The radical left euroscepticism thus is based on the rejection of neoliberal cultural policies of the European union and English language domination.

We expect radical left-wing individuals to be more eurosceptic than those situated closer to the center of the political spectrum. We expect their motivations to be grounded in the ideals of civic nationalism and civic cultural protectionism. As we emphasize the civic nature of radical left-wing euroscepticism, the strength of civic identity as a predictor of euroscepticism is conditioned by radical left-wing party voting. Our hypotheses thus read:

H3. There is a positive relationship between euroscepticism and radical left party voting.

H4. Civic identity is a strong predictor of radical left-wing euroscepticism.

H5. There is an interaction effect between civic identity and radical left-wing voting with regard to their influence on euroscepticism.

Data, methodology & results

Database

To test our hypotheses we draw on data taken from the National Identity III module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), conducted in 2013. The ISSP is an annual programme of cross-national collaborationISSP - The International Social Survey Programme. http://zacat.gesis.org/webview/main.jsp?object=http://zacat.gesis.org/obj/fCatalog/Catalog58. on various issues important for social science studies. The 2013 module on national identity is the most recent one out of three modules on this issue, and this is the main reason why we have chosen this module as euroscepticism of the radical left and right have become most prominent in the 2000s. All country samples are representative of each country citizens aged 18 and over, with the exception of Finland, where the sample is representative of all population aged between 15 and 74 years. These data is suitable because it allows to measure attitudes towards the European union, ethnic and civic identity and the left- and right-wing political orientation, the latter being based on the voting (party) preferences, which is beneficial as the public perception of the left/right political divide varies across societies.

As party-systems of Western and Eastern Europe differ with regard to the left-right division (van Elsas et al., 2016), we divide our sample into two parts. The first part consists of all member-states of the European union covered by the module III on National Identity: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, United Kingdom, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia. The second part includes only Western European countries covered by this module: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and United Kingdom. We further divide the two resulting samples into two parts: the first one includes right-wing party voters, while the second one includes only radical left-wing citizens. This is done in order to test our 2nd and 4th hypotheses.

Measurement of euroscepticism

There are various operationalizations of euroscepticism in quantitative social research. The choice of indicators often depends on the existence of particular survey items (van Elsas et al., 2016). Some studies used the question on the evaluation of country membership in the European union (Gabel, 1998; Steenbergen et al., 2007), as it is widely available. Other questions that are commonly used include support for further integration or trust in the institutions of the European union (van Elsas et al., 2016).

The ISSP module on National Identity III (2013) offers three items relevant to our research:

Generally speaking, would you say that [COUNTRY] benefits or does not benefit from being a member of [the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, etc.]?

[COUNTRY] should follow [European Union, North American Free Trade Agreement, etc.] decisions, even if it does not agree with them.

Generally, do you think that [the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement, etc.] should have much more, more, as much, less, or much less power than the national government of its member states?

In European union countries, the questions are asked on the attitude to the European union. The answers represent 5-point scales, reflecting (1) perceived benefits of the European union membership to a country, from `greatly benefits' to `does not benefit at all'; (2) degree of agreement with the statement on country's preference for European union decisions over national ones, from `agree strongly' to `disagree strongly'; (3) the attitude towards the prospect of the European union having more power than the national government, from `much more' to `much less'. We recoded these variables in such a way that higher value of each one means less support to the European union and, consequently, more euroscepticism.

We do not create an index of Euroscepticism based on the three items listed above; rather, we use every item as a dependent variable separately for each constructed model. The reason for that is that these items do not represent a coherent theoretical construct, as the first two questions represent the attitude towards the current state of affairs in the European union and confidence in its current functioning, whereas the last question concern the possibility of further European integration. Building on van Elsas et al. (2016) study, we expect radical right individuals to be eurosceptic towards both the current form of the European union and the possibility of further European integration, while radical left citizens are expected to be eurosceptic only towards the current functioning of the European union.

Measurement of radical left- and right-wing political orientation

In most quantitative studies on euroscepticism or political ideologies in Europe radical left- and right-wing political orientation is measured by the self-placement left-right ideology scale (see van Elsas et al., 2016 for a recent example). However, such operationalization has its limitations: traditional left-right political division is relevant only for the Western countries; individuals in post-socialist societies have different views as to what is left-wing and what is right-wing with regard to politics (Piurko, Schwartz & Davidov, 2011). As a result, in their samples researchers are limited to Western Europe.

The ISSP module on National Identity III (2013) has an item measuring left-right political orientation, which is derived from the item `party voted for in last general election' that is different for every country in the sample. Party classification into the left-right scheme is effectuated by expert judgment, which eliminates individual-level bias and allows us to conduct the analysis on the European union sample at large, as well as on the Western Europe only, as traditional research suggests. Item values represent a 5-point scale, from `far left (communist etc.)' to `far right (fascist etc.)'.

Measurement of national identity

Hochman, Rajman and Schmidt (2015) propose to measure ethnic and civic identity by combinations of several items. These items represent ISSP questions of the following type:

Some people say that the following things are important for being truly [NATIONALITY]. Others say they are not important. How important do you think each of the following is …

For ethnic identity, particular items include the following:

... to have been born in [COUNTRY]?

... to have [COUNTRY NATIONALITY] ancestry?

For civic identity, particular items are:

... to be able to speak [COUNTRY LANGUAGE]?

... to respect [COUNTRY NATIONALITY] political institutions and laws?

... to feel [COUNTRY NATIONALITY]?

The answers are 4-point scales that reflect the importance of characteristics listed above for being truly `national' of a country, varying from `very important' to `not important at all'.

Theoretically, the first set of indicators measuring ethnic identity proposed by Hochman et al. (2015) fits us well. However, after having created an integrated indicator for ethnic identity and having its quality assessed, we found that several fit measures were not good enough for the analysis to be pursued: for example, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) had a value of 0.255 for all European union countries present in the sample and 0.189 for Western Europe (when it should not be exceed 0.06 for a model to be accepted). Thus, we rejected this integrated indicator and chose the first item of the set to measure individual ethnic identity: to what extent it is important to be born in a country in order to be its truly national.

The set of indicators for civic identity, listed above, does not fit us theoretically because the second item, measuring to what extent it is important to respect country's laws and political institutions for being its national, would not work for the radical party voters, as both left- and right-wing radical parties construct their political programs on the opposition to the government in place, and, consequently, its decisions and laws. Moreover, not all European countries have had stable political institutions and a single constitution since a long time, as it is the case for Germany or the United Kingdom: France, for example, has had five different constitutions. Hence, not every European country, even in the West, has long-standing tradition for protecting its political institutions and laws.

We attempted to create an integrated indicator on the basis of two other items measuring civic identity but again the model appeared to be empirically unacceptable: RMSEA had a value of 0.635 for the European union sample and 0.624 for Western Europe. Accordingly, we rejected the integrated indicator for civic identity and chose the first item of the set, as the most theoretically suitable, to measure civic identity: to what extent it is important to be able to speak a country's language for being its truly national.

Control variables

We include a set of demographic control variables, such as age, gender, highest educational degree (measured on a 7-point scale, and ranging from `Upper level tertiary (Master, Doctor)' to `No formal education'), and top-bottom self-placement, which is based on the following question:

In our society, there are groups, which tend to be towards the top and groups, which tend to be towards the bottom. Below is a scale that runs from the top to the bottom. Where would you put yourself on this scale? and measured on a 10-point scale, from `Lowest, Bottom' to `Highest, Top'.

Method

We analyze the relationship between euroscepticism, radical left and right political orientation and civic and ethnic identity by conducting several multilevel linear regressions.

In order to test our 1st, 3rd and 5th hypotheses we construct the following model:

(1) Euroscepticism ~ Ethnic Identity + Radical Right + Civic Identity + Radical Left + Civic Identity:Radical Left + Age + Gender + Educational degree + Top-bottom self-placement,

where euroscepticism is measured by one of the three indicators, and “Civic Identity:Radical Left” represents the interaction effect between the two variables.

To test the 2nd and the 4th hypotheses, we construct the following model:

(2) Euroscepticism ~ Ethnic Identity + Civic Identity + Age + Gender + Educational degree + Top-bottom self-placement,

For the 2nd hypothesis the analysis is conducted on the sample including only right-wing individuals, and the 4th hypothesis is tested on the sample including only radical left-wing citizens.

All the models are tested on two samples: the European union sample, which includes 16 country-members of the EU, and the Western Europe one, which includes 9 Western European societies.

Results

Table 2 displays the results of the first multilevel regression model on the Western Europe sample. As the results based on the Western Europe sample in most cases were found to be more meaningful, here we include only the discussion of these results. The results based on the European union sample can be found in the Appendix. Even-numbered tables show the results from the Western Europe sample and odd-numbered tables show the results from the European union sample.

We find support for the 1st, the 3rd (partially) and the 5th hypotheses. As expected, radical right political orientation, as well as ethnic identity, was found to be a strong predictor of euroscepticism in all its measurements. Civic identity correlates with two out of three euroscepticism measures. Perceived absence of benefits from European union membership and reluctance to give more power to the European union are positively affected by strong civic identity. There is a significant interaction effect between radical left political orientation and civic identity with regard to its influence on the degree of disagreement with country's preference for EU decisions over national ones.

The strong positive relationship between civic identity and the negative attitude towards country's preference for EU decisions over national ones exists only among the radical left, and it is



Figure 1. Blue, 1 = radical left individuals; red, 0 = other political orientations.

significant only for individuals with the higher than average level of civic identity (see figure 1). This result confirms our 5th hypothesis. Radical left ideology is closely tied with civic nationalism ideals, and together they can account for individual-level euroscepticism. This effect is not significant for two measurements of euroscepticism: perceived absence of benefits from EU membership and reluctance to give more power to the EU. The first one is based on the question on perceived benefits from EU membership to a country, which is not important for the radical left, as economic growth, according to their view, is brought about at the expense of popular classes. The second one is the measurement of potential for future European integration, and the radical left does not in principle object the European integration; rather, it stands against the neoliberal character of the current EU functioning.

Table 4 displays results for our second multilevel linear regression model on the sample including only right-wing individuals. Table 6 shows results for the same model on the sample that consists of uniquely radical left individuals.



We find support for our 2nd and 4th hypotheses. Ethnic identity is a strong predictor of all measures of right wing euroscepticism. Negative attitude of the radical left towards country's preference for EU decisions over national ones is positively affected by strong civic identity, which supports the above-mentioned idea that the radical left is skeptical

towards the current functioning of the European union and its neoliberal character, but does not oppose the idea of European integration as such. Radical left individuals do not pay attention to country-level benefits, or the absence of thereof, from EU membership as in the capitalist world economic growth often means even more economic inequality. Country-level benefits do not mean anything as long as they are brought by and for national elites supporting neoliberal policies of the European union.

The results of first model show that all control variables are highly significant. As expected, older people, women, more educated individuals and those who place themselves on the top of the society tend to be less eurosceptic.



Conclusion

Existing studies on left- and right-wing euroscepticism underline its different drivers due to crucial ideological differences between the radical left and right. Social and political scientists tend to explain left-wing euroscepticism by predominantly `hard', economic factors, such as, for example, support for redistribution at the individual level (Rodrik, 1997; Gabel, 1998) and opposition to neoliberal EU policies at the party level (Hooghe et al., 2002). Right-wing euroscepticism is usually explained by `soft', identity factors at the individual level, such as nationalist and anti-immigrant attitudes, and ideological ethnic nationalism of the radical right at the party level. However, there is evidence for a common ideological element - nationalism - that leads to their shared views on the European Union (Halikiopoulou et al., 2012). Radical right-wing parties are opposed to European integration primarily on ethnic grounds, whereas radical left opposition to the European union resides on predominantly civic grounds. Our study has shown that there is evidence for this argument at the individual level as well.

We find that ethnic identity is a strong predictor of euroscepticism among right-wing individuals. Those who ideologically lean to the radical right tend to have strong negative attitudes towards both current functioning of the European union and the possibility of further European integration. These results demonstrate that, as expected, right-wing citizens endorse the nationalist ideology and oppose the European union as a culturally heterogeneous entity. At the same time, we find that there is no positive effect of ethnic identity on euroscepticism among the radical left-wing individuals. This result also confirms our hypothesis and shows that radical left euroscepticism is not driven by ethnic nationalism.

Civic identity was found to be a strong predictor of a particular dimension of euroscepticism among radical left-wing citizens. Individuals leaning to the radical left tend to have strong negative attitudes only towards current functioning of the European union, while we have found no evidence for their opposition to further European integration. These results confirm previous findings and demonstrate that the radical left is critical of the neoliberal character of today's European union, with its capitalist culture and English as a lingua franca, but radical left-wing individuals do not oppose the idea of European integration, presumably on more egalitarian grounds.

Results from our analysis of euroscepticism among all individuals from Western Europe, regardless of their political orientation, show that there is a strong interaction effect between civic identity and left-wing political orientation with regard to negative attitudes towards current functioning of the European union. The strong positive relationship between civic identity and this dimension of euroscepticism was found only among the radical left, and it is significant only for individuals with the higher than average level of civic identity. This result confirms our hypothesis and demonstrates that radical left-wing citizens endorse the ideals of civic nationalism, and together this can account for euroscepticism.

This study contributes to the current debate on the nature of euroscepticism, showing that it is strongly related to nationalism and identity issues. Radical left euroscepticism is different from radical right euroscepticism in terms of individuals' national identity, and what is most important - radical left euroscepticism is also driven by identity factors. Europeans leaning to the radical left care for their civic cultures, for their languages. Not only economic exploitation by capitalist powers is important; cultural and language domination is also a serious issue for the radical left.



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