Left versus Europe? The Ideologies Underlying the Left's 'No' to the Constitutional Treaty in France and Germany

The so-called 'hard Euroscepticism' is usually perceived, in the scientific literature as well as in the journalistic and political one, as a national phenomenon: Not only are the movements opposed to the EU labelled as 'nationalistic' or 'anti-European', but they are a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European politics and society (Abingdon, England) England), 2010-09, Vol.11 (3), p.313-332
Main Author: Heine, Sophie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agency
Causal explanation
Conceptualization
Constitutional Treaty
Criticism
EU Constitutional Treaty
European Union
Europeanization
Euroscepticism
Federal Republic of Germany
France
Germany
Identity
Ideological influences
Ideology
International organizations
Left
Left Wing Politics
Left-wing parties
Liberalism
Nationalism
Political behavior
Radicalism
Social democracy
Strategic behaviour
Structural analysis
Terminology
Treaties
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The so-called 'hard Euroscepticism' is usually perceived, in the scientific literature as well as in the journalistic and political one, as a national phenomenon: Not only are the movements opposed to the EU labelled as 'nationalistic' or 'anti-European', but they are also explained mainly by national factors - usually combined with more strategic elements. This paper challenges both of these assumptions by confronting them to an analysis of the left-wing critiques made against the Constitutional Treaty in France and Germany. It first highlights that the left-wing critiques made against the current EU mostly contain social and democratic arguments and that their identity dimension mixes national and European elements. Besides, after examining the advantages and limits of the dominant explanations given to the radical oppositions to the EU, we will propose a theoretical framework combining at the same time strategic and ideological elements - very much related to the 'agency' dimension - and a broader structural approach - insisting on the constraints encompassing social and political actions. This double endeavour - a new comprehensive analysis of the ideological content of left-wing opposition to the EU and an original explanatory approach to it - should in the end force us both to question the common terminology of 'Euroscepticism' and to grant more importance to the European dimension in the study of the radical oppositions to the EU.
ISSN:1570-5854
2374-5118
1568-0258
2374-5126
DOI:10.1080/15705854.2010.503035