Euengage Workshop “Measuring Euroscepticism”

Since the end of the “permissive consensus” era the scientific interest in the study of Euroscepticism grew exponentially. By now there are a multitude of studies which investigate the causes and consequence of this phenomenon from both the perspective of elites and the public, of political parties and media. In the process, a myriad of different operationalizations and measurements of Euroscepticism have been developed.

Studies focusing on the public mainly rely on survey data, while those focusing on political elites make use of a multitude of approaches, such as expert surveys, the analysis of party platforms, legislative behavior and elite interviews. Furthermore in recent years media studies and social media data have been used to simultaneously measure Euroscepticism across both elites and the public.

Although these studies do not greatly diverge in their conclusion about the level and consequences of Euroscepticism, what is missing is a systematic account of the relation between these different approaches. The aim of this workshop is to map the relation between different approaches of measuring Euroscepticism and thus to adopt a set of “good practices” for those who study the field. In addition, we further aim to explore the potential implications of using different measures for the study of Euroscepticism. To this aim, the workshop will bring together scholars that study Euroscepticism from the perspective of both elites and the public, and use very different approaches in measuring the concept.

When: Saturday January 27, 2018, from 12.30pm to 6.30pm

Where: Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome, Aula Magna, Viale Regina Elena, 295 Rome

Programme and Abstracts