17:45 - 20:00
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Fabian Jonas Habersack
Discussant/s:
Jonathan Slapin
Meeting Room A

Roberto Pannico, Enrique Hernández
When opposites attract: Causes and consequences of different types of Euroscepticism among voters.

Lisanne de Blok, Catherine de Vries
A blessing and a curse? Examining public preferences for differentiated integration

Cyrille Thiébaut
Normalization of Euroscepticism or normal politicization of European integration: French elites' ambivalence towards the EU in the media

Anthony Ocepek
A Path to Moderate the Extremes? The Impact of Moderate Voters on Euroskeptic Party Policy Positions
A Path to Moderate the Extremes? The Impact of Moderate Voters on Euroskeptic Party Policy Positions
Anthony Ocepek
University of Pittsburgh

As euroskeptic parties have expanded their vote share in national elections, how do they react to a new set of voters representing more varied policy preferences? Do they attempt to moderate on certain policies to keep these voters, or simply continue to play to their traditional base and maintain a more extreme position that may ultimately lead these newly won voters towards a different party in the next election? In this paper, I argue that these new voters represent new groups that could demand moderation by the parties on policies in subsequent electoral cycles. I posit that the parties will engage in a balancing act where they assess on which policies they can moderate towards the average party system position to maintain the support of these new voters without driving away voters from their traditional base as they may view such moderation as a betrayal of the party's identity. This study examines positions on a variety of policies provided by party manifestos in both Western and Eastern European countries from the early 2000s to the present against the voters expressed party preferences and vote in the previous national election using the European Social Survey in addition to national elections surveys such as the German Longitudinal Election Study. The study intends to demonstrate how new voters outside the euroskeptic party's traditional base can function as an unintended moderating component and lead the party to moderate on policies if it hopes to continually attract these voters in subsequent national elections.