Discusión de resultados

Party strategy as a factor influencing party positions and policies towards Europe has been documented in the comparative literature. There are nevertheless different opinions about how to conceptualise party strategy, as well as whether and how strategy shapes party positions on the EU. In addition, scholars expressed different opinions regarding the relationship between strategy and other potential drivers of party responses to Europe, such as ideology. There are only a few scholars, most notably Sitter and Batory (Sitter 2001, 2002; Sitter and Batory 2008), who argued for strategy as a crucial driver of parties’

perceptions of the EU. Instead, other authors (Marks and Wilson 2000; Hooghe, Marks, and Wilson 2002) prioritised party ideology and disregarded strategy as an explanatory factor (see Chapter 3). Nevertheless, the majority of scholars argued that the interplay between both factors may best account for political parties’ stances on the EU and their use of European issues in domestic party competition (Kopecký and Mudde 2002;

Szczerbiak and Taggart 2008b).

More specifically, Kopecký and Mudde (2002, p.319) found that strategy determines whether or not a party supports the EU’s current trajectory, while the ideas underlying the process of European integration are determined by party ideology. Batory (2002) similarly identified ideology as the crucial factor in determining underlying attitudes to EU integration but notes that parties are also constrained by the dynamics of coalition-building and electoral competition, i.e., the need to be acceptable as coalition partners. Batory thus concluded that Hungarian parties’ stances on Europe can only be understood in the context of inter-party relations and electoral politics. In other words, a change in these

party attitudes towards the EU resulted from ‘a delicate balancing act between the need to attune their policies to those of potential or actual coalition partners, on the one hand, and to keep their voters’ loyalty, on the other’ (Batory 2002, p.535).

Szczerbiak and Taggart (2008b) differentiated between a party’s wider ideological profile and the perceived interests of its supporters as key drivers of broad, underlying positions on the issue of European integration. The latter seems to be related to party strategy, given their argument that an interest-based office-seeking party (unlike an ideologically and values- driven one) would undertake an economic cost-benefit analysis of how European integration is likely to benefit its supporters and formulate its position accordingly.

Szczerbiak and Taggart also emphasised that strategic considerations, specifically electoral strategy and coalition tactics, influence whether or not parties use the European issue as an element of interparty competition. Szczerbiak and Taggart specified that electoral strategy is determined by a number of variables. These are, namely, the type of party (i.e., if it is a catch-all party that is attempting to attract a broad electorate or a fringe party with a more segmented electoral strategy), the positions taken by party competitors, and if an electoral system allows parties to survive and secure parliamentary representation by carving out a niche electorate or it forces them to construct a broader electoral base. On the other side, coalition-tactical considerations are related to the position of its potential coalition partners (both pre- and post-election), as well as whether the party has to ‘tone down’ its rhetoric in order to secure a place in government.

Sitter and Batory (Sitter 2001, 2002; Sitter and Batory 2008) made a strong case that Euroscepticism is a product of party competition and is always ‘the politics of opposition’.

The latter proposition is examined in Chapter 5, while this chapter focuses on the former.

Sitter (2001, p.37; emphasis added) specifically asserted that Euroscepticism is related to ideology, interests and identity, voter alignments, and party strategy and organisation since

‘Euroscepticism is not a single coherent stance on the EU’ but ‘a term that covers a multitude of ideological and interest-driven stance’. What is central to his argument, however, is that ‘these factors are translated into party competition in the context of the party system, that is, the patterned interaction between parties’ (Sitter 2001, p.37). For Sitter, therefore, what is crucial for party positioning on the EU is how parties strategically positioned themselves in response to them. In his later work, Sitter (2002, p.5) further specified that ‘the parties’ responses have been shaped by a combination of their positions

on related issues and ideology, their strategies for electoral competition, and the dynamics of competition between government and opposition’.

In their work on agrarian parties, Sitter and Batory (2008) further elaborated on these assumptions. They argued that the sources of Euroscepticism are related to the four key goals parties seek to balance (see Muller and Strom 1999): party management/organizational survival, pursuing core policy preferences, securing votes, and accessing executive office. Sitter and Batory thus argued that while party-based Euroscepticism may draw on long-term goals, such as parties’ identities or core policy preferences, Euroscepticism is ultimately shaped by strategic, short-term goals: garnering votes and winning elections. In other words, the two long-term goals may produce a tendency towards Euroscepticism. This means that a party’s origin and identity may influence whether or not it views the EU as a threat. Sitter and Batory (2008), for example, claimed that agrarian parties’ attitudes were shaped by parties’ genesis in social cleavages and perceptions of the impact of European integration on their constituencies’ livelihoods. This was also argued by scholars that privilege ideology (Hooghe, Marks, and Wilson 2002), as well as Szczerbiak and Taggart (2008b). However, Sitter and Batory (2008) further assumed that the extent to which parties’ policy preferences and orientations are translated into actual opposition to European integration crucially depends on the quest for votes and access to executive office. As a result, Sitter and Batory (2008, p.58) claimed that ‘for most political parties, Euroscepticism has been a deliberate strategic choice’. In other words, even if a party’s identity predisposes it towards Euroscepticism, electoral competition and coalition games may provide incentives for it to avoid contesting European integration and vice versa.

With respect to electoral competition, Sitter and Batory (2008) noted that focusing on a delineated section of the electorate might prompt a party to adopt its target voters’ view on the EU and therefore contest European integration if its voters are Eurosceptic.

Conversely, if stressing catch-all competition, parties might face incentives to conform and not oppose the EU if there is a broader pro-EU consensus among other parties and a majority of the electorate. However, they also found that sometimes Euroscepticism may actually be the result of a catch-all strategy, mirroring its main opponent’s foreign policy. In any case, Sitter and Batory claimed that electoral incentives to contest European integration depend on the party’s target electorate (discussed in Chapter 6) and the positions of other parties on this issue, i.e. the extent to which other parties have crowded out the

Eurosceptic space. The focus of this chapter is therefore party strategic positioning on the EU in relation to its political competitors.

With regards to coalition games, Sitter and Batory (2008) claimed that the quest to participate in governing coalitions has an important effect on party stances on the EU.

Specifically, if the parties’ most likely and credible partners are Eurosceptic, they do not have to moderate their position because Euroscepticism does not disqualify them from office. More frequently, however, parties face pro-EU partners and must moderate their stance on the EU. In other words, the logic of coalition building/coalition politics may provide a disincentive for Euroscepticism and has a moderating effect. Moreover, Sitter and Batory argued that even after securing executive office, the logic remains the same because moving into government provides an incentive to tone down or abandon Euroscepticism (see Chapter 5).

These authors concluded that their dynamic approach to Euroscepticism provides a general framework for an analysis of parties’ varying positions on the EU. In other words, examining parties’ electoral strategies and coalition building policies may reveal a great deal about how Euroscepticism emerges in different party systems. In addition, Szczerbiak and Taggart (2008b) argued that a similar set of strategic/tactical factors may impact party stances and how parties use the European issue as an element of interparty competition, as discussed above. Drawing upon these assumptions, this chapter thus tests the proposed models in the Serbian and Croatian cases and specifically formulates the following hypotheses:

H2a: The more that parties perceive the interests of their supporters are in line with European integration, the less likely it is that they will adopt Eurosceptic attitudes;

H2b: The more that parties attempt to broaden their electoral base and rely on the ‘catch-all’ electoral strategy, the less likely it is that they will adopt Eurosceptic attitudes;

H2c: The more that parties’ political competitors ‘occupy’ the Eurosceptic space, the less likely it is that they will adopt Eurosceptic attitudes;

H2d: The more that parties seek to be ‘suitable coalition partners’ for pro-European parties in order to come to power, the less likely it is that they will adopt Eurosceptic attitudes.