The Valence Side of the EU: EU Issue Voting in the Aftermath of the Eurozone Crisis

In the aftermath of the Euro crisis, EU issues have increasingly affected electoral behaviour, explaining a sizable shift in votes from the Europhile to Eurosceptic parties. This paper advances the argument that EU issue voting is not entirely encompassed in a divisive (pro-/anti-) EU dimension, testing the hypothesis that a EU valence voting is currently conditioning electoral behaviour.

In particular, we posit that voters support parties evaluating their credibility in achieving not only EU positional goals (‘leave/remain’ in the EU), but also EU valence ones (i.e., making the country count more in Europe). Furthermore, we assess which parties – pro-/anti-EU – are more likely to be supported on the basis of this valence issue. Based on survey data from France (2017) and Italy (2018), we found that the EU valence issue is an important voting predictor, with pro-EU parties mainly benefitting from it.