A crisis of leadership

The ways in which the initial economic crisis and the subsequent Eurozone crisis were tackled by the EU demonstrated an inability of EU leaders to act swiftly, cohesively, and for the long term. Whilst there has been a European response – or rather a succession of European responses – they have been partial.Footnote ² They were achieved ‘slowly and reluctantly’ (Hall, Reference Grisorio and Prota2014: 1231) and weighted disproportionately on Southern member states, on whom adjustment costs were largely concentrated (see Hall, Reference Grisorio and Prota2014). Most of all, as recently argued by a group of prominent European economists under the Vox-EU platform, the response measures did not focus on the underlying roots of the crisis, without a consensus on which the necessary long-term solution is unlikely to emerge.Footnote ³

Agreement on the causes and, as a result, on the solutions to the Eurozone crisis has proved impossible, in part, because of the different mindsets of EU leaders, embedded in distinct national economic doctrines and political economy histories (Hall, Reference Grisorio and Prota2014) and, in part, because of the divergent national interests and unpalatability of redistributive choices for the short-term ‘losers’, namely the wealthier Northern European (creditor) member states.

Despite the number of measures progressively introduced to strengthen the architecture of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the further reforms announced by the Commission in a recent Communication (European Commission, 2015), the road ahead looks tortuous and uncertain. The Communication was intended to implement the so-called Five Presidents Report, published in June 2015 by the Presidents of the European Commission, the European Council, Eurogroup, the European Central Bank, and the European Parliament (Juncker, Reference Huysseune2015). However, both the Five Presidents Report and the ensuing Communication ‘watered down’ a number of provisions that had already been foreseen in the previous Four Presidents ReportFootnote ⁴ issued in 2012 (Begg, Reference Baglioni and Hurrelmann2015a), demonstrating an awareness of the challenges in implementation. Despite this toning down – which led to criticism about the incisiveness of the package – many of the provisions proposed are still ‘likely to encounter resistance from a number of EU countries’ (Begg, Reference Baglioni and Hurrelmann2015a). The prospect of an EMU strengthened (eventually) through a fully fledged political and fiscal union remains implausible.

Even leaving aside the Eurozone crisis, the predominance of domestic interests at the expense of unified visions of Europe has been underlined by the way in which the EU has handled other recent crises. These include the refugee emergency, the instability in the Middle East and Northern Africa (from which the former descends), the crisis in the Eastern border following from Russia’s illegal annexation of parts of Ukraine, and the security threat posed by Islamic terrorism. For example, the refugee emergency, which according to Amnesty International (2015) is the most serious refugee crisis faced by Europe since the Second World War, has been met with only disjointed, ad hoc responses, largely informed by national interests. EU solutions ranged from a continued reliance on the Mediterranean programmes (in principle, intended as economic development programmes) and on EU–Turkey cooperation, to reallocations of financial resources from existing budgetary headings, such as unspent amounts under European Cohesion policy (Crisp, 2016). However, a key concern for many national political leaders, especially in the Northern and Eastern member states, has been to make sure that the number of refugees flowing to their countries would remain within domestically acceptable figures.

The way the EU responded to the Ukraine–Russia conflict presents another telling example of the difficulty in providing EU-wide responses. The second anniversary of the annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia was marked by a declaration published on politico.eu by the Foreign Ministers of the Baltic and Nordic States, restating the need to ‘remain vigilant’ and constantly monitor the non-recognition policy and EU sanctions already in place (Wallström et al., Reference Vampa2016). More incisive, EU-wide political action was clearly seen as out of question.

A crisis of legitimacy

A second issue, which is closely connected with the leadership crisis outlined above, concerns legitimacy. The responses given to the economic and Euro crises highlighted a growing contradiction between, on the one hand, the ‘emergency’, largely technocratic, EU-level decision-making (Statham and Trenz, Reference Schulze2015; White, Reference Wallström, Kaljurand, Linkevičius, Rinkēvičs, Soini and Jensen2015), and, on the other, the increased salience of the EU in the public debates within the member states. The crisis, and the associated EU response, contributed to the Europeanization of public discourses in the EU member states, and in so doing they increased the saliency of the EU in domestic political debates, bringing renewed centrality to EU institutions and policies (Leupold, Reference Laible2016). This has improved the ability of European citizens to apportion ‘blame’ for EU-level decisions to the EU rather than to national parliaments. However, it has not translated into an improved ability of EU citizens to precisely identify those actors (European-level parties and politicians as decision-makers) that should be punished (Hobolt and Tilley, Reference Hepburn and Elias2014). Put simply, European citizens are unable to throw the (European) rascals out, insofar as it is difficult for them ‘to identify which parties are responsible for the current policy outcomes and which parties offer an alternative’ (Hobolt, Reference Hobolt2014: 1531).

Partly to address this problem, the 2014 European Parliament elections were held under altered rules. The European Parliament, through an own resolution,Footnote ⁵ managed to introduce an important change to the appointment procedure of the President of the European Commission. It did so by inviting EU parties to appoint lead candidates, or Spitzencandidaten, who would (in the view of the European Parliament’s interpretation of the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty) be appointed Commission President in the event of electoral victory (Hobolt, Reference Hobolt2014; Schmitt et al., Reference Schmitt and Teperoglou2015). Thus, for the first time, voters had the opportunity to clearly identify the nominees running for the head of the European executive. The aim of this was twofold: to exploit the mobilization effect of personalization (Calise, 2015; Musella and Webb, Reference Muro2015) in order to create a stronger connection with citizens, and to bridge the EU accountability gap (Gattermann et al., Reference Føllesdal and Hix2016).

However, evidence available to date suggests that the impact of this change on voting behaviour has been limited, albeit diversified across member states (Hobolt, Reference Hobolt2015). ‘[T]urnout remained low at 42.6 per cent, government parties were the losers and smaller parties the winners, and the introduction of lead candidates seemed to have gone unnoticed by most citizens’ (Hobolt, Reference Hobolt2015: 6; see also Hobolt, Reference Hobolt2014; Schmitt et al., Reference Schmitt and Teperoglou2015). The introduction of Spitzencandidaten has had an effect on informed citizens, but it did not succeed in mobilizing the less interested or disenfranchised EU voters (Gattermann et al., Reference Føllesdal and Hix2016). As in previous European Parliament elections, rather than sanctioning EU political parties for their actions, voters’ concerns about the handling of the crisis and dissatisfaction with the austerity policies were channelled through a vote for Eurosceptic or outright anti-EU parties.Footnote ⁶ In other words, what was being punished was the EU, not its political decision-makers, just as in 2009 (Hobolt and Tilley, Reference Hepburn and Elias2014).Footnote ⁷

The complex and piecemeal procedures through which the EU measures to tackle the Eurozone crisis were designed and subsequently put in place further contributed to the difficulty for European citizens’ to identify in clear terms the political actors ultimately responsible for decisions (Crum and Curtin, Reference Crisp2015). The subdivision of competences and the balance of powers between different European institutions are obscure for the public, rendering EU decision-making a black box in the eyes of the layperson. For example, the Commission displays a considerable degree of discretion in the exercise of its functions under the European semester, yet its activities remain largely hidden from public scrutiny (Crum and Curtin, Reference Crisp2015).

The role of the European Parliament in the dialogue with the Councils and the Commission remains secondary. Similarly secondary is the role of national Parliaments in sanctioning the collective decisions taken by their governments in the Council or in informing national budgets and the implementation of country-specific recommendations (Crum and Curtin, Reference Crisp2015). The procedures put in place to prevent excessive macroeconomic imbalances mean that national budgets are now submitted to Brussels before going to the national Parliaments (Majone, Reference Lobo and Lewis-Beck2014a).

In sum, the way the EU has responded to the economic and Eurozone crises manifests a number of accountability and, as a result, legitimacy deficits, and ‘it is not only the citizens that are being excluded from the debate about the future of the Eurozone’ (Majone, Reference Lobo and Lewis-Beck2014a: 1221), but also national governments and parliaments. Many national governments had to agree to severe austerity measures and structural reform programmes (concerning the welfare state and labour market) not as a result of domestic political choices but as the outcome of negotiations with external actors: the ‘Troika’, the International Monetary Fund, and other member states’ governments. The fact that a number of national governments, constrained by the pressures of international financial markets, had to redefine their policy agendas according to such external demands has been viewed as an interference which has undermined ‘democratic self-determination’ and impacted on ‘citizens sense of self-efficacy’, increasing their ‘dissatisfaction with democracy’ (Armingeon and Guthmann, Reference Armingeon and Guthmann2014: 424). In Greece, for example, in July 2015, when the bailout deal was being finalized about 1 week after the Greek referendum had rejected further austerity, ‘the hashtag #thisisacoup trended on twitter’ (Buttonwood, Reference Bubbico and Catalina-Rubianes2015).

Scholarly debates have long focussed on whether the EU is characterized by a democratic deficit (Føllesdal and Hix, Reference Fabbrini2006). This debate has grown in parallel with the expansion of the EU’s supranational competences via successive treaty reforms. In this debate, legitimation has been characterized mainly by democratic input or substantive output (Majone, Reference Lobo and Lewis-Beck2014a; Hobolt, Reference Hobolt2015); at the present juncture, the EU appears to be failing on both fronts. As a result, in continuation with a trend whose first signs emerged in the 2009 European Parliament elections, ‘Europe’ has shifted from traditional marginality to a new, mainly negative, centrality boosted by ‘party contestation’ (Schuck et al., Reference Schmitt, Hobolt and Popa2011) – a contestation that has spilled over into domestic arenas. Eurosceptic parties, in particular, have reinforced their presence not only in the European Parliament, but also in national and sub-national assemblies (most recently in Germany, in the regional elections held in March 2016). At the same time, Eurosceptic rhetoric is becoming increasingly evident, even within mainstream political parties. This signals a growing and bipartisan loss of trust in the European project at the grassroots level, as well as a widening of the fracture between political élites (national and European) and EU technocracies, on the one hand, and the lay European citizen, on the other. But it also alters the internal political and party dynamics of the EU member states in a manner that, in our view, is not yet fully appreciated and begs further investigation.

A crisis of purpose

The leadership crisis within the EU outlined above goes hand in hand with a loss of shared purpose. The Euro, for example, which was originally conceived as a tool to foster an ever-closer political union, has become a goal in itself in the most recent narratives of European leaders (Majone, Reference Majone2014b). On one level, this may not be surprising if, despite ‘the bold political vision set out in the founding treaty’ of an ever-closer political union, monetary and market integration have been the actual core of ‘the reality of European integration’ (Hobolt and de Vries, Reference Hobolt and Tilley2016: 22.8). However, this shift in focus can be interpreted as a resignation from even the intention to pursue the treaty’s ambitious political goals. Taken to extremes, it can be read as a sign that EU leaders are abdicating their very role.

More recently, the Brexit negotiations can be seen as a further example of a lack of common vision by EU leadership on what the EU should be about. Primarily engaged in finding workable solutions to accommodate UK requests, so as to avert the loss of an important member and the political and economic consequences that this would entail, EU leaders failed to engage in a thorough reflection about the systemic reforms that would be necessary in an increasingly contested – but also ever-expandingFootnote ⁸ – Union (Zuleeg, Reference White2016), and on what this would mean for the future configuration of the Union under both scenarios (Brexit or Brexin).

At the same time, some of the founding values and principles upon which the European project was built, foreseen by the treaty, such as the free movement of people and the attainment of prosperity for all across the continent, are, if not overtly questioned, at least being set aside. For instance, the terrorist attacks in France in January and November 2015 have accelerated the transformation of a set of controversial proposals linked to border management into actual policies, despite opposition concerning data protection (Bossong and Carrapico, Reference Bolgherini2016), and to suspensions of the provision of the Schengen Agreement. Thus, emergency-driven responses have prevailed over democratically established priorities. All of this shows how ‘Europe is again at a crossroad, not only economically but even more so institutionally and politically. Joschka Fisher’s question in 2000, “Quo Vadis Europa?” has not yet received a proper answer’ (Meny, Reference Majone2014: 1336).

In many respects, it could be argued that rather than having stopped at a crossroad, European integration is taking steps backwards in the institutionalization process that transformed the economic community into a political union in the making. Such retrenchment is showing the fragility of progress realized through an integration ‘by stealth’: a process that benefitted from a long, but not perpetual, favourable economic context, and that appears ill-suited to a much-enlarged EU, where growing diversity is making the costs of EU integration increasingly visible (Majone, Reference Lobo and Lewis-Beck2014a). In truth, the process of integration is becoming increasingly differentiated too (Tekin, Reference Statham and Trenz2012), but this is actually exacerbating the territorial cleavages between member states. For example, the divides between creditor and debtor countries, and between members and non-members of the Eurozone, are becoming starker (Majone, Reference Lobo and Lewis-Beck2014a). And this is happening at a time when the internal divides within the member states are also deepening, as shown by the momentum gained by independentist parties. The presence of secessionist and independentist parties is spreading across many EU member states (Hepburn, Reference Hepburn2009; Elias and Tronconi, Reference De Wilde, Leupold and Schmidtke2011; Hepburn and Elias, Reference Hall2011), signalling the emergence of internal fractures that further problematize the process of integration (Laible, Reference Juncker2008). Against such a complex backdrop, the future political direction of the EU appears increasingly uncertain, and the risk that the EU will turn into a ‘club of clubs’ (Majone, Reference Lobo and Lewis-Beck2014a, Reference Majone2014b) seems tangible.

Visions of Europe: key issues and the challenges ahead

The analysis developed in the previous sections illustrates how, in the current context, the EU project is facing multiple institutional, political, and democratic challenges. As noted above, the lack of a cohesive and effective EU political leadership, the declining trust in the EU and the on-going alteration of political and party dynamics within the member states are placing Europe and its institutions under considerable strain. The aim of this collection of articles emerges from the need to shed light on the roots, manifestations, and implications of such pressures. To achieve this, we take the 2014 European Parliament elections as a starting point for analysis. Such an approach rests on the view that the 2014 European Parliament electoral round epitomizes, in a most profound way, the idiosyncrasies implicit in the EU project. Taking place at a time when the effects of the economic crisis and the consequent dissatisfaction with austerity measures were still sharply felt by EU citizens, the 2014 elections were an important test for the EU and for the institution of democracy within and across EU member states. In many respects, although European Parliament elections are often described as ‘second order’, this time around the vote for the European Parliament seemed to challenge such a view. In spite of, or perhaps due to, the multiple crises described above, which are undermining the very foundations of the EU as a political project, the EU is playing an increasingly central role in the public debate and has been thrust centre stage. Albeit framed mainly in a negative sense (i.e. with more reference to flaws than to virtues), the 2014 European Parliament elections coincided with an increased politicization of the EU and with a profound alteration of the dynamics of representation underpinning the European sphere, which in turn affected domestic political and party systems. The articles in this collection provide fresh insights on these issues, as is discussed in the following sections.

The politicization of the EU and the Europeanization of public debates

The paradigm of second-order elections (Reif and Schmitt, Reference Pierson1980), which has until recently acted as an effective interpretive key to understand voting behaviour in European elections, should perhaps be reassessed when considering the 2014 European Parliament elections. In many respects, the EU is no longer just a supranational political player, detached from the daily life of citizens. On the contrary, as noted by Schmitt and Teperoglou (Reference Reif and Schmitt2015), even if electoral choices in the 2014 European Parliament elections reflect the logic of the second-order election paradigm, there are also indicators of change. The 2014 elections became a critical contest, in which ‘the EU divide has become more significant, polarised and important in determining voting choices’ (Schmitt and Teperoglou, Reference Reif and Schmitt2015: 304).

Several scholars have argued that the EU is undergoing a rapid process of politicization which, in turn, is redefining its role. De Wilde et al. (Reference Crum and Curtin2015: 4) claim that such increased politicization of the EU could be empirically identified through three main dimensions: ‘(a) the growing salience of European governance, involving (b) a polarisation of opinion, and (c) an expansion of actors and audiences engaged in monitoring EU affairs’. Such traits of politicization can be readily found within the public debates of EU member states (De Wilde et al., Reference Crum and Curtin2015). Similar traits of politicization are noted by Hoeglinger (Reference Hobolt and de Vries2016): (a) the polarization of attitudes, (b) the intensification of the public debate (saliency), and (c) the connection of the contested issues to pre-existing basic political concerns. Crucially, both conceptualizations of the politicization of the EU converge in underlining the key role of the public sphere.

The politicization of the EU and the Europeanization of the public debate is discussed in Marinella Belluati’s article. Taking into account five newspapers from five EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom), Belluati analyses the dynamics of media coverage during the European Parliament election campaigns. The results of this work suggest that the focus on the EU was mainly domestically oriented, that is, centred on national political actors and issues. Nonetheless, the research also reveals that the focus of public debate was on the EU, mostly driven by Eurosceptic stances, parties, and leaders. The EU, in other words, was certainly more central in domestic public debates, but it was generally framed in a negative sense.

Dynamics of representation

Dynamics of political representation are rapidly changing within and across the EU, putting the increasingly problematic nature of the relationship between EU citizens and institutions under the spotlight. The structural weaknesses that inhibit the ability of EU institutions to respond to external challenges, such as the economic and humanitarian crises, have already been discussed in the preceding sections. The key point here is that such processes have considerably undermined the legitimacy of the EU. Hence, it is important to investigate further the motifs and effects that underpin the changing relationship between the EU, its member states and its citizens. This collection offers three contributions that investigate such questions, adopting different analytical perspectives.

First, the economic crisis has become the casus belli around which the relationship between member states and EU institutions, on the one hand, and between citizens and the EU, on the other, has been redefined. Stefano Rombi’s article adopts the traditional perspective of economic voting to investigate the nature of the electoral behaviour in European competitions. By taking into account four European Parliament elections in all EU member states, his work analyses the effect of macroeconomic indicators (unemployment) on voting behaviour. The results confirm the applicability of the paradigm of economic voting to EU elections. This is interesting, especially in the light of the increased politicization of the EU noted above. As Bellucci et al. (Reference Leupold2012) have argued, economic globalization and the involvement in decision-making of a wide range of (political and economic) supranational and international actors have eroded traditional governmental powers in the steering of the economy, consequently decreasing the accountability of domestic governments vis-à-vis their electors. In line with this, Rombi’s work finds that the voters – following media and political parties’ rhetoric – perceive the EU as the culprit of economic decline and are less likely to blame their national governments for the consequences of the economic crisis (see also Lobo and Lewis-Beck, Reference Leupold2012). Overall, Rombi’s study shows that the economic crisis does impact on voters’ choices. Within this frame, unemployment emerges as the most significant macroeconomic variable. Crucially, this affects the electoral behaviour not only of those directly affected by unemployment, but also of the voters who perceive the economic environment within the EU as being unfavourable more generally.

Second, Gabriela Borz focusses on political representation in connection with European integration. Her analysis aims at clarifying the link between citizens and political parties’ opinions on European integration. Following cost-benefit logic, the results of her study show that perceived benefits facilitate a voter-party match, while perceived costs – especially if high – drive the match between Eurosceptic voters and like-minded parties. The most interesting result concerns ‘indifferent voters’, namely those who prefer the status quo, and who seem to be able to vote for both pro- and anti-integration parties. This category of voters can be more commonly found in ‘old member states’, and it includes citizens who are less satisfied with the way in which the EU works in practice but who, more generally, have a positive view of the EU. These outcomes, based on 2009 European Social Survey data, provide an interesting interpretative frame for the 2014 European Parliament elections, in that they show how indifferent voters can shift towards Eurosceptic parties as a result of the perceived costs of integration.

Third, Fabio Sozzi looks at the dynamics of political representation, considering the relationship between electoral rules and MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) ‘constituency representation’, measured through the lens of parliamentary questions. To achieve this, the author examines the behaviour of Italian and French MEPs, who are representative of different systems in terms of ballot structure and district magnitude. Sozzi’s analysis explores a large data set of 5343 written parliamentary questions asked by Italian and French MEPs during the sixth term of the European Parliament (2004–09). The results confirm the hypothesis that MEPs’ behaviour is affected by electoral rules. If the electoral system provides a stronger connection between candidates and their supporters, MEPs will have more incentives to be constituency-oriented in their positions. The analysis illustrates how French MEPs, who are elected through closed ballots, have a feebler link with their constituency, which is mirrored in their behaviour in Parliament. On the other hand, Italian MEPs have more incentives to cultivate their personal reputation; hence they pay more attention to constituency demands. This, in turn, has profound implications for the way in which citizens perceive political representation at EU level in the two countries. Sozzi shows that electoral rules do have direct consequences on representation, which suggests that there is a need for more research on MEP behaviour and electoral rules in relation to other countries.

The impact on domestic political and party systems

As already highlighted, we contend that the economic and Eurozone crises, and the EU response to them, are having important effects on the domestic political systems of EU member states. First, the economic crisis significantly affected the territorial and sectoral composition of public expenditure, with negative consequences for countries’ long-term growth prospects (Bubbico and Catalina-Rubianes, Reference Bossong and Carrapico2015; Grisorio and Prota, Reference Gattermann, de Vreese and van der Brug2016). This impact has been particularly severe for the more vulnerable people and territories, as is testified by the exacerbation of social inequalities and regional disparities across the EU (European Commission, Reference Elias and Tronconi2014). It is reasonable to expect that these socially and territorially differentiated effects of the crisis would impact on voting behaviour.

Second, and related, the austerity packages and structural reforms have led to a re-centralization of a substantial amount of policy competences in a number of countries (Council of European Municipalities and Regions, Reference Conti2013; Muro, Reference Meny2015; Bolgherini, Reference Biorcio2016). A question here is the degree to which this will translate into new political centre-periphery cleavages. The 2015 regional elections in Italy, for example, highlighted a rise in local lists and a decline in mainstream political parties (Vampa, Reference Urbinati2015).

Third, as has been noted, the rise of Euroscepticism was a feature of the 2014 elections, also in countries that had long been amongst the most convinced EU supporters. Particularly, interesting insights on this can be drawn from the analysis of the 2014 European Parliament election results in Italy where, for the first time, Eurosceptic parties gained >50% of the votes (circa 20% more than in 2009)Footnote ⁹ (Huysseune, Reference Hoeglinger2010; Conti, Reference Capoccia and Kelemen2014), demonstrating a shift of public opinion from Europhile to Eurosceptic positions. This shows a sharp decline in citizens’ trust in the EU and its institutions. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, the trust that Italian citizens place in the EU continues to remain significantly higher than that enjoyed by the Italian parties, Parliament, trade unions, State, and regional authorities.Footnote ¹⁰ This raises questions about the true nature of the Italian anti-EU turn and whether it could be linked to a more generalized populist reaction.

These themes are tackled by two of the contributions in this volume. To start with, Riera and Russo examine the generational and territorial cleavages through a comparative analysis of Italy and Spain. They appraise the electoral performance of two new parties – the Five Star Movement, in Italy, and Podemos, in Spain – in the 2014 European Parliament elections, analysing data at municipal, rather than constituency, level. They argue that focussing on the municipal level allows for a more accurate analysis of local characteristics and aspects of voting behaviour (especially in connection with the economic crisis) that could not be detected at constituency level. The study shows: the presence of unsatisfied political demands (high abstention rates) and voters’ volatility in both countries; considerable territorial variation, in both countries, in the electoral performance of the two new parties across municipalities; and that the economic crisis had a marked (positive) impact on the electoral affirmation of the two parties, which, however, is differentiated across the two countries.

Caiani and Graziano look at the rise of populism in the context of European Parliament elections. Going beyond the debate on theoretical definitions of populism, they find that focussing on empirical cases allows an appreciation that populism can manifest itself in multiple ways. The authors argue that, in order to be fully understood, populism should be considered not as a ‘syndrome to be cured’ but as an observable phenomenon which may concern all political parties present in a given domestic political community. To substantiate this claim, the authors concentrate on the case of Italy, and they appraise the interaction between Italian political parties and populism traits in a diachronic analysis based on a four-dimensional classification of populism (populism index) in the context of three European Parliament elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014. Through a systematic examination of Euromanifestos and party statutes, their analysis demonstrates that the crisis triggered a consolidation of populist traits across the Italian party system, leading to the emergence of a new populist party (the Five Star Movement); the strengthening of the electoral performance of the Northern League (presently the most populist Italian party, according to the scholars’ index); and the enhancement of populist features in other pre-existing political parties, with the notable exception of the Italian Democratic Party (contradicting the findings of Biorcio, Reference Bellucci, Lobo and Lewis-Beck2015). Further, Caiani and Graziano suggest that the financial crisis acted as an ‘exogenous shock’ that facilitated the emergence and consolidation of populist traits. The denunciation of the crisis and accusations against the EU and its institutions for failing to provide a suitable response feature strongly in Euromanifestos. Thus, the study confirms the link between populism and Euroscepticism and political protest proposed by Canovan (Reference Calise1999). Despite focussing on the Italian case, Caiani and Graziano’s work is also remarkable in that it does not simply offer a ‘snapshot’ of populism in Italy but also offers a method to appraise the degree of populism present in any given political system, adding to the study of such phenomena in other countries.