Neumayer, Laure. "Euroscepticism as a political label: The use of European Union issues in political competition in the new Member States". European Journal of Political Research, Vol.47, No.2 (2008): 135-160.

Neumayer, Laure. "Euroscepticism as a political label: The use of European Union issues in political competition in the new Member States". European Journal of Political Research, Vol.47, No.2 (2008): 135-160.

• Discourses about ascension to the EU in Central and Eastern Europe can be broadly categorized into three phases: a broad consensus on European integration in 1989 and 1990, the creation of opposition parties and societal debates about the costs of integration in the 1990s, and 'Eurorealism' beginning in 1998 with debates over the value of the ascension terms offers to the Eastern Bloc (136).
• "The study of Euroscepticism, broadly defined as ‘[expressing] the idea of contingent or qualified opposition, as well as incorporating outright and unqualified opposition to the process of European integration" (136, original source of internal quote is pg. 366).
• The term 'Euroscepticism' is simultaneously an academic classification and a political label used in European political discourse. As a result of the term's use in European politics, it has become difficult to define, as academic classifications fail to account for all parties labeled and self-describing as 'Eurosceptic', as labeling is politically motivated (136).
• Ideology and political strategy are closely interlinked, since ideology, or how to advertise aspects of that ideology, are constructed based on the likelihood of political success. Therefore ideology is structured in an attempt to differentiate one's own party from political rivals, often through distinct terminology (137).
• In the former Eastern Bloc, attitudes towards Europe were used in this manner throughout the 1990s, with positivity towards anti-Soviet, modern Europe being constructed as a market of legitimate parties to distinguish themselves from 'illegitimate', anti-Europe/ anti-progress protest parties (137).
• The theory of political cleavages has sometimes been applied to Eastern Europe. It holds that modern political divisions are the result of historical cleavages created from the Protestant Revolution through the Industrial Revolution, and that after the fall of Communism, these 'historical' divisions are beginning to reemerge (138).
• This thesis has been seriously challenged by those who find a split between pro-EU and Eurosceptic parties that does not accord to traditional political cleavages nor to other domestic issues (138). A more detailed examination of actual party platforms reveals much more dynamism that expected, demonstrating that ideology is an active process, not the result of natural historic processes (139).
• Drs. Szczerbiak and Taggart wrote a paper in which they divided Eurosceptic parties into two categories: hard and soft. Hard Eurosceptics, who almost always self-identify as Eurosceptics and object to supranational organization in principle, and soft Eurosceptics, who often reject the Eurosceptic label and object to the EU's current incarnation rather than its nature (139).
• Their research on this subject conclusively demonstrates that a party's location on the right-left spectrum is not useful in determining whether it is Eurosceptic, and that hard Eurosceptics tend to be on the political fringes (139).
• Kopecký and Mudde offer a different form of classification, based on two axes of optimism about the current EU and the overall desirability of European integration. They establish four categories based on this grid: Euroenthusiasts, Eurosceptics, Europragmatists and Eurorejects. This classification holds that parties may change from switch on the enthusiasm x-axis, but that their central support for integration remains the same (140).
• E.g., a party may switch from a Euroreject to a Europragmatist is the contemporary EU is doing well, but nothing is going to make that party a Eurosceptic or a Euroenthusiast.
• This technique also faces challenges due to the difficulty of defining the 'underlying orientation' of the party towards European integration as differentiated from its current policy towards the EU. Moreover, this analysis assumes that positions towards the EU develop organically, not in response to a competitive political environment (140-141).
• "A relational approach to political competition considers political parties as collections of individuals, groups and coalitions that hold partly divergent views and interests. These currents compete internally to define the dominant identity and ideology of the party, while the party as an organization competes for votes with the other organizations" (141).
• "Ideologies do not reflect pre-existing social interests because parties do not automatically emanate from the social groups they claim to defend. On the contrary, social groups are shaped by political actors who define them in such a way as to be recognized as their ‘natural’ representatives" (141).
• In the first elections after the fall of Communism in 1990, supporting European integration was a political necessity, and that support largely defined the legitimacy of a political party -- rejection of the EU signaled illegitimacy and support for the undemocratic Communist system (142).
• Political parties actively responded to these normative barriers by rebranding themselves to retain legitimacy, for example calling themselves 'Eurorealist'. This strategy was undertaken in Poland, where some conservative parties used the Eurorealist label to simultaneously distinguish their stance on the EU from pro-EU liberals and legitimize themselves compared to the 'radical' Eurosceptics (142).
• Just as branding oneself as Eurorealist was a technique to gain legitimacy while differentiating oneself from other pro-ascension parties, labeling other groups as Eurosceptic was an opportunity to deny them legitimacy and political capital (143).
• By the beginning of ascension talks in 1998, taking a Eurorealist position had become standard in the Eastern bloc. Doing so provided legitimacy through support of integration in principle, but also allowed parties to disagree with aspects of the EU, giving them room to differentiate themselves from other pro-ascension parties (142-143).
• Eurosceptic attitudes were so highly stigmatized in the former Eastern bloc because they were associated with the former Communist governments' rejection of any association with the 'imperialist' EU (144), and because all of the fringe 'protest parties' which rejected the post-Communist order from far-right or far-left stances were opposed to ascension (147).
• The positions of different parties towards integration with Europe changed since creation in the 1990s in accordance with the political pressures and discourses discussed. In particular, Eurorealism evolved as a dominant way to avoid accusations of liberal 'servility' or conservative 'euroscepticism' towards the EU, and party identities evolved in response to the electoral pressure created by these debates (148). 
• The political constraints of the day favored different forms of insults and accusations. Whereas any conservative party could be criticized for being 'eurosceptic', the pro-EU normative order meant that criticism of liberal parties depended on accusations of servility to the EU -- often with comparisons to the relationship between Moscow and the Warsaw Pact (148-149). 
• Divisions within parties were also driven and reinforced by different positions towards European integration. Often the weak nature of the party system in the former Eastern bloc was exploited by upstart politicians, who could decry their former party's servility of euroscepticism in order to produce the political capital needed to kickstart their own party (154).
• Political parties in older EU member states are less susceptible to the dynamics detailed in this paper since they have established and developed ideological platforms, but they still take part in the same process of inter-party and intra-party competition for political support and are just as likely to use political labels to distinguish themselves and delegitimize their political rivals (156).