• DOI:10.1080/13608740903432375
• Corpus ID: 153600380

Room for Manoeuvre: Euroscepticism in the Portuguese Parties and Electorate 1976–2005

@article{CostaLobo2011RoomFM,
  title={Room for Manoeuvre: Euroscepticism in the Portuguese Parties and Electorate 1976–2005},
  author={Marina Costa Lobo and Pedro C. Magalh{\~a}es},
  journal={South European Society and Politics},
  year={2011},
  volume={16},
  pages={104 - 81}
}

• Marina Costa Lobo, Pedro C. Magalhães
• Published 1 March 2011
• Political Science
• South European Society and Politics

This paper approaches euroscepticism from the perspective of party positions and mass-level attitudes. It documents the nature and evolution of party euroscepticism from 1976 to 2005. Although the poles of party-based euroscepticism can be found, predictably, at the extremes of the party system, there is also a dynamic and contingent element to party positions that can only be accounted for on the basis of a strategic explanation. It also shows that, whenever parties attempted to mobilise voters on the basis of a eurosceptic discourse, voters responded to such attempts. Under those conditions, citizens' attitudes vis-à-vis the EC/EU, in terms of both the economic and the political consequences of integration, emerged as a relevant electoral cleavage in Portuguese politics.