Understanding Euroscepticism: Campaign frames and diffusion.

The 2005 EU constitutional referenda results reflect the growing Euroscepticism in Europe. The literature focused on the French or Dutch rejection, ignoring the positive votes in Spain and Luxembourg. Given the similar sociodemographics of the ‘no’ vote and the political party preferences in all four cases, what explains the variation in the results? The literature has so far been divided between the ‘second-order’ and ‘attitude’ models, attributing the results to domestic or European factors, leading to inconclusive results. First, I hypothesize that the more the Eurosceptic arguments/frames resonated with contentious domestic issues in a member state, the less support that state’s public would give the EU in a referendum. I argue that in France and the Netherlands while no campaigners started early and addressed people’s daily problems by priming key contentious themes, the yes campaigners came into the debate late and failed to deliver a uniform message. Second, I hypothesize that sequencing mattered; the later a country held its referendum, the more the previous referenda results and campaigns in other states influenced its public. I use field work data including interviews with campaign leaders and public opinion surveys. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]