Beyond ‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’: Rethinking Euroscepticism in Light of European Disintegration

Over the past three decades, Euroscepticism has progressively become a persistent and mainstream phenomenon. While several conceptualizations of party-based Euroscepticism have seen the light of day, the traditional ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ dichotomy offered by Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak continues to prevail, and was mirrored in discussions over the post-Brexit relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Subsequent conceptualisations refined our understanding of opposition to European integration across different sets of actors. Yet, after the European Union experienced its first case of differentiated disintegration and British Eurosceptics losing their representation in European institutions, it may be argued that Euroscepticism will take another dimension. Brexit may become a full-fledged model of differentiated disintegration advocated by Eurosceptics across the continent, or discussions may evolve towards advocating alternative forms of differentiated disintegration. This paper takes stock in the existing literature on European differentiation to reflect on existing conceptualisations of Euroscepticism. Drawing on data from the Comparative Manifesto Project and the 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey, a gradual conceptualization of party-based Euroscepticism in a post-Brexit era is proposed and empirically tested.