Contagiously Eurosceptic? The Spillover Effect of the M5S’ Eurosceptic Stance on Other Parties’ Attitude towards the EU

Brexit has put a dent in the EU’s authority. The underlying trigger - Euroscepticism - is often attributed to populist parties such as the British UKIP. While in the case of the UK, the Eurosceptic discourse was normalised to the extent that made Brexit not only possible but real, how has Euroscepticism affected politics in other countries? We focus on Italy, where several parties have developed an anti-EU stance, including the 5-Star Movement (M5S). We analyse a unique dataset of legislative speeches in the Italian parliament before and after the M5S took office in 2013 to assess its influence on other parties. For this purpose, we construct a dictionary of EU-related words and use text mining techniques such as Key Words in Context, Sentiment Analysis and Wordfish. Although the M5S suffered major losses in the 2022 elections, our results show its Eurosceptic legacy is still largely present. These findings contribute to a broader debate on the role of populist parties in changing perceptions of the EU.