ESRA 2027 sessions by theme
Back to Overview of Sessions
Unpacking the Populism-Euroscepticism Nexus: Empirical Findings and Methodology from COST Action EUPopLink (CA23102) |
| Coordinator 1 | Professor Ioannis Andreadis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) |
| Coordinator 2 | Professor Sofia Vasilopoulou (King’s College London) |
| Coordinator 3 | Professor Eftichia Teperoglou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) |
Session Details
Populism and Euroscepticism represent two of the defining political forces reshaping European democracies. Analyzing their multi-dimensional interaction requires examining both citizen-level attitudes and political party dynamics across Europe. This session presents key methodological frameworks and substantive findings from COST Action EUPopLink (CA23102), a network of circa 300 researchers from across Europe (https://eupoplink.eu/) showcasing results from its core empirical data collection efforts: the EUPopLink Public Opinion Survey and the EUPopLink Expert Survey.
Drawing on harmonized cross-national survey datasets, specialized national modules, and longitudinal behavioral data, the session examines public opinion alongside party supply. Mass-level papers leverage the multilingual EUPopLink Public Opinion Survey to investigate voter attitudes, institutional trust, economic anxieties, and anti-establishment sentiment across diverse European contexts. Complementing this, papers featuring the EUPopLink Expert Survey evaluate party positioning, issue salience, and ideological strategy, utilizing expert judgments to map political party placements along populist and Eurosceptic dimensions.
The session addresses key substantive and methodological questions:
1. Under what conditions do populist attitudes translate directly into anti-EU voting behavior across different European regions?
2. How do socio-political shocks (e.g., polycrises, security shifts, and economic strains) alter the structural linkage between anti-elite sentiment and Euroscepticism?
3. How can survey researchers best design cross-national public opinion modules and expert evaluation instruments to capture subtle ideological variations in European party systems?
By integrating cross-national survey design with expert-coded party positioning, this session demonstrates how large-scale research collaborations illuminate public opinion and party politics during times of political restructuring. It provides valuable empirical evidence for political sociologists and social data scientists studying democratic resilience, political behavior, and European governance.
