What is Euroscepticism?

The study of Euroscepticism emerged following its journalistic use, and later with a political reference to the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech. The concept has often been stretched, or used and abused, with reference to any form of critical attitudes towards the EU integration process. When controversial contestations emerged, with the end of the so-called ‘permissive consensus’ (1992), European citizens became the focus of analyses of determinants of support, but recent multiple crises lead to widespread discontent and the study of the emotions attached to it. The 2016 British referendum shows that, theoretically, identity and rational utilitarian frameworks of analysis cannot fully explain the outcome. Narratives, and embedded national discourses, are missing from the overall picture. Yet, narratives engage through psychological realism, such as the red bus used in the British Leave campaign, and mobilize emotions. Their study is worthy of scientific attention as an entity, becoming independent from the realm of cognition, when examining public Euroscepticism, where narratives and emotions are recognizable, strictly interlinked, and offer believable interactions.