ABSTRACT
Broad societal phenomena such as globalisation, political disaffection and populist ideology allegedly underpin both Euroscepticism and positions on issues such as immigration or economic liberalism. This fuels the hypothesis that Euroscepticism is not a stand-alone phenomenon, but is rather part of a broader emerging cleavage. To understand how and when issue linkage exists and Europe is folded into an emerging cleavage, this chapter focuses on various causes argued in the literature. It highlights theoretical arguments in the literature that explain Euroscepticism and the findings that support these claims, and has mapped major theoretical controversy in these explanations. Each of the perspectives discussed generates different expectations about whether Euroscepticism is a stand-alone phenomenon or embedded within a broader cleavage. Rather than providing a conclusive empirical answer to this question, our aim has been to map the theoretical debate about it.
