What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Euroscepticism? Relaunching the Conceptual Debate About a Contested Term

• Published date: 01 December 2025
• Author: Patrick Bijsmans,Luca Mancin
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70026
• Section: Research Article

Contemporary European Politics

RESEARCH ARTICLE

What Do We Talk About When We Talk About

Euroscepticism? Relaunching the Conceptual Debate

About a Contested Term

Patrick Bijsmans

1

| Luca Mancin

2

1

Department of Political Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands |

2

Graduate School on Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan,

Milan, Italy

Correspondence: Patrick Bijsmans (patrick.bijsmans@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

Received: 3 October 2024 | Revised: 4 November 2025 | Accepted: 7 November 2025

Funding: This paper has partly been made possible by a small teaching buyout funded through the Additional Research Time (ART) research incentive of

Maastricht University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Luca Mancin initially contributed to the research as part of his research internship in the MSc in

European Studies at Maastricht University.

Keywords: conceptualisation | European integration | euroscepticism | research agenda

ABSTRACT

Euroscepticism has become a mainstream phenomenon in European politics since the concept's first appearance in The Times

of 11 November 1985. The post‐Maastricht Treaty period was an important initial turning point, but Euroscepticism became

especially visible during the crises that hit the European Union more recently. Along the way, ‘Euroscepticism’has become a

catch‐all label referring to a broad range of positions. Our work engages with the resulting conceptual confusion. Since Taggart's

famous 1998 article on the concept, ‘Euroscepticism’has been examined from different perspectives. However, despite initial

conceptual discussions following the publication of Taggart's article, conceptual work on Euroscepticism has become rare. Our

paper presents an argumentation for relaunching this conceptual debate. We introduce our idea of ‘concept’as a theoretical

problem deriving from the necessity to face an unknown, blurred entity, and make a case for treating Euroscepticism as a

sensitising concept. To illustrate our argument, we discuss a historical timeline to show that Euroscepticism cannot be

disconnected from the history of the European project. We also present three generations of Euroscepticism research and how

they deal with the phenomenon. We conclude with suggestions for new conceptual endeavours in the study of Euroscepticism.

1 | Introduction

In recent decades Euroscepticism has moved ‘from the mar-

gins to the mainstream ’of political debate (Brack and

Startin 2015). The concept ‘Euroscepticism’made its first

appearance in The Times of 11 November 1985, in a reference

to British anti‐mar keters; those membe rs of the Conservativ e

Party concerned about the direction of European integration.

Yet, the real turnin g point was the Maastri cht Treaty, with its

extension of the European Union's (EU) scope and involve-

ment in a wide array of policy fields (Brack and Startin 2015;

Usherwood and Startin 2013). Henceforth, criticism towards

the EU became an integral part of public debates. Today

‘Euroscepticism’is an umbrella term for a broad range of

different positions, ranging from criticism towards certain EU

policies to outright opposition to European integration in any

form. This is also vis ible in the academic de bate. For instance,

in the introduction to their volume on Euroscepticism,

Harmsen and Spiering (2004, 20) refer to a ‘plurality of usages’

employed by contributing authors, based on ‘the appropriate

definition and scop e of the term as it relates to th eir particular

subject area.’

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work

is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

© 2025 The Author(s). Contemporary European Politics published by University Association of Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

1of10Contemporary European Politics, 2025; 3:e70026

https://doi.org/10.1002/cep4.70026