“Issue Capture” and the Demand for an In/Out Referendum in the Context of Conservative Party’s Eurosceptic Mobilization Cover Image

„Issue capture“ a požadavek na uspořádání britského referenda v kontextu euroskeptické mobilizace Konzervativní strany
“Issue Capture” and the Demand for an In/Out Referendum in the Context of Conservative Party’s Eurosceptic Mobilization

Author(s): Monika Brusenbauch Meislová
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Fakulta sociálních věd
Keywords: Issue capture; in/out referendum; Conservative Party; United Kingdom; European Union; Euroscepticism

Summary/Abstract: As it stands now, a consensus has been, more or less, established that the 2016 British referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union was held primarily due to the steadily increasing pressure of the Conservative parliamentary party’s hard Eurosceptic wing that had demanded it. This article deals with agenda setting within the Conservative Party, whilst applying the issue capture concept, first introduced by Nathaniel Copsey and Tim Haughton in 2014 in connection with their research into theBritish debate on the EU and the European integration per se. The author argues that the issue capture phenomenon occurred also within the Conservative Party, when the minority group of its hard Eurosceptic members calling for an in/out referendum took near-control of the terms of the intra-party political debate and gradually put this issue through as a central point of the party’s programme. The article aims to answer the question, why it was the demand for an in/out referendum that became the central issue of the Conservative hard Eurosceptic wing.

  • Issue Year: 10/2018
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 36-56
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Czech