Firenze University Press www.fupress.com/qoe Understanding public Euroscepticism Citation: Simona Guerra (2020) Under- standing public Euroscepticism. Quad- Simona Guerra erni dell’Osservatorio elettorale – Ital- ian Journal of Electoral Studies 83(2): University of Surrey, United Kingdom, 0000-0003-3911-258X 45-56. doi: 10.36253/qoe-9672 E-mail:
[email protected] Received: September 4, 2020 Abstract. Euroscepticism has become more and more embedded both at the EU and Accepted: December 17, 2020 national levels (Usherwood et al. 2013) and persistent across domestic debates (Ush- erwood and Startin 2013). This study presents an in-depth analysis of contemporary Published: December 23, 2020 narratives of Euroscepticism. It first introduces its question related to understanding Copyright: © 2020 Simona Guerra. This public Euroscepticism, following the British EU referendum campaign and outcome, to is an open access, peer-reviewed then present the established literature, and the analysis of the British case study. A sur- article published by Firenze Univer- vey run in Britain in May 2019 shows that, as already noted by Oliver Daddow (2006, sity Press (http://www.fupress.com/qoe) 2011), Euroscepticism is very much identifiable in the traditional narratives of Europe and distributed under the terms of the as the Other. Context accountability (Daddow 2006) is still cause for concern in Britain Creative Commons Attribution License, and by assuming a more positive view of a European Britain (Daddow 2006) does not which permits unrestricted use, distri- make the debate more informed. Images, narratives and specific issues to reform the bution, and reproduction in any medi- um, provided the original author and Eurosceptic toolbox into a more neutral, but informative, instrument could be applied source are credited.