Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Professor of Economic Geography, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
Friday, 1 September│ 11.00-13.00│Alicante & Live Streaming
The geography of EU discontent and the regional development trap
While many regions have flourished in recent decades, many other are stuck —or are at risk of becoming stuck— in development traps. Such regions experience relative decline in economic growth, employment, and productivity relative to their neighbours and to their own past economic trajectories. Many of these regions have been in development traps for lengthy periods of time and this condition is breeding increasing political discontent and unrest. Such discontent is often translated into support for anti-system parties at the ballot box. In this paper we study the link between the risk, intensity, and length of regional development traps and the rise of discontent in the European Union (EU) —proxied by the support for Eurosceptic parties in national elections between 2014 and 2022— using an econometric analysis at a regional level. The results highlight the strong connection between being stuck in a development trap and support for Eurosceptic parties. They also suggest that the longer the period of stagnation, the stronger the support for parties that oppose European integration. This relationship is also robust to considering only the most extreme Eurosceptic parties or to including parties that display more moderate levels of Euroscepticism.