Euroscepticism: a meta-analysis

The rise of Euroscepticism has prompted extensive academic investigation, with researchers exploring a wide variety of areas and uncovering substantial information in recent decades. Despite these achievements, the overall self-knowledge of the literature-its overarching themes, the countries scrutinised, the methodologies employed, and their evolution over time-remains relatively underexplored. To bridge this gap, this study utilises wizdom.ai to delineate the borders of Euroscepticism by conducting a meta-analysis of over 400 journal articles between 1995 and 2020. The findings reveal two distinct macro-periods. The first-1995 to 2010-primarily comprises party-based, single-country qualitative studies. Conversely, the latter period-2011 to 2020-witnessed a proliferation of research, marked by an expansion into previously under-investigated topics, countries, and methodologies. This is exemplified by a notable increase in quantitative and comparative publications across many EU Member States. These findings constitute a preliminary basis for assessing the existing breadth and depth of the study of Euroscepticism and may stimulate further research on the topic.