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

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.