Contestation in the Streets

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Abstract
Evidence of political contestation in the EU, largely drawn from public opinion data and party manifestos, is inconclusive concerning the degree to which attitudes toward the EU are inde-pendent from other political cleavages as well as on the salience of the European political dimen-sion to most citizens. In this article, the author examines longitudinal and cross-national data on European political protests to discuss the dimensionality of contention when protests involve the EU. An analysis of this data indicates that Europe is the focus of a small but growing number of protests and also suggests that the EU matters intensely to groups who fear their livelihood is threatened by integration. Moreover, the evidence suggests there is a strong correspondence between anti-integration and Left political sentiment within popular protests.

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