To cite this article:
Lorenzo De Sio, Mark N. Franklin, Till Weber, The risks and opportunities of Europe: How issue yield explains (non-)reactions to the financial crisis, Electoral Studies, Volume 44, December 2016, Pages 483-491, ISSN 0261-3794.
Abstract
The financial crisis subjected the EU to its first truly serious stress test. A majority of citizens is now opposed to further integration. But party systems have barely adjusted, instead perpetuating traditional patterns of an evasive mainstream with Euroskeptic fringes. To explain this unexpected outcome we draw on issue yield (De Sio and Weber, 2014), a general model of political competition that unites public opinion, party unity and electoral support. Issue yield highlights how the crisis affected risks and opportunities differently for pro- and anti-integration parties. For such an asymmetric constellation, the model predicts the muffled choices supplied by most parties on EU matters. We use the European Election Studies 2009/2014 and the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys 2010/2014 to document these patterns.
Keywords: Agenda setting; European integration; Party competition; Public opinion
Lorenzo De Sio
Lorenzo De Sio è Professore Ordinario di Scienza Politica alla Luiss, dove dirige il [CISE – Centro Italiano Studi Elettorali](https://cise.luiss.it) e co-dirige il Luiss Research Center on Democracy. È co-direttore (con Mark Thatcher) della Laurea Magistrale bilingue in “Government & Public Affairs” (GPA) e co-direttore (con Sylvia Kritzinger) della [Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica](https://www.rivisteweb.it/issn/0048-8402) (WOS Q2). Ha trascorso periodi di ricerca presso la University of California Irvine, l’European University Institute (Jean Monnet Fellow), la Stanford University (Campbell National Fellow) e SciencesPo Paris. La sua ricerca si concentra su analisi quantitative dell’opinione pubblica, comportamento di voto e competizione partitica. Tra i progetti di cui è stato Principal Investigator: l’Issue Competition Comparative Project (ICCP) e POSTGEN. Si occupa inoltre di infrastrutture di ricerca: ha diretto lo sviluppo del software [DAX](https://dax.luiss.it) nell’ambito di [FOSSR](https://fossr.eu) (PNRR) ed è Direttore del Service Center for Platform Design and Development nell’infrastruttura internazionale [MEDem](https://medem-research.eu). I suoi lavori sono pubblicati su riviste come *American Political Science Review*, *Comparative Political Studies*, *Electoral Studies*, *Party Politics*, *Political Psychology* e *West European Politics*. Il suo ultimo volume è **Democrazia addio** (Laterza, 2026).
