This article examines and attempts to explain public scepticism surrounding the European Union (coined Euroskepticism). Since 1990, there has been an increasing move to make European Union decision making more democratic with increased oversight of national parliaments, greater powers for the European Parliament, majority voting within the Council, and an increase in EU referendums. This has sought to bring to an end to an era where European elites bargained treaties in the shadow of an apathetic and generally approving public. Hooghe seeks to understand what drives European Union decision making in the modern era, as well as Euroskepticism. This move was embodied in the rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty in 2005, forcing a rethink of the permissive consensus that the people in charge of the European Union were above accountability. To this day, the matter of European integration has been strictly labelled as a contentious issue.

Hooghe begins his examination by establishing two, diametrically opposed theories of European Union politics. One theory is a bottom up view of preference formation. In this argument, voter’s preferences provide a structure of incentives for party position in the context of electoral competition. Whichever party can best capitalise on voter preferences will be better situated to acquire political power. In the context of the European Union, policy makers must gauge the public mood on European integration and make decisions from that.

Another theory is the top down approach, whereby political parties cue and directly influence the opinions and decisions of the public. Political parties, according to this theory, hold the ideological maps to help navigate highly technical and multi-faceted issues (such as those facing European integration). The public can rarely grasp the complexities of these issues, and thus look to political parties for guidance.

Hooghe, in his analysis, agrees with the bottom up approach to explain Euroskepticism. Euroskepticism, then, is best understood as a rational response by citizens (and thus political parties) for whom centralized European Union power is a threat to their own personal interests, not as a result of dissent o