Samuel Johnston
PhD Candidate, Political Science
| Email: | sajohnst@tcd.ie |
| Website: | www.satjohnston.com |
| Twitter: | @sajohnst1 |
Doctoral Thesis Summary
The EU is often seen as endorsing cosmopolitan values that are opposed to nationalism, and encouraging inter-state cooperation. However, despite the ideal of the EU as reducing nationalism's importance, its actual effect on different forms of nationalism is unclear, with the literature generally focusing on each form in isolation, thereby obscuring the EU's overall effect.
In my thesis, I seek to understand what the EU's overall effect on nationalism is. In particular, using a quantitative analysis of party manifestos across 33 European countries and qualitative analyses of Italy's Lega and Belgium's Vlaams Belang, I find little evidence that EU membership has encouraged the rise of anti-immigration appeals, but it has led to political parties increasingly prioritising ethnoregionalism, especially in highly regionalised countries.
Furthermore, using a qualitative analysis of Irish and Hungarian parties, I find that the EU has encouraged a reduction in the saliency of appeals related to ethnic kin or 'unredeemed' territory in neighbouring states
Biography
Samuel A. T. Johnston is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science in Trinity College Dublin. His primary research interests lie in different forms of nationalist parties across Europe, especially radical right and ethnoregional parties, and how the EU influences political parties. He also researches Irish Politics, kin-state policies, and party politics across Europe more generally
Publications
Johnston, S. A. T. (2020): ‘The 2019 European Parliament Elections in Ireland’, Irish Political Studies, 35(1), pp. 18-28.
Johnston, S. A. T. (2021): ‘Appendices’, pp. 341-360 in Gallagher, M., Marsh, M., and Reidy, T. (eds.) How Ireland Voted 2020: The End of an Era. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Johnston, S. A. T. (2022): ‘Choose Your Target Wisely: Explaining Nationalism’s Variation in Contemporary Europe’, West European Politics, forthcoming.
Johnston, S. A. T. and Sprong, S. (2022): ‘Seeking an Adversary: The Radical Right and the Saliency of Pro-Immigration Positions in Green Party Speeches’, Party Politics, forthcoming.