Sussex European Institute

European Parties Elections & Referendums Network

EPERN

The European Parties Elections and Referendums Network (EPERN) is a network of scholars researching the impact of European integration on parties, elections and public opinion. It was set up in August 2003, has a 100-strong international email membership list, organises research seminars and publishes a working paper series. The Network produces an ongoing series of briefings on the impact of European integration on election campaigns. EPERN also produced a special briefing series on the 2004 and 2009 European Parliament elections.

EPERN also publishes a research blog containing shorter, timely contributions on the impact of Europe on elections, referendums and party politics - epern.wordpress.com 

EPERN emerged as the successor to the Opposing Europe Research Network (OERN) that was launched at a June 2000 workshop at the Sussex European Institute as a network of scholars interested in researching the comparative party politics of Euroscepticism. Over the next three years, OERN organised a series of ESRC-funded seminars together with a workshop at the ECPR joint sessions and a series of conference panels. The culmination of this activity saw the publication of a two volume Oxford University Press edited collection on 'The Comparative Party Politics of Euroscepticism' in 2008. EPERN was launched to reflect the fact that the OERN network had broadened its intellectual focus out to encompass the domestic politics of European integration more generally, with the study of Euroscepticism one (albeit important) strand within that.

EPERN is jointly convened by Prof. Aleks Szczerbiak (a.a.szczerbiak@sussex.ac.uk) and Prof. Paul Taggart (p.a.taggart@sussex.ac.uk) from the Sussex European Institute.