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Book Reviews: The Americas

emerges clearly in the pages devoted to the discussion of Mudde and Kopecký’s well-known alternative model. While expressing their disagreement, Szczerbiak and Taggart recognise the relevance of some arguments: ‘we accept that our definition of Soft party-based Euroscepticism may indeed have been too broad’ (vol. 2, p. 242). What emerges is therefore a fair degree of theoretical syncretism and constructive selfcriticism which grant the model the necessary degree of flexibility and adaptational potential. The fact that most of the 30 contributors are originally from the country they discuss represents another asset of the book. This allows greater analytical depth, given the possibility to tackle primary non-English sources. What might further strengthen the reliability of the results proposed is the use of more accurate statistical methods of analysis. However, two reasons can be identified behind the editors’ choice to use a more qualitative approach. On the one hand, the adoption of over-selective statistical analysis might well have severely reduced the coherence of the work, given the conceptual complexity and polymorphous nature of the issue. On the other hand, this choice would have implied the systematic collection of comparable data for all of the eighteen countries included in the study, which clearly goes beyond the scope and ambition of the work. The books are well written and the high degree of comparability, along with the common pattern of the chapters, makes them an extremely flexible tool. The two volumes, which can be read both in succession and separately, represent a successful attempt to go beyond single-country studies and to embrace a wider comparative perspective. For these reasons, they represent necessary reading for all those eager to develop a clearer and systematic understanding of today’s partybased Euroscepticism.