European public opinion in times of crisis Jean-Benoit Pilet (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Laura Sudulich (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Abstract A large number of European countries are experiencing a protracted economic crisis. Empirical evidence on the effects of these unfavorable conditions on public opinion remains scarce. This paper examines whether the ongoing crisis affects public opinion towards the European Union. A classical distinction in the literature is between ‘hard’/economy-related and ‘soft’/cultural determinants of attitudes towards the EU. The guiding hypothesis in this article is that with the economic crisis we should expect ‘hard’ factors to become more important, and to outweigh ‘soft’ factors. And we expect that it would be particularly the case when it comes to economic EU policies like the Euro. We find that ‘hard’ factors are significantly affecting attitudes towards the EU, and especially towards the Euro. Yet, they do not cancel out the impact of ‘soft’ factors. On the contrary, ‘soft’ factors appear to be more powerful in explaining public support for the EU and even for the Euro. These findings indicate that the economic crisis may indeed increase the salience of the economic dimensions of European integration, but the EU remains mostly perceived in terms of (national) identity. 1 Introduction Many commentators argue that the upcoming European elections will be characterized by the rise of Eurosceptic parties in a number of member states. In France, the Front National stands first in the polls, so does Geert Wilders’ PVV in the Netherlands, Syriza in Greece, PiS in Poland or ANO in the Czech Republic. In Britain, the UKIP is around 20-25pc in the polls, fighting with the Conservatives to be the second largest party. These parties are of various ideological nature but they are all skeptical about how the EU currently functions and want a radical change in the process of European integration. Indubitably, their electoral growth is going to be interpreted as a rise within the public of negatives attitudes towards European integration. And, as already apparent in many articles and posts on the upcoming European elections, the economic crisis is going to stand high on the list of explanations given to make sense of the electoral results of the next European elections. The President of the European Commission himself, Jose Barroso, in his 2013 to the European Parliament on the State of the EU linked the critics addressed to the EU to the economic crisis1. Yet, how exactly the economic crisis is affecting attitudes towards the EU, and, in turn, votes for Eurosceptic parties, remains to be explored2. This puzzle is highly relevant for academic research. In the last ten years, most studies of public attitudes towards the EU have been showing that economic factors were not the most central explanation for how citizens evaluate the EU. Since the early 1990s, a growing body of literature on public attitudes towards Europe has developed (for a review see: Boomgarden et al., 2011). Contributions from both the electoral behavior perspective and the public opinion tradition suggest that citizens’ attitudes towards the EU respond to two sets of considerations: ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors (de Vreese et al., 2008). ‘Hard’ factors are utilitarian predictors, mostly referring to the idea that citizens evaluate the EU on basis of its impact on the economic situation of their household and of the country more generally. ‘Soft’ factors encapsulate cultural elements like national identity and openness to multiculturalism. A recent contribution shows that ‘soft’ factors are actually key to a fuller understanding of citizens’ attitudes towards the EU (van Klingeren et al., 2013). Before the deflagration of the economic crisis there were good reasons to expect ‘‘oft’ factors to have increased in their capacity of explaining attitudes towards the EU: religious and ethnic tensions have created the conditions under which national and cultural identities are likely to exert a strong influence on citizens’ attitudes. Conversely, the deflagration of the economic crisis would suggest ‘hard’ factors to overshadow ‘soft’ ones in citizens ‘evaluation of the EU and its policies, or at least to have regained importance. Jose Manuel Barroso, State of the Union address 2013, European Parliament, Strasburg, September 11th 2013, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-684_en.htm 2 See on that aspect, the post by Cas Mudde, “Why ‘anti-European populists’ won’t win big in the European elections”, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/01/28/why-anti-europeanpopulists-wont-win-big-in-the-european-elections/ 1 2 To shed some light on whether this is actually the case, we explore data from Eurobarometer 77.3 (May 2012). This survey represent a valuable resource to empirically assess the relative strength of ‘hard’/economy-driven and of ‘soft’/identity-driven determinants of public attitudes towards the EU several years after the start of the crisis. Moreover, we test the effects of these factors on specific attitudes to further EU integration in two policy domains: the monetary union and the common defense and security policy (CDSP). The paper will proceed as follow. In a first section, we review the literature of reference and conceptualize how the drivers of public attitudes towards the EU play out in times of crisis. In the second section, we present the data and detail the variable in use. We then outline and explain our findings. We then conclude by discussing the implications of our findings in relation with the contemporary debate on the rise of negative attitudes towards the EU. 1. The determinants of public attitudes towards the EU: ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors’ in time of economic crisis The growing discontent among the European public towards the process of European integration emerged in the referendums held since the mid-1990s on the various new European treaties. Furthermore, the rise of Eurosceptic parties in several member states indicates that the idea of a broad permissive consensus towards an ever-closer union is clearly no longer valid (Duchesne et al., 2013). Consequently, a rich literature has explored public attitudes towards the EU (Eichenberg & Dalton, 1993; Boomgaarden et al., 2011) in the attempt of highlighting public perception of EU institutions and policies (Banducci et al., 2003; Karp & Bowler, 2006). A large body of literature covers various elements of the relationship between European citizens and EU institutions. Some scholars have explored the nexus between attitudes and voting behavior at EP elections (Schmitt, 2010; van der Brug et al., 2007), some have focused on their effects on vote choice at EU referendums (Garry et al., 2005; Garry, 2013; Hobolt, 2006: 2009; ), some others have tried to determine how parties adapt their policy platforms to attract voters dissatisfied with the EU (Meguid, 2008). Most studies in this tradition focus on whether voting behavior at EP elections and EU level referendums depends upon second order evaluations (Marsh 1998; Reif and Schmitt 1980) or issue voting considerations (Franklin 2002; Franklin, Van der Eijk, and Marsh 1995) and, on the balance between these two. While these two sets of explanations are not mutually exclusive, there is clear evidence that European citizens are in fact capable of assessing the EU on its own merits, independently from their opinion on the national government. Indeed, the public opinion literature disentangles what factors explain citizens’ attitudes towards the EU, its policies and the idea of further integration. Early studies in this tradition suggested that utilitarian considerations were the main determinants of EU support. The underlying assumption was that citizens would evaluate costs and benefits of the process of European integration, and rationally support the policies most favorable to their own economic situation (Gabel and Palmer, 1995; Anderson and Reichert, 1995). This can be broken down into two 3 types of explanations: pocketbook and sociotropic evaluations. With regard to the former, working status, income and evaluations of personal economic situation were considered as reliable predictors of public attitudes towards the EU. The general expectation here is that citizens in an economically more vulnerable position would be less supportive of the EU. With regard to the latter, various studies have argued that the evaluation of national and supranational economic conditions has an effect of citizens’ attitudes towards the EU. The broad economic context is considered to play a major role; citizens tend to blame the EU for halts in economic growth, at the national or the EU level (Kritzinger, 2003). In the 2000s, the debate on the drivers of support for the EU was re-open by the works of authors like Hooghe and Marks (2004) who argued that next to economic factors, elements related to the identity and the cultural-orientation of citizens were key to an understanding of attitudes towards the EU. In a similar vein, De Vreese, Boomgarden and Semetko (2008) explore the relative impact of ‘hard’ (utilitarian) and ‘soft’ (identity) determinants of attitudes towards the EU, showing that the latter were -, at least in the 2000s- more important than the former. The impact of ‘hard’ factors was even shown to be very modest, close to nil once ‘soft’ factors were controlled for. Such a shift can be understood in the wake of several changes happened at the EU level. Firstly, the EU expanded its sphere of actions beyond the economy. After the Maastricht treaty, EU competences started covering new policy domains such as justice and home affairs, immigration and border control. Secondly, by the early 2000s the public debate on Europe focused mostly on the enlargement of the EU to Eastern and central Europe and on further political integration (Karp and Bowler, 2006). By expanding its scope beyond the single-market, the EU took initiatives in policy domains that are not easily captured by a cost benefit analysis. Therefore, factors that were more ‘affective’ than ‘utilitarian’, in Boomgarden et al.’s words (2011), became more relevant. The EU enlargement to Eastern countries in 2004 amplified this trend. Some authors have pointed at the attachment to national culture as a key factor to understand attitudes towards the EU. The transfer of competence on a number of policy domains, from national member-states to the EU, is opposed by citizens with strong national identity feelings (Luedtke, 2005). Following the same logic, McLaren showed that perceiving other culture as a threat to your own national culture would also deter support to the EU (McLaren, 2002). A contribution to this debate has been recently made by van Klingeren, Boomgaarden and de Vreese (2013). Comparing the determinants of public attitudes towards the EU in 1994 and 2005, the authors show that both in 1995 and 2004 the effect of ‘soft’ factors was significantly larger than the impact of ‘‘hard’’ ones in explaining support for the EU. In their analysis, ‘hard’ factors have a significant but small impact on Euroscepticism, while ‘soft’ factors, and in particular national identity, have a strong impact, more than ten times larger than ‘hard’ factors. This was already the case in 1995 when EU policies beyond the single-market were not very much developed. 4 All in all, the literature indicates that attitudes towards the EU and the process of European integration cannot be entirely accounted for by either utilitarian or cultural factors. Rather, the two sets of explanations jointly contribute to understanding citizens attitudes. However, the deflagration of the global financial crisis in 2007 and its deepening in the following years may have dramatically changed people’s views and attitudes. Some considerations suggest a major shift in citizens’ political priorities. Recent studies both in the US and in Europe indicate that the crisis may be actually reshaping public preferences in various major policy domains such as social policy, the environment and immigration (Margalit, 2013; Scruggs and Benegal, 2012; Fetzer, 2011). Moreover, economic issues have become more salient across Europe. In the latest Eurobaromter of December 2013, unemployment was cited as the main concern by 49pc of the European citizens surveyed, followed by the state of the economy (33pc) (Eurobarometer 80, 2013, p. 11). Before the crisis, in 2008, unemployed was only cited as main concern by 24pc of the respondents, and the state of the economy by 20pc of them (Eurobaromter 69, 2008, p. 11). Since the start of the crisis, the European Union has reoriented its activities towards economic issues. What had been on top of the agenda of heads of state and of government at the European summits since 2009 were mostly economic issues. The EU took action to bailout Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. In 2011, the 27 Member states adopted the Six-Pack empowering even more the European Commission in supervising the budgets of the member states. And the eventually adopted the European Mechanism of Stability in September 2012. Moreover the political discourses about the EU both from mainstream as well as from Eurosceptic parties are increasingly more about economic issues, and especially about the Euro. The German elections of 2013 were, for example, dominated by debates about how Germany should take action towards the EU and towards its EU partners in dealing with the financial and economic crisis. In such circumstances, one could expect to observe that ‘hard’ factors have regained importance in shaping public attitudes towards the EU. Our contribution aims at reassessing the validity of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors in the wake of the current economic crisis. Previous studies have indeed evaluated the issue in times of economic growth, while the changed economic conditions may have deeply affected the determinants of support towards the Union. It is plausible to expect ‘hard’ factors’ to be striking back in a time of economic downturn. Those who pointed at the importance of ‘soft’ factors in understanding attitudes towards the EU claimed that this was due to the EU expanding, in the 1990s, its domains of responsibilities beyond the single-market. This generated identityrelated concerns. If we reverse the argument, the crisis has actually refocused EU policies on the economy. Therefore, ‘hard’ factors should have re-gained importance. However, this could not mean that ‘soft’ factors have lost importance. We may observe that Eurosceptic parties are trying to mobilize consent by addressing the economy as well as identity-related issues like immigration, border controls or national identity. Therefore, it could be that the rise of more negative attitudes towards the EU observed in recent opinion polls is explained by the combination of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors rather by the dominance of some above the others. The first hypothesis in this paper will therefore be that: 5 1. In time of crisis, the effect of ‘hard’ factors on public support for the EU outweighs the effect of ‘soft’ factors . In addition to this first hypothesis, we also explore whether the effects of ‘hard’ factors are the same for all policy domains in which the EU is taking action. To date, most studies concerned with attitudes toward the EU and the determinants of Eurosceptic sentiments have focused on generic attitudes towards membership of the Union (see Gabel, 1995; McLaren, 2002; Luedtke, 2005; Kritzinger, 2003; Lubbers and Scheepers, 2007; van Klingeren et al., 2013). However, a few studies have been showing that public support may be different, and driven by different elements when citizens are asked about specific policy domains rather than about European integration in general. As already demonstrated by Karp and Bowler (2006), support for the EU is not always aligned when it comes to different policy domains: “While there is a group of citizens who are either strong supporters of integration, whether directed toward deepening or widening, and another group that is opposed to both aspects of integration, the largest group of Europeans remains hesitant about European integration, either expressing support or opposition for either deepening or widening” (Karp and Bowler, 2006: 386). The same idea is found in the mapping of attitudes towards the EU by Boomgarden and colleagues (2011) who distinguishe between five clusters of attitudes towards the EU. Building on that, we propose to dig into attitudes of EU citizens towards different spheres of European integration. A few scholars have already touched upon that idea. Karp and Bowler show, for example, suggest that the fear of loss of national culture has a negative effect on support for deepening EU integration, but no effect on support for EU enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe. Banducci et al. (2003) point at the greater importance of costs/benefits considerations in understanding support for a single currency, while ‘soft factors’ seem to be less important in explaining support for the Euro Theoretically-speaking, it could be argued that ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors would not affect equally for all domains of EU action. ‘Hard’ factors should have a stronger effect on EU policies domains where the cost/benefits arguments could be easily embedded in the message of political actors. For instance that would be the case of economic, financial and monetary policies like the Euro. In these domains a cost benefit analysis is a relatively straightforward way of determining where one stands. On the contrary, when it comes to policy domains for which the direct costs and benefits for individual citizens are less straightforward to evaluate, ‘soft’ factors’ come into play. On that basis, we could formulate our second hypothesis as follws. 2. The effects of ‘hard’ factors are stronger on policies domains that hold immediate implication in terms of costs and benefits. We test this contention to two policy domains: the monetary union and the common defense and security policy as the former holds immediate implications 6 in terms of costs benefits, while the latter does not have a straightforward economic connotation. Therefore, we expect ‘hard’ factors to have a stronger impact on the former. 2. Data and Methods We deploy data from Eurobarometer 77.3 which surveyed citizens across the 27 member states and in several European non member states. We discard observations from non-member states and focus on the 27 countries with full membership status at the time of fieldwork. Given the nested structure of our data, the analyses are performed – in STATA 13 – by means of hierarchical models. We describe here in some details our key dependent and independent variables (see appendix for the detailed list of survey questions used). Dependent variables We study the determinants of public attitudes towards the EU in general, as well as towards two specific EU policies: the Euro and the Common Defense and Security policy (CDSP). For the general attitudes towards the EU, we may observe that previous work have been relying upon several survey items to capture such a concept. Some authors have used questions like ‘do you think that your country’s membership in the EU is a good thing’ (Gabel, 1995; McLaren, 2002; Luedtke, 2005), ‘in general, are you for or against efforts being made to unify (Western) Europe (Kritzinger, 2003), ‘taking everything into consideration, would you say that your country has on balanced benefited or not of being member of the European Union’ (Lubbers & Scheepers, 2007; van Klingeren et al., 2013), or ‘the decision-making power of the European Union should be extended (Hobolt & Brouard, 2010). Here, we opted for a general measure of support for the EU with the question ‘In general, does the EU conjure up for you a very positive, fairly positive, neutral, fairly negative or very negative image?’ (QA14). In the analysis, the variable was reconstructed into a scale ranging from 0 to 4 (higher values meaning a more positive image of the EU). We depict in figure 1 country averages and confidence intervals around the overall sample mean of 2.06 (SD 0.96). Clearly, there is country level variation with ten countries well below average, thirteen countries above average and four countries around the average. While most countries that accessed the Union in 2004 appear to have higher approval rate for the EU than old member states, no clear pattern emerges. Among countries that have been especially vulnerable to the unfavorable economic conditions of the past years support for the EU is unsurprisingly low, with the exception of Ireland where despite the bailout public support for the UE remains in line with the overall average. 7 Figure1. Distribution of attitudes towards the EU, by country averages. With regard to support towards the monetary union and the CDSP, we use the following question ‘What is your opinion on each of the following statements? Please tell me for each statement, whether you are for it or against it’ (QA19) selecting the statement on the monetary union: ‘A European economic and monetary union with one single currency, the euro’ and the one on common defence and security policy ‘A common defence and security policy among EU Member States’. The answers are binary (for or against) and figure 2 presents the country averages and confidence intervals. The red lines represent the respective overall means 0.60 for the Euro and 0.78 for the CDSP; Europeans appear to be overall in favor of both a common currency and a common defence and security policy among member states. The latter clearly receives more consensus than the former; notably most new members show very high approval rates and, overall only six member states are significantly above average. With regard to the Euro, many non-eurozone members display significantly low patters of approval for the common currency. Interestingly, the states that have been severely affected by the crisis, the so-called PIGS -Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain – show no strong anti euro patterns, with Ireland and Greece being decisively above average in their rate of common currency approval. 8 Figure 2. Distribution of attitudes towards the Euro and CFDP, by country averages Independent variables ‘Hard’ factors. The first set of individual level ‘hard’ factors included in our analysis serve to describe the economic situation of survey respondents. First, the objective situation of respondents is measured taking into account their occupation (QD15 categorical) and whether they report to have faced difficulties paying their bills in the last 12 months (QD60 categorical. Reference category is “Never had difficulties”). Next to that, we include two variables measuring respondents’ subjective self-assessment of their economic situation. These are self-assessed level in society (QD61) a self-assessed current job situation (QDA4a)3. Finally, like other authors (Gabel and Palmer, 1997; van Klingeren et al., 2013), we include measures of the subjective evaluation of the national and European economy (QA4a). ‘Soft’ factors. The ‘soft’ factors included in the models are of two kinds. We first include measures of respondents’ attachment to their national culture. The first measures the national identity in relation to the European one, by asking whether respondents see themself in the near future as only national, only European or both (QD5). The effect of exclusive national ID has been shown to be a stronger predictor of attitudes towards the EU than other measure of national 3 The scale takes the values of: very good, rather good, rather bad, very bad. 9 pride or sentiment (Hooghe and Marks, 2005; van Klingeren et al., 2013). In addition, we include a measure of whether respondents perceive European integration as a loss of their own national culture (QA15_12). Moreover, we include a variable measuring respondents ‘attitudes towards immigrants and immigration. Previous works have shown that this is strongly correlated to support for the EU. Someone who is negative towards outgroup would be reluctant to a model of European integration based upon the free circulation of citizens and the opening of national borders within Europe (de Vreese and Boomgarden 2005; Lubbers and Scheepers, 2007). We use a question asking whether respondents believe that immigrants contribute positively to their country (QE1_4). Country-level variables. Earlier works on the effect of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors have also included a few variables measured at the country-level. First, among ‘‘hard’’ factors, the state of the economy has been said to have an impact on support for the EU. When the economy was performing badly, support was expected to be lower (Eichenberg and Dalton, 1993). In line with this expectation, we include in our model GDP growth, GDP per capita and whether the country is a net contributor to the EU budget. With regard to the ‘soft’ variables models, we include the percentage of migrants on the overall population of the country and of the number of years the country has been a member of the EU. Control variables. Finally, we use control variables for gender, age, education and type of municipality (rural or urban) in which the respondents live. 3. Results We begin by testing ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors on attitudes towards the EU, separately (Models 1 and 2) and jointly (Model 3). In order to compare across models we constrain the number of observation in models 1 and 2 to be the same as in model 3 as model 3 has the largest amount of missing cases.4 Interestingly, both the separated models (1 and 2) and the full model (3) indicate that a number of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors affect attitudes toward the EU, and they show that most of the variation seems to be at the individual level with Interclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) ranging from 3% in the ‘soft’ model to 4% in the other two. The ICC indicates the amount of variance due to differences at the higher level, in this case across countries. Model 3 shows that a number of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors concur in explaining public attitudes towards the. Adding the block of variables accounting for economic concerns to the ‘‘soft’’ factors does not cancel out the effects of cultural concerns, and vice versa. There is no doubt that these sets of explanation should not be regarded as mutually exclusive. At the individual level we can observe that ‘hard’ factors such as occupation, selfassessed position in society, self evaluation of job situation and objective difficulties in paying the bills are all significant predictors of attitudes towards the Union. Particularly, those who always struggled paying the bills in the last 4This decision does not affect the findings, the results from the unconstrained models are robust to those presented here and area available upon request. 10 year are significantly less likely to be supportive of the EU than those who did not face any difficulty (reference category) and than those who only had difficulties from time to time. This corroborates the findings of previous studies suggesting that those who occupy vulnerable positions in society perceive the EU more negatively. We expected this to be the case, particularly in times of economic recession. Perceptions of the national and European economy also appear to significantly affect attitudes: if the economy is perceived as doing badly the likelihood of European citizens to positively perceive the EU goes down. Among the country level indicators only whether the country is a Net contributor to the EU or not appear to impact attitudes: individual in those countries that receive more from the EU than what they spend on the EU are more likely to have a positive image of the Union. Undoubtedly pocketbook and sociotropic elements play a significant role in predicting citizens’ evaluation of the EU. With regard to ‘soft’ factors, we find that attitudes towards immigrants, national identity and fear of losing national culture are all good predictors of attitudes towards the EU. Individuals that hold negative feelings towards immigrants, have an exclusive perception of their national identity and fear the loss of national culture and tradition tend to be negative towards the idea of a more and integrated united Europe. Again, this confirms what found in previous studies and it is hardly surprising. Interestingly, the actual amount of immigrants in the country does not appear to play a significant explanatory role. When it comes to evaluate the predictive power of ‘soft’ versus ‘hard’ factors our findings reveal that the expectation of finding ‘hard’ factors to outweigh ‘soft’ factors is not met. When we simultaneously account for ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors we achieve the best model fit, as indicated by the AIC and the log likelihoods. This is not surprising as the separate models indicate that most of the included predictors are actually explaining variation in levels of support for the Union. By the value of the AIC and the log likelihood we also take note of the fact that ‘soft’ factors perform better than ‘hard’ factors in predicting attitudes towards the EU,. This is confirmed by the LR tests between model 3 and 1 and between model 3 and 2. While we would have expected the crisis to boost economic concerns over cultural ones, we find, first and foremost, that the two things actually go hand in hand and that cultural concerns are more pronounced that economic ones. When it comes to evaluate the image of the European Union, citizens seem to be driven by both cultural and economic considerations, but cultural factors appear to be slightly more prominent than economic ones. Simply put, the public perceives the European Union more in terms of identity than through an utilitarian costs/benefits perspective. 11 Table 1. Attitudes towards the European Union, ‘soft’(1) and ‘hard’(2) explanations Sex Age Urban Education GDP growth11 (1) -0.00 (-0.02 - 0.02) 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) 0.01 (-0.01 - 0.02) 0.07*** (0.06 - 0.08) Net Contributor GDP Per Capita Years Member Occupation -0.00* (-0.01 - 0.00) Bills. Problems from time to time Bills. Problems all the time Level in society Self assessed Job Situation Self assessed Economy EU Economy National Immigrant Population (%) Identity EU/National Loss National Culture Opinion on Immigrants Constant Observations Number of groups AIC ICC Log Likelihood -2*Log Likelihood -0.00 (-0.01 - 0.01) 0.45*** (0.43 - 0.48) -0.51*** (-0.54 - -0.47) -0.22*** (-0.24 - -0.20) 1.84*** (1.70 - 1.98) 22,898 27 57636 .04 -28806 57612 (2) 0.00 (-0.02 - 0.03) -0.00** (-0.00 - -0.00) 0.02** (0.00 - 0.03) 0.07*** (0.06 - 0.08) 0.00 (-0.02 - 0.03) 0.00*** (0.00 - 0.00) -0.00* (-0.00 - 0.00) 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.01) -0.00*** (-0.01 - -0.00) -0.07*** (-0.10 - -0.04) -0.20*** (-0.24 - -0.17) 0.04*** (3) 0.01 (-0.01 - 0.04) 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) 0.00 (-0.01 - 0.01) 0.05*** (0.03 - 0.06) 0.01 (-0.01 - 0.03) 0.00*** (0.00 - 0.00) -0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) -0.00*** (-0.01 - -0.00) -0.05*** (-0.08 - -0.03) -0.15*** (-0.19 - -0.12) 0.03*** (0.04 - 0.05) -0.03*** (0.03 - 0.04) -0.02*** (-0.04 - -0.02) -0.21*** (-0.23 - -0.20) -0.17*** (-0.18 - -0.15) 3.02*** (2.85 - 3.20) (-0.03 - -0.01) -0.18*** (-0.20 - -0.17) -0.13*** (-0.15 - -0.12) -0.00 (-0.01 - 0.01) 0.38*** (0.36 - 0.40) -0.47*** (-0.51 - -0.44) -0.18*** (-0.21 - -0.16) 2.83*** (2.66 - 2.99) 22,898 27 58339 .03 -29151 58302 22,898 27 56021 .03 -27988 55976 12 LR test Full ‘soft’ 1635.03*** Full ‘‘hard’’ 2326.21*** In table 2 below, we explore the effects of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors on the specific policy domains of the common currency and common defence and security policy. We proceed as for models 1-3 by constraining the number of observations to the ones for the most extensive models (6 for the Euro and 9 for CDSP) and we test for the effects of ‘soft’ and ‘‘hard’’ factors separately as well as jointly. As for the case of attitudes towards the EU, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors jointly explain approval for single policies. The effects of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors do not cancel each other out when included together in models 6 and 9. Moreover, once again in line with the results displayed in table 1, the full models appear to provide a better fit that the separate ones (4 and 5 as well as 7 and 8). The interclass correlation coefficient of model 6 indicates that over 20% of the variance is due to country level effects with regard to the Euro, whereas when it comes to CSDP only 6% of the variance is at the country level. This indicates that for a policy like the Euro national context matters more than for CSDP; in figure 2 we had observed country level variation with regard to both issues. The multilevel models in use here indicate that this variation carries a stronger weight for the common currency. When we compare log likelihoods and AIC coefficients across models 4, 5 and 6 we observe that ‘soft’ factors alone provide a slightly better fit than ‘hard’ factors alone. This is also the case for CSDP, if we compare model 7 and 8 to model 9. This suggests that, contrary to our expectations, but in line with what observed for attitudes towards the EU more broadly, even in times of crisis attitudes towards EU level policy are by and large evaluated though the lenses of cultural elements. This clearly does not imply that ‘hard’ factors do not play a role; actually sociotropic as well as pocketbook evaluations are strong predictors of both Euro and CSDP approval. If we compare the coefficients of individual level ‘soft’ factors between model 6 and 9, we can see that they all have a stronger impact on the common currency that on common defence policy. The ability of paying bills is particularly important in determining attitudes towards the Euro: those who faced difficulties all the time are significantly less likely to be pro-Euro than those who did not (reference category) and of those who had difficulties from time to time. The same does not apply to CSDP as the confidence intervals for those who always struggled and those who had difficulties from time to time overlap. Sociotropic considerations also have higher coefficients in model 6 than in model 9 indicating that perceptions of national and European economy are more important to people when expressing an opinion on the Euro than on CSDP. In both cases those in a vulnerable position are less likely to support EU level policies: these individuals appear to have no desire for a stronger Union. Interestingly women are consistently less likely to support EU level policies and, while the magnitude of the effects is minuscule, older citizens are more supportive of EU level policies than young people. Judging by the relative impact of ‘hard’ factors on the Euro and CDSP it may seem that ‘hard’ factors are actually more relevant on citizens judgment of the single currency than on defense policy. While this is true and in line with the contention outlined in our second working hypothesis, we also note that the 13 magnitude of the ‘soft’ factors variables is always higher in model 6 than in model 9. Negative attitudes towards immigrants, having an exclusive perception of national identity and fearing the loss of national culture are also stronger determinants of skepticism towards the Euro than towards common defence policy. 14 Table 2. Attitudes towards the Euro and CSDP, ‘soft’ and ‘‘hard’’ explanations (4) EURO ‘soft’ -0.18*** (-0.24 - -0.12) 0.00*** (0.00 - 0.01) -0.01 (-0.05 - 0.03) 0.14*** (0.10 - 0.17) (5) EURO ‘‘hard’’ Sex -0.17*** (-0.23 - -0.10) Age 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) Urban 0.03 (-0.01 - 0.07) Education 0.14*** (0.10 - 0.18) GDP growth11 -0.09 (-0.22 - 0.05) Net Contributor 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) GDP Per Capita -0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) Years Member 0.00 0.01 (-0.02 - 0.02) (-0.01 - 0.04) Occupation -0.01** (-0.01 - -0.00) Bills. Problems from time to time -0.26*** (-0.34 - -0.19) Bills. Problems all the time -0.48*** (-0.58 - -0.38) Level in society 0.07*** Self assessed (0.05 - 0.09) Job Situation -0.06*** (6) EURO Full -0.16*** (-0.22 - -0.09) 0.00*** (0.00 - 0.01) -0.02 (-0.06 - 0.02) 0.09*** (0.06 - 0.13) -0.07 (-0.22 - 0.07) 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) -0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) 0.01 (-0.01 - 0.04) -0.01** (-0.01 - -0.00) -0.24*** (-0.32 - -0.16) -0.40*** (-0.51 - -0.30) 0.05*** (0.03 - 0.07) -0.05*** (7) CSDP ‘soft’ -0.08** (-0.15 - -0.02) 0.01*** (0.00 - 0.01) -0.05** (-0.09 - -0.00) 0.02 (-0.02 - 0.06) (8) CSDP ‘‘hard’’ -0.09** (-0.16 - -0.02) 0.00** (0.00 - 0.00) -0.01 (-0.06 - 0.03) 0.03 (-0.01 - 0.07) 0.03 (-0.05 - 0.11) 0.00* (-0.00 - 0.00) -0.00** (-0.00 - -0.00) -0.01** 0.01 (-0.03 - -0.00) (-0.01 - 0.02) -0.01*** (-0.02 - -0.00) -0.17*** (-0.25 - -0.08) -0.30*** (-0.41 - -0.18) 0.06*** (0.04 - 0.08) -0.04*** (9) CSDP Full -0.08** (-0.14 - -0.01) 0.00*** (0.00 - 0.01) -0.05** (-0.09 - -0.00) -0.01 (-0.05 - 0.03) 0.04 (-0.03 - 0.11) 0.00 (-0.00 - 0.00) -0.00*** (-0.00 - -0.00) 0.01 (-0.00 - 0.02) -0.01*** (-0.02 - -0.00) -0.14*** (-0.23 - -0.05) -0.22*** (-0.34 - -0.10) 0.04*** (0.02 - 0.07) -0.03* 15 Self assessed Economy EU Economy National Immigrant Population (%) Identity EU/National Loss National Culture Opinion on Immigrants Constant Observations Number of groups AIC ICC Log Likelihood -2*Log likelihood LR test 0.01 (-0.03 - 0.06) 0.98*** (0.91 - 1.04) -0.88*** (-0.98 - -0.79) -0.56*** (-0.63 - -0.49) -0.08 (-0.72 - 0.56) 21,975 27 23894.42 .21 -11936.21 23872.42 Full ‘soft’ 532.53*** (-0.09 - -0.03) (-0.08 - -0.02) (-0.07 - -0.01) -0.25*** -0.19*** -0.17*** (-0.29 - -0.21) (-0.23 - -0.14) (-0.22 - -0.12) -0.36*** -0.30*** -0.16*** (-0.41 - -0.31) (-0.36 - -0.25) (-0.22 - -0.10) 0.03 0.02 (-0.03 - 0.09) (-0.02 - 0.05) 0.88*** 0.80*** (0.81 - 0.94) (0.73 - 0.87) -0.84*** -0.55*** (-0.94 - -0.75) (-0.65 - -0.45) -0.51*** -0.23*** (-0.58 - -0.44) (-0.31 - -0.16) 2.27*** 1.99*** 1.31*** 2.69*** (1.47 - 3.06) (1.16 - 2.82) (0.84 - 1.78) (2.13 - 3.25) 21,975 27 24763.25 .20 -12364.62 24729.24 Full ‘‘hard’’ 1389.35*** 21,975 27 23381.9 .22 -11669.95 23339.9 21,610 27 20545.24 .11 -10261.62 20523.24 Full ‘soft’ 151.74*** 21,610 27 21045.35 .08 -10505.67 21011.34 Full ‘‘hard’’ 639.85*** (-0.06 - 0.00) -0.12*** (-0.17 - -0.07) -0.11*** (-0.17 - -0.05) 0.05*** (0.02 - 0.08) 0.74*** (0.67 - 0.81) -0.52*** (-0.62 - -0.42) -0.21*** (-0.28 - -0.13) 2.33*** (1.81 - 2.84) 21,610 27 20413.5 .06 -10185.75 20371.5 16 All in all, we find empirical support for our second hypothesis. However, the analysis outlined here indicates that also ‘soft’ factors are strong predictor of policies holding an immediate cost/benefit valance. They actually appear to matter more in relation to these types of policies than in relation to issues that do not hold such a straightforward meaning as CSDP. Conclusions In this study we explored the extent to which the current economic crisis impacts European citizens in their judgment on the European Union at large and on two policy domains in particular. We selected one policy domain holding immediate cost/benefit concerns (the single currency) and one that does not link straightforwardly to an economic cost and benefit analysis (CSDP). In so doing we built on a vast literature that for over two decades has explored the determinants of citizens attitudes towards Europe. We included in our modeling strategy ‘soft’ as well as ‘hard’ factors that previous studies have found to be significantly explaining attitudes of European citizens towards the EU. In the wake of a widespread dramatic economic crisis in Europe, we expected ‘hard’ factors to be the most important determinants of support to the Union. While citizens clearly factor in economic evaluations when expressing a judgment on the EU, they appear to be motivated by ‘soft’ factors to an even larger extent. It may be the case that the crisis is having a cultural spillover. We expected the effects of the economic crisis to have a tangible impact on citizens’ evaluations of the EU and its policies; we found such an effect and we also saw that its magnitude is stronger on policy areas directly holding cost/benefits concerns. Specifically, those who occupy a less privileged position in society clearly display lower levels of Europhilia. These individuals are, by and large, against the common currency and a stronger union in defiance policies. However, the cultural dimension appears to play an even stronger role; those who perceive Europe as a treat to cultural values of their own nation, who believe immigrants do not contribute to society and feel fully represented by their national identity alone are strongly Eurosceptic, against the common currency and a stronger Union in defence policy. These findings are both interesting and surprising. They are interesting as they show that, indeed, the economic crisis has affected the determinants of public attitudes towards the EU. ‘Hard’ factors are more important in explaining support to the EU than it seems to be the case in previous, pre-crisis studies. Since the beginning of the crisis citizens are more concerned about the personal economic situation and the state of the national economy than they used to be before 2008. It is also consistent with the reorientation of EU politics towards more economy-related issues like the Euro or the debt crisis. We find indeed that ‘hard’ factors are stronger predictors of attitudes towards EU policies more closely linked to the economy, like the single common currency than for policies that do not carry immediate economic meaning. At the same time, our findings are surprising because they show that, even in the middle of the most severe economic crisis in almost one hundred years, ‘hard’ factors are still outweighed by ‘soft’ factors as national identity and national 17 culture. Even support for the Euro, a core economic issue, is explained better by identity than by utilitarian considerations. These findings clearly call for further investigation on how economic and cultural factors interplay to explain how European citizens relate to the European Union. One interesting avenue for future research could actually be to see how one set of factors may affect the other. In most previous work, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ factors have been treated as independent variables. But it could also be argued that they impact each other. ‘Hard’ factors may influence ‘soft factors’. The personal economic situation of citizens may affect how they will relate to their national culture, how much they will feel attached to their national identity. The effect of bad economic conditions on negative attitudes towards immigration has already been widely explored by immigration scholars. (Semyonov et al. 2006). The interaction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factors deserves further investigation. . Another element that has emerged from our findings is that country-level variations is uneven across different EU policies. While country-level differences in public support for European integration and for a common defence and security policy are very limited, they are quite large when it comes to support for the Euro. This suggest that there may be strong differences between citizens from Eurozone countries and those living in countries that have kept their national currency. Since the 1990s, member states have the possibility to opt in, or to opt out for several EU policies. There is no longer a single European Union, but also a Eurozone EU or a Schengen EU. And we may observe that it may have real implications on how citizens feel about the EU and its policies. These elements should be explored further in future studies of public attitudes towards Europe. 18 List of references Anderson, CJ and Reichert, MS (1995). Economic benefit and support for membership in the EU: a cross-national analysis. Journal of Public Policy. 15 (3°: 231-249. Banducci, Susan, Karp, Jeff and Loedel Peter (2003). 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