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). The euro, economic
interests and multi-level governance: Examining support for the common
currency, European Journal of Political Research, 42: 685–703.
Boomgarden, Hajo, Schuck A., Elenbaas M. and de Vreese, Claes (2011). Mapping
EU attitudes: conceptual and empirical dimensions of Euroscepticism and EU
support. European Union Politics 12 (2): 241-266.
De Vreese, Claes and Boomgaarden, Hajo (2005). Projecting EU referendums:
fear of immigration and support for European integration. European Union
Politics. 6 (1): 59)82.
de Vreese, Claes, Boomgaarden Hajo and Semetko, (2008). ‘‘hard’’ and ‘soft’:
public support for Turkish membership in the EU. European Union Politics. 6 (1):
59-82.
Duchesne, Sophie, Frazer, Elizabeth, Haegel, Florence, & Van Ingelgom, Virginie.
(2013). Citizens' Reactions to European Integration Compared. Overlooking
Europe . Palgrave Macmillan.
Eichenberg, RC and Dalton Russel J. (1993). Europeans and the European
community: the dynamics of public support for European integration.
International Organizations. 47 (4): 507-534.
Fetzer, Joel (2011). The Evolution of public attitudes towards immigration in
Europe and the United States. 2000-2010. Research Report of the Robert
Schuman Center for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.
Gabel, M.J. & Palmer, H.D. (1995). Understanding variation in public support for
European integration. European Journal of Political Research 27(1): 3–19.
Gabel, M.J. & Whitten, G.D. (1997). Economic condition perceptions and public
support for European integration. Political Behaviour, 19 (1): 81-96.
Garry, John. 2013. Direct democracy and regional integration: Citizens' perceptions
of treaty implications and the Irish reversal on Lisbon. European Journal of Political
Research 52 (1): 94-118.
Garry, John, Michael Marsh, and Ric’’hard’’ Sinnott. 2005. ‘Second-order’ versus
‘Issue-voting’ Effects in EU Referendums Evidence from the Irish Nice Treaty
Referendums. European Union Politics 6 (2): 201-221.
Hobolt, Sara Binzer. 2005. When Europe matters: The impact of political information
19
on voting behaviour in EU referendums. Journal of elections, public opinion &
parties 15 (1): 85-109.
Hobolt, Sara (2009) Europe in Question: Referendums on European Integration,
Oxford University Press.
Hobolt Sara B and Brouard Sylvain (2010) Contesting the European Union? Why
the Dutch and the French rejected the EU Constitution. Political Research
Quarterly, 65 (2): 309-322.
Hooghe, Lisbeth and Gary Marks (2004). Does identity or economic rationality
drive public opinion on European integration? Political Science and Politics. 37
(3): 415-420.
Hooghe, Lisbeth and Gary Marks (2005). Calculating, community and cues.
European Union Politics, 6 (4): 419-443.
Karp, Jeff A., Banducci, Susan A. & Bowler, Shaun (2003). To know it is to love it?
Satisfaction with democracy in the European Union. Comparative Political
Studies 36(2): 271–292.
Kitschelt, Herbert 1994. The Transformation of European Social Democracy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kriesi, Hans Peter, Grande Edgard, Lachat Romain, Dolezal Martin, Bornschier
Simon and Frey Thimoteos, West European Politics in the Age of Globalization,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008.
Kritzinger, Sylvia (2003). The Influence of the Nation-State on Individual Support
for the European Union. European Union Politics. 4 (2): 219-241.
Lubbers, Marcel and Scheepers, Peer (2007). Explanations of political
euroscepticism at the individual, regional and national levels. European
Societies, 9 (4).
Luedtke, A. (2005). European integration, public opinion and immigration policy:
testing the impact of national identity. European Union Politics. 6 (1): 83-112.
Margalit, Yotam (2013). Explaining Social Policy Preferences: Evidence from the
Great Recession. American Political Science Review. 107 (1): 80-103.
McLaren, LM (2002). Public support for the European Union: costs/benefits
analysis or perceived cultural threat? The Journal of Politics, 64 (2): 551-566.
Meguid, Bonnie (2008). Party Competition between Unequals: Strategies and
Electoral Fortunes in Western Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rohrschneider, R. (2002). The democracy deficit and mass support for an EUwide government. American Journal of Political Science 46: 463–475.
20
Schmitt, Hermann (Ed) (2010). European Parliament Elections After Eastern
Enlargement. London: Routledge.
Scruggs, Lyle and Benegal, Salil (2012). Declining public concern about climate
change: Can we blame the great recession? Global Environmental Change. Online
first. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.01.002.
Semyonov M, Raijman R, Gorodzeisky A. (2006). The rise of antiforeigner
sentiment in European societies, 1988–2000. American Sociological Review 71:
426–49.
van der Brug, Wouter, van der Eijk, Cees and Franklin, Mark (2007) EU-Support
and Party Choice. In: van der Brug, Wouter and van der Eijk, Cees (eds.)
European Elections and Domestic Politics: Lessons from the Past and Scenarios
for the Future University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 168-188.
van der Eijk, Cees, Mark N. Franklin, and Wouter Van der Brug (1999). Policy
preferences and party choice. In H. Schmitt & J. Thomassen (eds), Political
representation and legitimacy in theEuropean Union. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
van Klingeren, Marijn, Boomgaarden, Hajo and de Vreese, Claes (2013). Going
‘soft’ or staying ‘soft’: have identity factors become more important than
economic rationale when explaining euroscepticism? Journal of European
Integration, 35 (6): 689-704.
21