Abstract

In this article we analyze the background and extent of the Europeanness of political and economic elites in the EU member states. The focus on the elites is based on the premise that European unification is still largely driven by the national elites of the EU member states. Europeanness of the elites is defined and operationalised along the lines of emotive, cognitive-evaluative, and projective dimensions. The emotive dimension is operationalized as the degree of the feeling of attachment to Europe reported by the elites. The cognitive-evaluative dimension is operationalized as the elite’s (positive) evaluation of the extent of the current European unification. Finally, the projective dimension is operationalized as elites’ support for a unified EU foreign policy in the future. We hypothesize about the relationships between dimensions of elites’ European­ness and their ideologies, macro-contexts of life experiences, cultural and social capi­tal as well as inter-elite cueing processes. We claim that the extent of elites’ European­ness is related to 1) elites’ political views and ideologies, i.e. to the extremism of their political beliefs, that is, the more extreme right-wing or left-wing views are held by a representative of elite, the less European he or she is; 2) elites’ cultural capital, i.e. to their knowledge of foreign languages, that is the more languages a representative of elite speaks, the more European he or she is; 3) elites’ social capital, i.e. contacts with organisations and decision-making authorities at the European level, having relatives or close friends in other European countries or using foreign media for self-informa­tion, that is, the more contacts at the European level a representative of elite has, the more relatives or close friends in other European countries he or she has or the more frequently he or she uses foreign media for information, the more European he or she is; 4) inter-elite cueing, i.e. the extent of Europeanness of the counterpart elites, that is, the more European is a counterpart political elite, the more European is a represen­tative of the economic elite and the more European is a counterpart national economic elite, the more European are representatives of national political elite; 5) macro-con­texts of life experiences, i.e. gender, age and living in another European country, that is, women, younger elites and those having experience of living in another European country should be more pro-European. In order to test the hypotheses we use the data of interviews of political and eco­nomic elites in 17 EU member states collected in the IntUne (FP6) project. First, we reveal the diversity (contrary to a common premise of similarity) of national elites’ views and feelings toward the EU and Europe. However, this country-specific diver­sity does not overshadow the genuine link between different dimensions of Europe­anness: the more European are elites on emotive or cognitive-evaluative dimension, the more European they also are on the projective dimension. We use regression analysis to test the proposed hypothetical relations between distinguished dimensions of elites’ Europeanness and their ideologies, macro-contexts of life experiences, cultural and social capital as well as inter-elite cueing processes. The results show that elites’ Europeanness depends on their ideological extremism: the more extreme the political beliefs of elites are, the less attachment they feel to Eu­rope as well as the more frequently they report that European unification has already gone too far. Elites’ Europeanness also depends on their social and cultural capital: the more European languages representatives of elites speak the higher they score on emotive and projective dimensions of Europeanness. Similarly, the more frequently elites have contacts with organisations and authorities at the European level or if they have relatives or close friends in other European states, they are more pro-European on the emotive dimension. Moreover, the more frequently elites have contacts with organisations and authorities at European level or the more frequently they use fo­reign media for information, the higher is their cognitive-evaluative Europeanness. However, the strongest impact on elites’ Europeanness (on all the dimensions) is derived from the inter-elite cueing processes: the more European is a counterpart po­litical elite, the more European are representatives of the economic elite and the more European is a counterpart economic elite, the more European are representatives of the political elite. Interestingly, macro-contextual effect on elites’ Europeanness is almost not existent, except for the relationship between older age and higher emotive Europeanness of elites. Concluding the article we sketch possible further directions of empirical investi­gation of elites’ Europeanness.

Highlights

  • Projekcinis europietiškumo matmuo, nustatomas pritarimu vieningai Europos Sąjungos (ES) užsienio politikai po 10 metų, stipriausias Italijos (90%), Graikijos (84–75%), Prancūzijos (75%) politinio ir ekonominio elito, o pats silpniausias tarp jų kolegų Čekijoje (28%) ir Jungtinėje Karalystėje (12%)

  • Savio „šaukinių“ ir abipusio poveikio formomis „iš apačios į viršų“ ir „iš viršaus į apačią“, rodo, kad santykinė elitų įtaka ir jų primetamos europietiškumo vertybės paprastiems piliečiams yra didesni negu piliečių įtaka tam, kaip jiems atstovaujantys elitai apibrėžia ir savo šalyje „įgyvendina Europą“20

  • Concluding the article we sketch possible further directions of empirical investigation of elites’ Europeanness

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Summary

Nacionalinių politinio ir ekonominio elitų europietiškumo studijos pagrindai

Politologai plačiai pripažįsta faktą, kad Europos vienijimosi iniciatyva tebepriklauso nacionaliniams šalių elitams[1]. Žvelgiant iš tuometinės ES pozicijų ir modeliuojant ES valstybių narių ir atskirų interesų grupių preferencijas bei naujas politinio ir ekonominio perskirstymo galimybes ES viduje, besiplečianti rinka ir ES plėtra į pokomunistines šalis buvo naudinga tiek ekonominiu, tiek politiniu požiūriu. Nors pastarųjų 50-ies metų Europos integracijos procesą neginčytinai galima laikyti elitų projektu, siekiančiu nutraukti tarpusavio konfliktus bei kovas ir konsoliduoti bendros valdysenos pagrindus ir sutelkti Europos politinius bei ekonominius išteklius, tai nereiškia, kad jis iš esmės nesuderinamas su didžiosios gyventojų daugumos interesais ir norais arba ryškiai skiriasi nuo atskirų nacionalinių valstybių interesų. Priešingai – taika, klestėjimas, gyventojų, prekių ir paslaugų mobilumas yra didžiausi Europos suvienijimo ir integracijos pasiekimai, kurie buvo ir yra patrauklūs ES valstybių narių gyventojams bei daugumai trečiųjų šalių piliečių. Kognityvinis vertinamasis europietiškumo matmuo atspindi, kiek stipriai yra domimasi ir pritariama (arba prieštaraujama) dabartiniams Europos integracijos ir vienijimosi procesams bei principams. Kad šie trys europietiškumo matmenys yra teigiamai susiję tarpusavyje: t. y. kuo asmuo labiau emociškai save sieja su Europa, tuo daugiau jis domisi dabartiniais integracijos procesais, tuo labiau pritaria dabartiniam Europos vienijimosi mastui ir tuo stipriau palaiko instituciškai suvienytos Europos ateities viziją

Empiriniai elitų europietiškumo kriterijai
Šalių atvejų analizė
Hipotezės
Rezultatai ir interpretacijos
Išvados
Findings
Summary
Full Text
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