The Two Worlds of the Euro Crisis: What Drives Political Support in Times of Austerity

Abstract

This article analyzes the effects of the multifaceted Euro crisis and its economic and political repercussions on citizens’ EU support and its determinants. The main theoretical argument of this article is that because EU member states were separating into donor and crisis countries, citizens’ heterogeneous crisis perceptions created different patterns of attitude change. Drawing from Standard Eurobarometer surveys conducted from 2007-2013 in Germany and Greece – representing most prominent examples of donor and crisis countries – this article reevaluates established determinants of EU support and modes of information processing. Results from SEM analyses suggest that citizens rely to a lesser ex-tent on heuristic shortcuts when evaluating economic performance. More strikingly, different patterns of attitude change during the Euro crisis are actually discovered: Different crisis perceptions have led German citizens to rely stronger on identity-based dimensions while Greeks depend more on their national and personal economic situation when forming EU support.