European Union Attitudes Research Articles

Filling the EU information deficit mitigates negative EU attitudes among the least knowledgeable. Evidence from a population-based survey experiment

ABSTRACT The cognitive mobilisation thesis suggests that increasing knowledge on the European Union (EU) would lead to increased support for the institution. We test this with a strategic case whereby we provide information on the EU’s subsidiarity principle to the citizenry of a small member state and examine whether it mitigates negative EU attitudes. In an original, pre-registered, population-based survey experiment conducted with members of a panel representative of the Dutch population, respondents were assigned randomly to a control group or a treatment: a professionally produced information video mimicking EU communications. Along with estimating the overall treatment effects, based on extant literature we assess whether these effects are moderated by the respondents’ prior EU knowledge and level of populist attitudes. Consistent with the information deficit theory, we find that information provision decreases negative attitudes among the least knowledgeable. We discuss the implications of our findings and provide suggestions for further research.

Unequal perspectives? Income inequality as a benchmark for support for European integration

Despite growing attention to income inequality in debates about European integration, our understanding of its effect on European Union support remains limited. Using European Social Survey data from 2002 to 2020, we analyse how income inequality and pro-redistribution attitudes shape diffuse and specific forms of support for the European Union. We find no direct effect of country-level income inequality, while individual support for redistribution has a negative effect on both. In line with benchmarking theory, inequality emerges as a contextual moderator: in unequal national settings, egalitarian citizens are comparatively more supportive of further integration than in more equal countries. This effect persists when we control for income position, suggesting an ideological rather than utilitarian basis for benchmarking European Union attitudes. We discuss implications in light of debates about a social Europe.

Voting across borders? The electoral consequences of individual transnationalism

ABSTRACT This article investigates the association between individual-level transnationalism, interactions and cultural skills cutting across European Union (EU) member states, and voting behaviour in the 2019 European elections. The process of EU integration has expanded significantly virtual and physical forms of cross-border mobility in the last decades. Previous works have shown that transnational social exchange furthers Europhile attitudes and dilutes fears for immigrants. Against this backdrop, it is argued that people with high levels of transnationalism have the incentive to vote for parties with pro-EU integration and pro-immigration platforms. Empirical analyses conducted on original public opinion data show that transnational traits significantly affected vote choices in the 2019 European elections. Individual transnationalism is relevant per se in increasing the probability of voting for green and radical-left parties, instead, its negative association with voting for radical right parties runs through EU and immigration attitudes.

In search for more ‘authentic’ EU attitudes: re-evaluating regionalist parties’ EU positioning from sub-state parliamentary debates

ABSTRACT This paper responds to the tendency of past scholarship to reduce European Union (EU) attitudes of regionalist parties to one general position. It undertakes a comprehensive analysis of regionalist parties’ EU attitudes from sub-state parliamentary debates. Drawing on three different cases from three territorial contexts – Plaid Cymru, Femu a Corsica and Süd-Tiroler Freiheit, it systematically captures the content and nature of regionalist parties’ EU positioning from EU-related interventions in regional parliaments over a recent five-year period (2016–21). The paper finds that regionalist parties simultaneously adopt a distinct position on multiple EU-related issues (with varying salience and clarity). Importantly, each party constructs its EU attitudes around diametrically different issues, closely intertwined with its regional empowerment strategy and reflecting the unique regional context. Moreover, each party displays contradictory tendencies in its EU support, adopting Europhile positions on some issues, while Eurosceptic on others. This contribution is significant in two ways. First, the thematic variability identified within and across the cases provides an original insight into the full scope and scale of regionalist parties’ engagement with the EU at a given moment. Second, this in-depth qualitative analysis based on novel data advances past methodologies while challenging their conclusiveness about the regionalist parties’ actual EU support.

Between risk mitigation and labour rights enforcement: Assessing the transatlantic race to govern AI-driven decision-making through a comparative lens

In this article, we provide an overview of efforts to regulate the various phases of the artificial intelligence (AI) life cycle. In doing so, we examine whether—and, if so, to what extent—highly fragmented legal frameworks are able to provide safeguards capable of preventing the dangers that stem from AI- and algorithm-driven organisational practices. We critically analyse related developments at the European Union (EU) level, namely the General Data Protection Regulation, the draft AI Regulation, and the proposal for a Directive on improving working conditions in platform work. We also consider bills and regulations proposed or adopted in the United States and Canada via a transatlantic comparative approach, underlining analogies and variations between EU and North American attitudes towards the risk assessment and management of AI systems. We aim to answer the following questions: Is the widely adopted risk-based approach fit for purpose? Is it consistent with the actual enforcement of fundamental rights at work, such as privacy, human dignity, equality and collective rights? To answer these questions, in section 2 we unpack the various, often ambiguous, facets of the notion(s) of ‘risk’—that is, the common denominator with the EU and North American legal instruments. Here, we determine that a scalable, decentralised framework is not appropriate for ensuring the enforcement of constitutional labour-related rights. In addition to presenting the key provisions of existing schemes in the EU and North America, in section 3 we disentangle the consistencies and tensions between the frameworks that regulate AI and constrain how it must be handled in specific contexts, such as work environments and platform-orchestrated arrangements. Paradoxically, the frenzied race to regulate AI-driven decision-making could exacerbate the current legal uncertainty and pave the way for regulatory arbitrage. Such a scenario would slow technological innovation and egregiously undermine labour rights. Thus, in section 4 we advocate for the adoption of a dedicated legal instrument at the supranational level to govern technologies that manage people in workplaces. Given the high stakes involved, we conclude by stressing the salience of a multi-stakeholder AI governance framework.

The use of identity-related frames in electoral pledges and its effects on Euroscepticism in France and Germany

National identification strength is a key Euroscepticism driver. We examine how politicians’ framing of immigration policies increases the salience of different national identity representations and its relationship with support for the European Union (EU) in a two-waves between-subject survey-experiment using French and German samples. As predicted, exposure to assimilation frames (directly for the French sample or via frame perception for both samples) increased the salience of ethnocultural national identity representations. Additionally, as hypothesised, higher ethnocultural representations salience following assimilation frames exposure was related to higher Euroscepticism. However, feeling emotionally attached to the EU reduced this negative impact of ethnocultural national identity representations on EU attitudes. We discuss the role of ethnocultural nationalism in Euroscepticism and the importance of fostering stronger emotional ties to the EU.

The Effectiveness of the Global Governance of the EU through EASA in its Grounding Boeing 737 MAX Decision on Member Countries

This paper will discuss the effectiveness of the European Union (EU) within the framework of global governance to recommend a grounding policy for Boeing 737 MAX 8 to countries that are members of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Through the EU's global governance approach, this paper will fully elaborate on the domino effect of the recommendations on member countries. Previously, we will discuss the background, the regional governance currently underway in the EU, the chronology of the incident of the accident of two airlines B737-8 aircraft that are outside of EASA and the EASA response in the form of US product grounding recommendations, and then the state response member countries against EASA recommendations. So, in the end, it can be concluded that EASA gets 50 percent effectiveness because the distance between the event and the recommendations issued is considered too hasty so the joining of member countries with EU attitudes generally does not run simultaneously. The importance of this research is to try to test the effectiveness of regional organizations in administering governance through agencies that stand under it.

Shaping EU Attitudes Through Identity Leadership: Investigating Pro‐EU and EU‐Skeptic Identity Narratives

The European Union (EU) faces many challenges. Chief among them are (1) the growing electoral appeal of EU‐skeptic parties, (2) the prevalence of negative narratives about the EU, and (3) frequent marginalization of government leaders openly advocating EU membership. It is hence unsurprising that the EU attitude literature focuses heavily on ways in which leaders undermine (rather than bolster) confidence in the EU. The aim of this conceptual article is to fill this void and to shine a spotlight on how leaders seek to restore confidence in the EU. Rather than to merely describe what pro‐EU leaders say in public, we propose a conceptual model that combines older EU attitude research (into “nested” social identities and perceived identity compatibility), with more recent social psychology research (into “identity mobilization” and “identity leadership”). By combining insights from both fields, our framework enables us to gain a deeper understanding of why certain pro‐EU narratives can be expected to “take hold” and instill faith in the EU among the public at large. The discussion focuses on the implications for EU leadership.

Gender-age gaps in Euroscepticism and vote choice at the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum on EU membership

The result of the Brexit referendum and its effect on subsequent UK elections have attracted a large amount of media and scholarly interest, but there has been minimal research into gender and voting behaviour at the referendum. Similarly, gendered differences in Euroscepticism have had little attention. This article seeks to understand how attitudes towards the European Union vary by age and gender and whether such gender-age gaps are associated with gender differences in attributes known to predict European Union attitudes and support for Leave/Remain. The article finds a gender gap in Euroscepticism in under-45s and in Brexit vote choice in under-25s. It demonstrates that socioeconomic and value differences by gender are associated with the gender gap in younger age groups, but not older. As such differences seem likely to persist, this article suggests that gender divides will continue to have electoral and democratic consequences in the United Kingdom and across Europe.

Subnational economic conditions and the changing geography of mass Euroscepticism: A longitudinal analysis

AbstractExisting research mainly analyzes mass attitudes towards the European Union (EU) from the national and individual‐level perspective. This paper adds to this literature by focusing on the relationship between EU support and subnational economic conditions, using harmonized survey data covering 40 years and 1.1 million respondents in 197 European regions. We first describe Europe's changing subnational conditions in terms of catch‐up, wealthy, declining and glass‐ceiling regions. The paper then develops and tests a set of hypotheses regarding the temporally dynamic relationship between EU attitudes and regions’ long‐ and short‐term economic conditions. Our analyses reveal important longitudinal variations in this relationship with low levels of geographic differentiation in public opinion giving way to clear spatial differences in recent years. Our findings are consistent with the idea that the Great Recession and Brexit have generated a new geography of both Euroscepticism in Europe's declining regions and EU support in its wealthy and catch‐up regions.

Attitudes Towards the European Union in the MENA Region: The Case of Saudi Arabia

What shapes Saudi attitudes toward the European Union (EU)? Previous research has only shed some light on attitudes towards the EU in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This article aims to extend this line of research by investigating Saudi perceptions of the EU in the context of Vision 2030s Strategic Partnership Programme that intends to push forward integration between Saudi Arabia and other regional blocs. Combining literature on Arab public opinion and perceptions of the EU, we argue that attitudes towards prominent countries such as Germany and the United States can serve as heuristics in the formation of Saudi EU attitudes. Moreover, traditional cosmopolitan factors may also have an impact. We empirically test our argument using data from the second wave of the Arab Barometer and an original survey carried out at the King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia. Our findings confirm that Saudi EU perceptions seem to be informed by their view of the United States but especially of Germany. Having provided evidence on Saudi attitudes toward the EU, we discuss theoretical and methodological implications emanating from our research. attitudes, European Union, Saudi Arabia, Germany, heuristic, Vision 2030

The microdynamics of spatial polarization: A model and an application to survey data from Ukraine

Although spatial polarization of attitudes is extremely common around the world, we understand little about the mechanisms through which polarization on divisive issues rises and falls over time. We develop a theory that explains how political shocks can have different effects in different regions of a country depending upon local dynamics generated by the preexisting spatial distribution of attitudes and discussion networks. Where opinions were previously divided, attitudinal diversity is likely to persist after the shock. Meanwhile, where a clear precrisis majority exists on key issues, opinions should change in the direction of the predominant view. These dynamics result in greater local homogeneity in attitudes but at the same time exacerbate geographic polarization across regions and sometimes even within regions. We illustrate our theory by developing a modified version of the adaptive voter model, an adaptive network model of opinion dynamics, to study changes in attitudes toward the European Union (EU) in Ukraine in the context of the Euromaidan Revolution of 2013 to 2014. Using individual-level panel data from surveys fielded before and after the Euromaidan Revolution, we show that EU support increased in areas with high prior public support for EU integration but declined further where initial public attitudes were opposed to the EU, thereby increasing the spatial polarization of EU attitudes in Ukraine. Our tests suggest that the predictive power of both network and regression models increases significantly when we incorporate information about the geographic location of network participants, which highlights the importance of spatially rooted social networks.

Nationalism, Patriotism, and Support for the European Union

Does attachment to a nation enhance or dampen support for the European Union (EU)? Using the 2003 and 2013 ISSP national‐identity modules, we isolate and provide multi‐item measures of two distinct types of national attachment—nationalism and patriotism. We find that they are positively related yet have divergent effects. We validate the measures showing that nationalism increases, and patriotism decreases, support for nationalistic policies (anti‐immigration and protectionism) as expected. We then test the effects of nationalism and patriotism on EU attitudes and find that nationalism increases, and patriotism decreases, opposition to the EU. The presence of a neo‐nationalist political party enhanced the effects of nationalism on opposition to the EU, underscoring the importance of political rhetoric in shaping nationalistic EU opposition. In further support of the rhetoric hypothesis, the most‐educated nationalists are most likely to oppose the EU in countries with a neo‐nationalist political party and vote for such parties when present.

Personality’s cross-national impact across EU attitude dimensions

Studies increasingly suggest that personal predispositions affect political attitudes, including those towards the European Union (EU). Yet little is known about the extent to which personality effects on EU support generalize across European countries or attitude domains. We use original survey data from five EU member states (Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) to investigate how the Big Five (B5) traits affect four different facets of public opinion toward the EU (support for further EU unification, views on EU membership, trust in EU institutions and support for using the euro). While we find that each of the B5 matters in at least one place, we find little consistency in personality’s effects across countries. Neither does any pattern emerge across most dimensions of EU support. Our results underscore the importance of isolating the contextual factors that might condition personality’s impact. They further call for greater theoretical development regarding why and how only certain national environments appear to lend themselves to personality effects. At a minimum, they suggest scholars should be wary of drawing conclusions about the B5’s impact from single cases.

Euroscepticism in Italy from the Onset of the Crisis: Tired of Europe?

ABSTRACT Attitudes towards the European Union (EU) have changed deeply in Italy: the level of support for EU membership has dramatically declined among Italian citizens and, especially after the 2018 elections, the Italian government has often been on a collision course with the EU. The article maps attitudes towards the EU in Italy, at the level of citizens, parties, and political elites. First, we provide a longitudinal analysis where we assess the scope of euroscepticism in this country. Second, we assess if recent changes in EU attitudes have been common to both elites and masses. Finally, we formulate some propositions with regard to the relationship between Italian democracy and the EU.

Can specific personality traits better explain EU attitudes?

Scholars trying to understand attitudes toward the European Union (EU) are increasingly interested in citizens’ basic predispositions, such as the “Big Five” personality traits. However, previous research on this particular relationship has failed to provide sound hypotheses and lacks consistent evidence. We propose that looking at specific facets of the Big Five offers a deeper understanding of the associations between personality predispositions, their measures, and EU attitudes. For this purpose, the 60-item Big Five Inventory-2, which explicitly measures Big Five domains and facets, was administered in a German population sample. We applied a variant of structural equation modeling and found that personality predispositions promoting communal and solidary behavior, cognitive elaboration, and a lower tendency to experience negative emotions predicted support for further European integration. Greater support of European integration might thus reflect, in part, basic psychological predispositions that facilitate adapting to the political, social, and cultural complexity posed by Europeanization. The study thus contributes to our understanding of deep-rooted patterns in thoughts and feelings that can shape citizens’ EU attitudes.

European versus American Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative

AbstractChina has started to deploy its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the European Union (EU), and the EU in turn has regional and global interests that intersect with the BRI's scope. Subject to future adjustments of China's BRI strategy, the initiative's potential contribution to the EU requirements for infrastructure development could be significant, even though its modalities in the EU are inevitably different from those in countries that are poorer or have more difficult financial market access. The EU's attitude to the BRI, however, has not yet fully coalesced. Despite superficial similarities in public discourses, the EU has a profoundly distinct perspective from that of the US on the BRI, and more generally on the rise of China and its growing global influence. For the EU, the BRI generates challenges but also potential benefits. The EU should improve its ability to welcome sensible BRI projects, including through the adoption of greater reform of screening frameworks for foreign direct investment. More generally, the EU should enhance its ability to define policies independent of the US on China and the challenges resulting from China's rise. China should also make further efforts to foster a constructive relationship with the EU.

United Feelings: The Mediating Role of Emotions in Social Media Campaigns for EU Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions

The mediating role of emotional reactions and their relevance for political attitudes and behavioral intentions has remained an understudied subject, and the extant literature has mostly overlooked the importance of political campaigning on social media in the context of the European Union (EU). Using an experimental design, we test whether political parties’ (1) positive or negative EU-related (2) emotional or non-emotional political messages influence citizens’ emotions toward the EU, whether these emotions affect politically relevant outcomes, and whether the effects differ for citizens with varying political ideologies. We find that positive emotions in particular affect almost all outcome variables above and beyond experimental condition and individuals’ political orientation. We discuss our results in light of political marketing research and recent developments in the EU.

The Psychology of Supranationalism: Its Ideological Correlates and Implications for EU Attitudes and post‐Brexit Preferences

Existing research highlights the roles of group identities and concerns about mass migration in explaining attitudes towards the European Union (EU). However, studies have been largely silent on whether EU attitudes are also shaped by people’s attitudes towards the principles and practices of supranational governance. This research provides a first test of the nature and role of supranational attitudes. We introduce a new measure of supranationalism and, in two studies using samples drawn from the British population, test the psychometric properties of the supranationalism scale. We then identify the socioideological correlates (right‐wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) of supranationalism, along with its effects in predicting EU attitudes and post‐Brexit preferences. Our core finding is that supranationalism predicts attitudes towards the EU over and above established factors such as national identity and immigrant threat. Our study thus shows the existence of supranational attitudes among individuals and the relevance of such attitudes to people’s opinions about international organizations like the EU.

Predispositions Matter…But How? Ideology as a Mediator of Personality’s Effects on EU Support in Five Countries

AbstractPersonality’s direct effects on various aspects of political attitudes and behavior have received substantial attention, yet few investigate its indirect effects—even though several studies posit that these may be even more important. We utilize original survey data from five European countries (Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) to provide a comprehensive, cross‐national test of the extent to which personal predispositions have a direct versus indirect impact on public support for the European Union (EU). Knowing that ideology is an important determinant of views towards European integration, we look specifically at the extent to which ideological self‐placement mediates the effect of the Big Five personality traits on EU attitudes. We indeed find evidence of significant mediation—most robustly for the traits of openness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability—particularly in contexts where party‐system complexity is low. These results reiterate that personality matters—both directly and indirectly—for political attitudes and behavior, confirm that ideology is an important mechanism transferring personality effects forward, and suggest that scholars would do well to further evaluate alternative pathways through which personality’s effects travel.