Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration (Palgrave studies in European Union Politics)

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration Lauren M. McLaren

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics Edited by: Michelle Egan, American University USA, Neill Nugent, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, William Paterson, University of Birmingham, UK Editorial Board: Christopher Hill, Cambridge, UK, Simon Hix, London School of Economics, UK, Mark Pollack, Temple University, USA, Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Oxford UK, Morton Egeberg, Oslo University, Norway, Amy Verdun, University of Victoria, Canada Palgrave Macmillan is delighted to announce the launch of a new book series on the European Union. Following on the sustained success of the acclaimed European Union Series, which essentially publishes research-based textbooks, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics will publish research-driven monographs. The remit of the series is broadly defined, both in terms of subject and academic discipline. All topics of significance concerning the nature and operation of the European Union potentially fall within the scope of the series. The series is multidisciplinary to reflect the growing importance of the EU as a political and social phenomenon. We will welcome submissions from the areas of political studies, international relations, political economy, public and social policy and sociology Titles include: Heather Grabbe THE EU’S TRANSFORMATIVE POWER Lauren M. McLaren IDENTITY, INTERESTS AND ATTITUDES TO EUROPEAN INTEGRATION Justus Schönlau DRAFTING THE EU CHARTER Rights, Legitimacy and Process Forthcoming titles in the series include: Ian Bache and Andrew Jordan (editors) THE EUROPEANIZATION OF BRITISH POLITICS Karen Smith and Katie Verlin Laatikainen (editors) THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE UNITED NATIONS Morten Egeberg (editor) MULTILEVEL COMMUNITY ADMINISTRATION

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Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration Lauren M. McLaren Lecturer in Comparative Politics University of Nottingham

© Lauren M. McLaren 2006 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–9281–9 hardback ISBN-10: 1–4039–9281–9 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Identity, interests, and attitudes to European integration / Lauren M. McLaren. p. cm. — (Palgrave studies in European Union politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–9281–9 (cloth) 1. European Union—Public opinion. 2. Europe—Economic integration—Public opinion. 3. Public opinion—European Union countries. I. McLaren, Lauren M., 1968– II. Series. JN40.I34 2005 341.242′2—dc22 2005053499 10 15

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Contents

List of Tables

ix

List of Figures

xii

List of Acronyms

xiii

1 Introduction Development of the modern European state, nation and nationalism European integration Why study the public’s opinions toward integration? Approaches to the study of public opinion toward European integration The approach of this book: resources, group conflict and symbols Plan of the book

17 20

2 Opposition to European Integration: the Data Conceptualisation and measurement Measuring opposition to (and support for) integration Summary

21 21 27 30

3 ‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for European Integration Egocentric utilitarianism Perceptions and utilitarianism Sociotropic utilitarianism The general utilitarian model Summary and conclusions

31 31 38 44 46 48

4 Group Conflict Theory and European Integration Two related literatures: self-interest and group conflict Group conflict and opposition to European integration Measuring group conflict Group conflict and opposition to European integration: empirical analysis Conclusion vii

1 3 6 8 12

49 49 53 53 61 68

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Contents

5 Symbolic Politics and European Integration: the Role of National Symbols and Identity The concept of symbolic politics Symbolic politics and opposition to European integration National identity in Europe Symbols and opposition to European integration: empirical analysis Conclusion 6 Precursors to Group Conflict and Symbolic Threat: Rationality? Explaining support for integration: a review Comparing models Utilitarianism: a re-examination Summary and conclusions 7 Attitudes to Policy-making in the EU Overview of policy-making in the EU and trends in policy-making preferences Summary of policy-making in the EU Explaining the public’s policy-making preferences in the EU Summary and conclusions 8 New Member States, Utilitarianism, Perceived Threat and Opposition to European Integration Image of EU and support for EU membership Explaining Euro-enthusiasm and Euro-scepticism Utilitarianism, perceived threat and attitudes to European integration: empirical analysis Conclusion

69 69 72 74 83 91 93 93 96 101 109 110 110 132 133 146 156 157 161 183 187

9 Conclusion

189

Notes

194

References

201

Index

209

List of Tables 2.1 Attitudes toward the EU and toward European integration (correlation) 2.2 Preferred importance of EU in future (%) 2.3 Correlation between support for EU items (gamma) 2.4 Summary statistics for dependent variable (support for European integration) 3.1 Occupation and support for European integration, EB 53 and EB 54.1 3.2 Education and support for European integration, EB 53 and EB 54.1 3.3 Income and support for European integration, EB 53 and EB 54.1 3.4 Personal benefits from EU 3.5 Winners and losers by occupation 3.6 Winners and losers by income 3.7 Perceived winners and losers 3.8 (Economic) utilitarian model of support for European integration 4.1 Intercorrelations of group threat items, Spring 2000 4.2 Correlations (Pearson’s r), group threat index and support for integration, Spring 2000 4.3 Correlations (gammas) between group threat and support for integration, Autumn 2000 4.4 Correlations (gammas), group threat items, Autumn 2000 4.5 Correlations (Pearson’s r), group threat index and support for integration, Autumn 2000 4.6 Budget balance in the European Union (ecus) 5.1 National pride 5.2 Attachment and threat posed by EU to national identity 5.3 Correlations (gammas), cultural threat and support for integration, Spring 2000 5.4 Correlations (Pearson’s r), cultural threat and support for integration, Spring 2000 5.5 Correlations (gammas), cultural threat and support for integration, Autumn 2000 ix

22 28 29 30 33 36 37 39 40 42 43 47 61 62 64 65 66 66 75 81 86 87 90

x

List of Tables

5.6

Correlations (Pearson’s r), cultural threat and support for integration, Autumn 2000 6.1 Predictors of support for European integration, Spring 2000 6.2 Predictors of support for European integration, Autumn 2000 6.3 Predictors of perceived group conflict over resources from immigrants, Spring 2000 6.4 Predictors of perceived group conflict over resources from European integration process, Autumn 2000 6.5 Predictors of perceived symbolic threat from immigrants, Spring 2000 6.6 Predictors of perceived symbolic threat from European integration process, Autumn 2000 7.1 Policy-making preferences logistic regression predicted probabilities of supporting national-level policy-making 7.2 Aggregate policy-related variables Appendix: Logistic regression of EU-level policy-making preferences 8.1 Personal benefits from EU membership (receive more advantages) 8.2 Perceived advantages or disadvantages, CCEB Autumn 2003 8.3 Occupation and support for European integration, CCEB2001.1 and CCEB2003.4 8.4 Education and support for European integration, CCEB2001.1 and CCEB2003.4 8.5 Income and support for European integration, CCEB2001.1 and CCEB2003.4 8.6 Perceived personal advantages by occupation, 2001.1 and 2003.4 8.7 Perceived personal advantages by income, 2001.1 and 2003.4 8.8 Utilitarian predictors of attitudes to European Union 2001.1 and 2003.4 8.9 Intercorrelation of realistic threat items 8.10 Impact of realistic threat items on attitudes to European integration 8.11 Intercorrelation of symbolic threat items

91 98 99 103 104 106 107

140 142 148 161 162 164 166 167 169 170 171 176 177 181

List of Tables

8.12 Impact of symbolic threat items on attitudes to European integration 8.13 Utilitarian, symbolic and group-based threats and opposition to European integration in the candidate countries 8.14 Precursors to realistic group-based threats, CCEB 2003.4 8.15 Predictors of symbolic threat, CCEB 2003.4

xi

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184 185 186

List of Figures 2.1 Country’s EU membership is a good thing 2.2 For European unification 3.1 Sociotropic utilitarianism and support for integration (EB 53, Spring 2000) 4.1 Perceived threat from minorities, Spring 2000 4.2 Unemployment and blame minorities for unemployment 4.3 Perceived threat from EU, Autumn 2000 5.1 Attachment to country 5.2 Attachment to Europe 5.3 Feel nationality only 5.4 Symbolic threat from minorities, Spring 2000 5.5 Symbolic threat from EU, Autumn 2000 6.1 Support for integration: effects of variables 7.1 Environmental policy handled by national government 7.2 Welfare policy handled at national level 7.3 Unemployment policy handled at national level 7.4 Immigration policy handled at national level 7.5 Asylum policy handled at national level 7.6 Prefer foreign policy handled by national government 7.7 Defence policy handled by national government 7.8 Currency policy handled at national level 8.1 Positive image of EU 8.2 Neutral image of EU 8.3 Membership of EU a good thing 8.4 Fear joining EU will cost too much money 8.5 Difficulties for farmers 8.6 Fear of loss of social benefits 8.7 Fear of loss of national identity 8.8 Fear that language will be used less and less

xii

23 26 45 57 59 60 76 77 78 85 89 100 113 117 120 123 124 127 129 131 158 159 160 173 174 175 179 180

List of Acronyms CAP CCEB CEE CFSP EB EC ECSC EDC EEC EMS EMU EP ERM EU EU-15 IGC JHA NATO OECD QMV TEU

Common Agricultural Policy Candidate Country Eurobarometer Central and Eastern Europe Common Foreign and Security Policy Eurobarometer European Community European Coal and Steel Community European Defence Community European Economic Community European Monetary System Economic and Monetary Union European Parliament Exchange Rate Mechanism European Union European Union 15 member states (prior to 1 May 2004 enlargement) Intergovernmental Conference Justice and Home Affairs North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Qualified Majority Voting Treaty on European Union

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1 Introduction

Without doubt, the European Union is a construct like no other in the international system. In fact, scholars have long debated the question of how to describe it: is it an international organisation, a quasi-state, something moving toward a confederation, toward a federation, or what? It is unlikely that anyone would contend that the EU in its present form is ‘just’ an international organisation, or even an international trade organisation, because its structure and powers go far beyond those of other international trade organisations currently in existence (such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the European Free Trade Area, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations).1 Indeed, the EU has become so powerful that it is able to restrict the ability of individual member states to conduct trade agreements on their own, and has indirectly restricted fiscal policies of these member states (through the budgetary requirements of the euro zone, applied through the Stability and Growth Pact).2 Further, government leaders in member states often refer to directives that have been ‘handed down’ from Brussels and the limitations on their economic capabilities due to EU requirements, indicating to their publics that the EU serves as a real restriction on national sovereignty within the realm of policy-making. In addition, it is well-documented that EU legislation accounts for an everincreasing portion of all legislation before each national parliament (Norton 1996). That is, a large proportion of national-level legislation debated in European parliaments actually consists of EU directives that are being transposed into national law. Thus even in the national legislative arenas of member states, legislation related to European integration rivals domestic legislation for the time and attention of national parliamentarians. 1

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Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

While there are still policy areas in which EU member states maintain considerable unilateral decision-making ability, there can be little doubt that these countries have turned some portion of their sovereignty over to this supranational organisation; some would argue that member states were willing to take this one step further with the proposed European Constitution (discussed further below).3 Whether this is due to the path-dependent nature of the integration process – as has been argued by neofunctionalists and historical institutionalists – or to states meeting their own selfish needs by coming together in a fairly restrictive international regime, offering one another bargains and trade-offs – as argued by intergovernmentalists – is not important for the question that will be addressed in this book. What is important is that the EU has tremendous power over member state political systems and thus the citizens residing within those states. Considering that the member states of the EU are themselves democratic and that the question of how ordinary citizens view these member state governments is a valid one to pose, I argue that the same is true for the European Union. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to provide an analysis of EU citizen attitudes toward the European Union, drawing upon standard approaches that have been offered in previous research on this topic as well as introducing a new approach to the study of attitudes to integration taken from the social psychology and political psychology literatures on identity and in-group favouritism. This chapter will first briefly review the development of the modern European state, nation and nationalism, as this is at the heart of the approach that is being introduced here. The European integration process – the primary original goal of which was to reduce some of the negative effects of nationalism in Europe – will then be briefly reviewed. I contend that while the European project itself has been elite-driven, elites cannot completely ignore citizen opinions in this realm, and I explain the reasons for this in the pages to follow. Next, previous approaches to the study of citizen opinions regarding integration will be briefly reviewed, and I will ultimately argue that many of these approaches have focused on economic utilitarianism, to the neglect of other potential (non-economic) explanations for differences in attitudes toward the EU. Finally, I introduce my own approach, which draws upon the concepts of nationalism, group identity and xenophobia, concepts that until very recently have been almost completely ignored within the literature on opposition to European integration.

Introduction

3

Development of the modern European state, nation and nationalism As Walker Connor (1990) illustrates, social scientists are still grappling with the origins of modern-day nations and nationalism. Indeed, we are struggling to define the concepts of nation and nationalism. However, historical analyses appear to be in agreement that the phenomenon that most scholars (and lay people) would recognise as nationalism began on the European continent with the development of the modern state in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In contrast to ‘nation’, ‘state’ is quite tangible and easy to define: it is a territory with a government and people over whom the government rules. Thus, states have been in existence for an unknown amount of time, and perhaps can be traced back to ancient Greek city-states, or even before. However, it is believed that there is something different about the nature of states in the present day in comparison to Ancient Greece, and that difference stems from the loyalty of the mass citizenry to the modern state. Namely, in states like those spanning the Ottoman or Habsburg Empires, it is unlikely that many of the individuals living within those territories had feelings of loyalty to the state. Presumably, those who had been co-opted into the bureaucratic elite and had learned the language necessary for becoming one of these elites4 felt considerable loyalty to the state for which they worked, but for those not participating in the administration of the state, it is argued that the perception must have been that their governors were quite separate from them, speaking a different language, and in some cases being of a different religious background (e.g. Muslim, in the case of the Ottoman Empire), and perhaps not necessarily ruling for the benefit of the ordinary citizenry. One major difference, then, between the types of states run by the Ottomans or Hapsburgs and the modern state has to do with this notion of mass loyalty to the state, and the start-date of this process is usually pegged to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, in which most of Europe was fairly permanently divided into states, each having a single sovereign in the form of a monarch. Naturally, these divisions could not automatically guarantee individual-level loyalty to the new states, and the building of such loyalty occurred gradually after the division of the European continent. The key dates in the onset of national identity are often thought to be the 1775 First Partition of Poland, the 1776 American Declaration of Independence, the commencement and second phase of the French Revolution in 1789 and 1792, respectively, and Fichte’s

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Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Addresses to the German Nation of 1807 (Hutchinson and Smith 1994), the latter combining elements of rational Enlightenment thinking with the concepts of fatherland and patriotism. Along with these events, there were certain developments that made mass-level national identity possible where it had not been so before. Namely, in contexts in which people spoke different languages or dialects, spreading unifying, loyalty-building propaganda would have been quite difficult (in logistic terms), and the high degree of linguistic diversity was also not likely to allow for the creation of feelings of community and belongingness even if logistically possible. As argued by Anderson in Imagined Communities (1991), two important events occurred – perhaps coincidentally – around the same time. One was that elites began to switch from using an elite language, such as Latin, to using vernaculars. The question of exactly how some vernaculars were chosen over others is still mostly unanswered, but what is clear is that gradually elites in the newly formed European states no longer spoke a language that was likely to alienate those that they were ruling. The other important catalyst for the creation of the modern state and nationalism was print capitalism. Namely, at the time when elites were still speaking Latin, this was clearly the largest possible market on which texts could be sold. If publishers had even considered trying to market in local vernaculars, they likely concluded that the number of different translations that would be necessary would simply make such a venture unprofitable. However, the market for Latin texts was becoming saturated, and so once elites began to pick and choose from local vernaculars, printers saw the possibility of larger markets for locallanguage texts. Indeed, Anderson argues that the important event in this regard was Martin Luther’s nailing a German translation of his thesis onto the chapel door in Wittenberg. Rather than only creating a Latin version, Luther had translated the thesis into a text readable by the local community. The fact that the text was so widely read among these locals indicated to publishers that there was indeed a market for local-language texts, stimulating the printing of texts in those vernaculars. Finally, it must be realised that initially this market could not have been very large, as the majority of Europeans were likely to have been illiterate. Thus, the final stage in the beginning of the development of nationalism comes from the decision of elites to provide mass education for those living in their states. In fact, some might argue that this was the main reason that a single language had to be chosen in the first place. Indeed, if we relate nationalism back to the French Revolution,

Introduction

5

then the order of events would be closer to the following: governments needed to create armies and citizens who would be willing to defend the state to the death, and the only way to create such loyalty was to propagate quasi-myths about kinship. In turn, such myth creation and propaganda would need to be conducted in a common language in order to be believable. As Hobsbawm argues, one key element that was necessary in ‘inventing traditions’ was ‘the development of a secular equivalent of the church – primary education . . . conducted by the secular equivalent of the priesthood’ (Hobsbawm 1983: 271). In short, the confluence of the clear division of European territory into states with single monarchs as their heads, the switch from Latin and other elite languages to local vernaculars, and widespread mass education produced the conditions under which nationalism could thrive. The above discussion describes the current dominant approach to the study of nationalism, which essentially contends that its development was fundamentally driven by historical decisions made by elites, often with the intention of imbuing their citizenry with an identity that was strong enough to make them willing to die in defence of their states. However, this approach almost completely ignores another, which stresses the basic human need for identity and belongingness. The latter would not deny that historical circumstances have been crucial to the creation of national identity, but contends that the identity portion of this concept is far more fundamental, in that it is based on the human psyche. Specifically, humans have always had belonging needs, but in previous time periods these were fulfilled by more immediate communities, often in the form of kinship circles. According to Clifford Geertz, every human carries attachments derived from things like place of birth, kinship, religion, language, and social practices that are natural to her and are rooted in the non-rational foundations of personality (Geertz 1967). As a result of modernisation, these communal types of attachments began to wither away, but since people still had a need for identity, some other type of attachment was necessary, and that became nationalism. This was likely to be a relatively easy transition because, as Pierre van den Berghe (1978) argues, ethnic groups can be thought of as ‘in-breeding superfamilies’, and they often command unreasoned loyalty because they function like superfamilies. This distinction between the perceptions of the basis of nationalism and national identity is quite important for the approach taken in this book to the study of attitudes toward European integration. If the historical analysis is ‘correct’, and identity is so easy to manipulate, then presumably national identity could be manipulated away by elites,

6

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

if they so desire. It should be added, however, that even if identities are easy to manipulate, the previous elites who created national identity were extremely successful and so changing these identities might be extraordinarily difficult. In other words, they cannot simply be erased now that they have been created. If the second approach to the study of nationalism is ‘correct’, the implications are that identities are perhaps not so easy to manipulate, and that fairly major external developments are likely to be necessary to produce any noticeable change in current identities. Perhaps one of those external developments could be the seemingly permanent peace among countries that once battled fiercely with one another. In other words, the reason leaders like Napoleon had for creating national identity in the first place – to build a loyal army to defend France and conquer other territories in the name of France – does not seem to exist in the part of the world that is the focus of this book, Europe. However, perhaps because of the continuing existence of the territorial units on which such identity is based (i.e. states), national identity appears to be alive and well on the European continent. In fact, it was only relatively recently that the above-mentioned peace came into existence, and thus only recently that it became possible for European national identities to wither away. We explore levels of national attachment further in Chapter 5, but now we turn to a discussion of one of the potential sources of this withering away of national identity, the European integration process.

European integration The notion of an integrated European political system is said to have been floating around among elites and intellectuals as early as the nineteenth century. Such movements became even more prominent during and between the two World Wars, but did not really take off until the end of World War Two. It was clear after that war that some mechanism was necessary to keep the entire continent from being destroyed in devastating wars every thirty years or so, and that the old mechanism, the balance of power, was no longer feasible: it was not adequately preventing war in the first place, and it was unlikely that any of the war-torn countries of Europe were going to be very powerful balancers against the new superpowers (the Soviet Union and United States) in any case. After World War Two, Jean Monnet’s ideas for functional integration began to circulate and were discussed among six European heads of state including – most importantly – Germany and France. The

Introduction

7

idea behind Monnet’s plan was that it would be possible to integrate the economies of European countries to such a degree that war among them would no longer be possible without the risk of severe selfinflicted damage. This plan seemed reasonable to the parties involved, and so they began the process of European integration, first via attempts at integrating their coal and steel industries, then through the creation of a customs union and eventually a common market, and finally a monetary union. That there has been considerable peace in Europe (outside of the wars in the Balkans) for more than five decades since the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) is thought by some to be a testament to the success of the project. At the very least, EU member states have become extraordinarily important trading partners for one another, providing markets for one another’s goods, and this alone should make it far less likely that one member state – especially a country like Germany, which is a major beneficiary of this vast market – would attack another. Moreover, the member states are constantly engaged in dialogue and planning for future integration projects in a system that promotes co-operation, compromise and peaceful dialogue. In short, war among the current member states seems unthinkable, at least in the near future. Although there is not agreement among all of the member states regarding the role of the state in this new system, the European integration process is likely to be perceived as threatening state sovereignty and national identity among at least part of the European citizenry. While – as indicated above – it may be possible to create and change identities, such a process is not likely to be easy, especially given that not all elites are in agreement about the need to change the nature of identity in Europe to a more cosmopolitan, less ‘parochial’ form of identity anyway (i.e. to promote European identity over national identity). There are likely to be two different realms in which citizens differ in their feelings about national versus European identity. One lies in their strength of national identity in the first place. The other lies in whether they believe the EU to be posing a threat to such identity. We can imagine a spectrum of individuals, ranging from those who care little about national identity and thus have no reason to feel threatened by the EU to those who treasure their national identities dearly and see the EU as a threat to such identity. And of course, there may be many who treasure their national identity but do not feel that this identity is threatened by the process of European integration. Chapter 5 explores these various possibilities empirically.

8

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Why study the public’s opinions toward integration? The European project proceeded from the start as an overwhelmingly elite-driven one. It was perceived by many (e.g. Stanley Hoffman 1966) as being an international trade organisation and as such was completely within the purview of elite decision-making, just as organisations like the North American Free Trade Agreement or World Trade Organisation are today. As with other international agreements, the EU’s roots lie in secret deal-making between the member states, and it has been in the interests of each of those member states to not make the circumstances of various negotiations public, as would be the case in most international negotiations. In addition, the European Coal and Steel Community was not thought to be very far-reaching and was not likely to have a major impact on the sovereignty of the member states.5 In short, studying opinion toward it in the early days might have been seen as the equivalent of studying opinion regarding the OECD or the Council of Europe. In fact, by the 1970s scholars were writing of a ‘permissive consensus’ that existed among the citizens of the member states (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970), indicating that opinions related to the EU were not strongly held – people were not strongly in favour or strongly opposed, and this allowed their leaders to make decisions without consulting them directly. It is not clear exactly when the Community began to affect those living within it in much more obvious ways. This process could have started with the creation of the customs union, in that member states were no longer allowed to negotiate trade deals with other countries on their own, although it seems unlikely that this had much effect on individuals living within the EEC, except to provide an EEC-wide protective trade barrier. In other words, the specific benefits were likely to be mostly unseen, if not positive. On the other hand, the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy in 1962 is likely to be a point at which the Community’s policies more clearly impinged on ordinary citizens (other than farmers) in the form of subsequent higher prices for agricultural products. Other obvious effects also came gradually. Perhaps the first of these was one of the goals outlined in the Single European Act of 1986/87: to rectify national protectionism within the Community. By the mid1980s, certain industries, especially those that had been national monopolies, were still not open to competition from companies from other Community member states. In other words, nationally based companies were still being favoured for businesses that constituted

Introduction

9

national monopolies and for public works projects that were contracted out by national governments. This included transportation, telecommunications and energy industries, to name a few. The Single European Act called for a removal of this type of protectionism, thereby providing a far clearer threat to national industry in the form of potential competition from companies based in other member states. The removal of many other barriers to free trade through the principle of mutual recognition could have been another element of the Single European Act that had visible effects on citizens living within the EEC member states.6 The far more obvious infringements, however, have come more recently, in the form of restrictive monetary and fiscal policy, and, of course, the loss of national currencies. Namely, participants in the euro zone have tied their own hands on the issue of monetary policy – they are not allowed to make such policy themselves anymore, as this is done through the independent European Central Bank. Member states still have some leeway in the area of fiscal policy, but only as long as they are willing to increase income taxes. This is because until very recently7 they could not run large deficits and because there are limitations on the maximum and minimum VAT and excise taxes that could be charged (and because of the ideological reasons for keeping these regressive taxes to a minimum). Thus, the only way that governments can influence fiscal policy is to increase or reduce the government budget. However, increasing the government budget would necessarily require an increase in some form of tax, and for governments that have already reached the maximum on VAT and excise taxes, or worry that this is a fairly regressive form of taxation, the only realistic option is to increase income taxes. This is not a very popular form of fiscal policy manipulation, though, and governments have been reluctant to do it.8 In sum, it may be becoming clearer to ordinary citizens that their governments have their hands tied because of euro financial requirements. Moreover, as indicated above, European-level regulations and directives make up far more of the national-level law than ever before, and governments are often open about the need to change their implementation techniques to comply with a new regulation or the need to change national legislation as a consequence of an EU directive. Franklin and Wlezien (1997) find empirical evidence in support of the notion that Europeans’ opinions regarding European integration change in tandem with the amount of legislation coming from the EU – in other words, that the public is indeed paying attention to what is happening

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Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

at the EU level and becomes less and less supportive as a result of increasing amounts of EU legislation. In sum, the EU may have begun as a trade organisation with little impact on those living within its boundaries, but it is unlikely that anyone familiar with the organisation would argue that the same is true now (see Thomassen and Schmitt 1999). In fact, some have gone so far as to refer to the EU as a system of multilevel governance (see Hooghe and Marks 2001). If the EU does indeed have governing abilities that affect citizens living within the democratic member states, those citizens’ opinions are quite important to study, in exactly the same way that we consider the study of the approval of the prime minister or party in power to be worthy of investigation. In addition, there is clear evidence that the opinions of the EU’s citizens can have a direct effect on what happens at the EU level. This comes most obviously in the form of EU-related referenda, which periodically give the EU a splash of democracy and which have clear effects on what governments can and cannot do. Perhaps the most notable of these were the constitutional referenda held in France and the Netherlands (29 May 2005 and 1 June 2005, respectively). With these referenda, the French and Dutch publics derailed a project that had the support of all member state governments, halting both the institutional reform and the symbolic creation of an EU ‘constitution’ that had been agreed by the representatives of these governments. It is likely that academics will spend the next decade trying to determine the precise reasons for these votes, but some of these are expected to be connected to the key factors discussed in this book – a lack of utilitarian-based support, along with fears about the effects of further integration on group-level resources and symbols (see below).9 These two referenda are not the only ones in which European publics have played a major role in their governments’ EU-level policies. The Norwegian government has been restricted since 1972 from even joining the EU because its citizens have twice voted against membership.10 In addition, the Danish government has been restricted from participating in the euro because its citizens refused to join the euro zone, as did the Swedes. Furthermore, the very creation of the common currency in the first place was nearly rejected by the French and Danish publics in 1992 in the referenda held on the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty). Other compelling evidence of the effect of the European public on EU policy-making is that Irish citizens surprisingly put their foot down on the first Nice Treaty referendum held there, which, among other things, threatened to thwart the Union’s eastern

Introduction

11

enlargement plans, as the Nice Treaty outlined the institutional changes necessary for enlargement. Irish citizens were given a second chance to say ‘yes’ to this treaty, and the referendum did eventually pass in October 2002, but the Irish alone managed to keep the rest of the EU on tenterhooks regarding enlargement plans.11 Thus, referenda on EU-related matters are obvious points at which mass publics can have major effects on EU-level policy-making. There are other situations in which European citizens are likely to be playing a considerable role in their governments’ EU policies even without referenda being held, however. For instance, while the British government that negotiated the Maastricht Treaty (which paved the way for the creation of the euro) had no desire to bring Britain into the euro, Tony Blair came to power with British adoption of the euro as one of his key European-level policy goals.12 However, he has been unable to move forward with this plan because it is politically unpopular and because he has promised British citizens that they will have their own splash of democracy in the form of a referendum on the issue. In other words, it appears that the British public is indirectly restricting the Labour government from taking Britain into the euro. We can also point to the French government’s outright refusal to renegotiate the Common Agricultural Policy as an example of a major policy that is very likely influenced by French public opinion; that is, French governments would have considerable difficulty agreeing to reform the current system – despite widespread belief that it is inefficient, unfair and unworkable in the newly enlarged EU – because of fear of punishment at the polls. Although very few systematic analyses exist to show the impact of the European public on day-to-day EU policy-making, there are good reasons to expect that the opinions of the public do constrain EU policy-makers. First, such a constraint is likely to operate indirectly via national parliaments. The degree of supervision on the part of national parliaments clearly varies across the EU (Norton 1996), but it is unlikely that many of these parliaments would accept EU legislation quietly while knowing that their constituents are opposed to aspects of the legislation (see Katz and Wessels 1999). Second, empirical analysis suggests that national-level political parties in Europe respond to attitudes to European integration by adjusting their positions on the issue (Carrubba 2001). This would lead us to expect that these parties would also adjust their positions on EU policy-making accordingly, thus implying that public opinion is constraining governing party behaviour with regard to European integration. Third, the analysis that has been conducted on this particular question indicates that public opinion does

12

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

appear to have a constraining effect on EU-level policy-making, at least in the area of immigration policy (Lahav 2004). Ultimately then, as argued by Richard Sinnott (1998: 28), policy concerns among the mass public are likely to at least have an indirect input into EU-level policymaking regimes. Thus, as many scholars have contended, decision-makers at the EU level can only ignore public opinion at the risk of losing electoral support and – perhaps even worse – at the risk of producing repercussions that could affect the survival of the Union itself (Franklin and Wlezien 1997; see also Franklin, van der Eijk and Marsh 1996; van der Eijk and Franklin, forthcoming). For this reason (and others outlined above), it is imperative that scholars continue to monitor this opinion and to sort out the various causes of variation in support for the project. In the next section, I provide an overview of the theories and hypotheses that have been introduced by those who have studied attitudes to integration.

Approaches to the study of public opinion toward European integration Around the time of the publication of the permissive consensus idea, interest in the European public’s opinions related to the EU began to increase. In 1970, the European Commission funded the first study to be used to gauge attitudes to the EEC, and in 1974 the Commission began to conduct semi-annual polls on this same issue (as well as a whole host of other issues). The standard semi-annual polls – Eurobarometer surveys – continue through today, and are often supplemented by ‘flash’ Eurobarometers and other special surveys. Thus, the theoretical approaches to the study of European integration can be traced from the early surveys of the 1970s. I will summarise these approaches (roughly) chronologically. Post-materialism Early strands of research conceptualised the European integration process as something akin to ‘thinking outside of the box’, or more specifically, thinking about a new world order in which a cosmopolitan European society existed. Moreover, it was argued that some people were able to conceive of such a cosmopolitan society that transcended nation-state boundaries, whereas others were not. Early theories about citizen perceptions of the European integration process were, in fact, developed in tandem with another theory that became one of the most prominent (and most criticised) within the field of comparative public

Introduction

13

opinion, that of post-materialist value change. This theory has a rather long history of being altered somewhat and has had multiple criticisms levelled against it, mostly against the measures chosen by the scholar who developed the theory. A review of this entire literature is outside of the purview of this chapter, but I will briefly discuss the theory as it relates to support for European integration.13 The theory is based on ideas developed by Abraham Maslow on needs hierarchies, ideas that have also received their fair share of criticism in the psychology literature. The notion of needs hierarchy postulates that people have various types of needs that can be thought of as pyramid-shaped, with the basic ones of food, water, shelter, etc. belonging at the base of the pyramid, and things like the need for love and self-actualisation coming toward the middle of the pyramid. Other values like aestheticism are at the very top of the pyramid. The argument is that if people can have the needs met that are at the bottom of the hierarchy, they will then move up the hierarchy and thus will have other, different needs which they will work to fulfil (see Maslow 1962). Ronald Inglehart (1977) adapted this theory in his post-materialist value change approach, but with a slight twist. Inglehart argued that the needs that one had when one was socialised continue to exert influence over one’s values later in life. Thus, people who grow up in times of scarcity and physical danger will always, to some degree, value economic and physical security, and will certainly value them more than individuals who do not grow up in times of scarcity and physical danger. The ultimate point was that younger generations growing up in Western democracies were likely to have very different values than older generations who grew up during the Great Depression and World War Two. Specifically, the former would emphasise the things that were higher up in the needs hierarchy, like self-actualisation and beautification of the environment, while the latter would emphasise things lower in the hierarchy, like economic and physical security. What relationship did this idea have to the study of opinions regarding European integration? As mentioned above, Inglehart conceived of the European integration project as being something of a higher-order type of cosmopolitan system and thus thought that those who were trying to fulfil higher-order goals would gravitate to it. Perhaps more specifically, they would be more capable of thinking outside of the bounds of the traditional nation-state than those who were still worrying about basic needs. And, in fact, the relationship between post-materialist values and support for European integration was quite strong, although some have contended that this is due to

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Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

cognitive mobilisation rather than post-materialist values (Janssen 1991). Thus, it is to cognitive mobilisation that we now turn. Cognitive mobilisation Part of what was thought to be changing about post-World War Two generations was their increasing levels of education and increasing time to devote to reading about and discussing politics – the latter stemming from less time being devoted to basic subsistence needs than had been the case for those growing up during harder times, and the former from government efforts to ensure (and require) mass education. Thus, perhaps part of the explanation for differences in levels of support for European integration can be found in differences in cognitive mobilisation. This idea was also introduced by Inglehart (1970) as a separate potential explanation for support for European integration. The reasoning behind this hypothesis was that those who were more cognitively mobilised – i.e. those who were capable of digesting complex political events and who actually took the time to do so – were likely to be less fearful of the EU simply as a result of more exposure to it. Those who were not cognitively mobilised were not likely to have managed to receive much information about the EU, and were therefore fearful of the unknown nature of it. Janssen (1991) later tested this idea in competition with the postmaterialism theory, contending that the only reason that post-materialism was likely to be having any effect on levels of support for European integration was due to its cognitive mobilisation component: those who were more post-materialist were likely to also be the ones who were more cognitively mobilised. His empirical analysis shows rather convincingly that once we control for cognitive mobilisation, the relationship between post-materialism and support for European integration disappears. And in this case, it is fairly clear that this is indicative of a spurious relationship rather than an indirect one. Namely, it is theoretically unlikely that post-materialist values precede cognitive mobilisation, and this would be required in order to make a case for an indirect relationship such as the following: Post-materialism → Cognitive mobilisation → Support for integration In short, post-materialism may really only be spuriously related to support for European integration. In contrast, scholars have continued to find that cognitive mobilisation positively affects attitudes to integration (Gabel 1998a, 1998b).

Introduction

15

Support for the governing party For some time, scholars tended to work within the realm of postmaterialist theory and heavily incorporated ideas about cognitive mobilisation when investigating attitudes to the EC. In contrast, Franklin, Marsh and McLaren (1994) contended that opinions regarding the EU were likely to reflect support for the party in government. People who would prefer that a right-wing party be in power at times when a leftwing party is, in fact, in power, are likely to express their unhappiness regarding the national governing situation indirectly via their opinions related to the EU. This idea was formulated specifically within the context of referenda – the Maastricht referenda held in Ireland, Denmark and France in 1992 – and it was shown that in these particular referenda, voters could be seen to be using the referendum as a confidence vote on the government and tended to divide on their votes for Maastricht along party lines. Anderson (1998) in his proxy model of support for European integration introduces an even more robust measure that perhaps captures a similar idea: satisfaction with democracy. In terms of face validity, this item might be thought to literally capture levels of satisfaction with democracy; however, in the European context, it is not likely that people are expressing dissatisfaction with democracy as a method of governing but dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working at the time of the survey. The survey item is not clear about the time frame (‘On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the way democracy works in (OUR COUNTRY)?’), but it seems fair to speculate that it is a sort of running average of the respondent’s memory of recent times. 14 Of course, dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working may directly stem from having parties one opposes running the government – certainly Labourites are none too happy about the way democracy is working when Conservatives are in power and vice versa (see Anderson and Guillory 1997) – but level of satisfaction with democracy may even more robustly capture the referendum aspect of opposition to European integration: those who are not happy with the current government are likely to project this on to the EU, whereas those who are happy are likely to project their euphoria on to the EU as well. Why might such a thing happen? The main reason provided by the above authors is that people simply do not know much about the EU, and must use information about something they know in order to determine how they feel about something they do not know. People tend to know far more about what their government is doing domestically

16

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

than what is happening in Brussels and will project their feelings about national government performance onto the EU level. Anderson (1998) conceptualises this as a ‘proxy’ approach: since people do not know enough about the EU to judge it on its merits, they rely on proxies to answer questions related to how they feel about the EU. One of his most significant proxies was indeed satisfaction with democracy, and it was far more consistently related to level of support for the EU than was support for the governing party. Rationalism The most recent turn in the literature on support for integration has been toward utilitarianism, especially economic utilitarianism.15 This approach is actually the focus of Chapter 3 of this book, and so I will not spend too much time here on it, except to summarise it and then introduce my own alternative approach. Unlike the theories outlined above, utilitarian theories focus on respondents’ gains and losses and the likely effect of these on attitudes toward integration. This approach began with an emphasis first on perceptions of increased economic growth, increased trade, and the modernisation of industry, and it was contended early on that perceptions of the EU are ‘inextricably linked’ with these economic perceptions (Shepherd 1975: 124). Later analyses by Eichenberg and Dalton (1993) also supported this notion, and found that aggregate levels of support for the EU could be explained by inflation and intra-EU export balances, but not so much by GDP, unemployment or EU budget returns. The authors conclude that ‘Europeans are more likely to see a relationship between inflation rates and the EC’s image, presumably because the Community’s major policy instruments, such as VAT financing revenues, regulation of agricultural prices through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and especially European Monetary System (EMS), have a well-known and much-discussed impact on prices’ (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993: 521–2). Moreover, ‘when the relationship is extrapolated over time, it suggests that the growth of intra-EC trade has been a major stimulus to “Europeanist” sentiment’ (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993: 523). Other researchers further expanded on this notion of economic utilitarianism. For instance, one study finds that the level of cross-border trade in particular regions of the EU has an effect on attitudes toward the EU (Anderson and Reichert 1996). It was contended in that study that the benefits people living in regions bordering another EU member state would receive from between-country free trade would make them more supportive of European integration than those not living in

Introduction

17

border regions. Gabel (1998a, 1998b) moves this utilitarian approach to perhaps an even more appropriate level of analysis, contending that certain individuals are likely to benefit more than others in the integration process. He outlines what he specifically terms a ‘utilitarian model’ of public support for European integration and explains why people with better job skills, incomes and educations should be particularly supportive of European integration and those with poor skills, incomes and educations should be particularly hostile. Again, I will further outline these arguments in Chapter 3. My overall contention in this book is that utilitarian models require a great deal of information on the part of the ordinary European. Europeans would be required to either have some idea about the trade benefits accruing to the country (and thus indirectly to themselves) or to their region of the country; it is also required that people of different education and income levels calculate the costs and benefits of integration to their own lives. While this may be occurring to some degree within the EU, I argue that the utilitarian models, as well as the older preutilitarian models, fail to address the more fundamental reasons for variation in support for integration, reasons that have very little to do with personal self-interest, being aware of the EU, etc. These reasons revolve around the discussion that began at the start of this chapter related to national identity. Thus, we return to a discussion of this topic within the context of attitudes toward the EU.

The approach of this book: resources, group conflict and symbols As indicated above, widespread nationalism developed quite recently, but it is thought to be fairly entrenched in many European democracies. The statistics presented regarding attachment to one’s country are indicative of this (e.g. from the International Social Survey 1995 study of national identity). If we follow the logic of most of the strands of thinking regarding national identity, they lead us to the conclusion that it is unlikely to wither away in the near future. Those who argue that it was a result of historical developments and was somewhat artificially constructed by leaders would not be able to find any symbols, myths, etc. that yet compete with national symbols and myths for the loyalty of most Europeans. The major exception to this is regional loyalties like those in the Basque region in Spain or Scottish nationalism: the level of attachment to country may be questionable in those regions. However, again, based on the figures presented in Chapter 5, on average,

18

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

it appears that attachment to country even in Britain and Spain is high despite regional loyalties. Moreover, attachment to the EU is rather low, comparatively. The point is that the EU does not appear to be competing very heavily with the member states for the loyalty of citizens. Indeed, evidence presented in Chapter 5 indicates that for many citizens, they are not in competition at all. In addition, those who argued that national identity developed, at least in part, as a result of modernisation and dislocation which destroyed traditional sources of identity like communities would be hard-pressed to find any other form of identity that can replace the national one in the present day. Modern European society is likely to be just as mobile as it was when modernisation began (if not more so), and so people are likely to still need some form of identity other than local community. National identity apparently meets those identity needs. Finally, the contention that national identity has its roots in primordialism provides the strongest argument for the notion that it will not be disappearing anytime soon. In support of this contention, laboratory experiments have clearly shown that people formulate an identity even in situations in which there is no clear basis for that identity (such as race, ethnicity, place of birth, etc.) (Tajfel 1970, 1972). Such experimental findings led social psychologists to argue that identity provides something that humans need, most likely positive self-esteem (discussed further in Chapter 5). Thus, as long as national identity could be providing people with a basis for self-esteem and self-value, it is likely that these people will be opposed to threats to that national identity. This is where the EU (potentially) comes in. As we will see, some find the EU to be more threatening to their national identity and culture than others. It is unclear why this is the case, but this is an issue that will be explored in Chapter 6. More immediately, in Chapters 4 and 5, our purpose is to determine to what degree opposition to European integration does, in fact, stem from such nationalistic concerns. Readers might be surprised to find that while this is indeed an empirically supported explanation for variance in support for integration, it is not as strong as might be expected, nor is it a consistently strong relationship across all countries. Moreover, this book does not address identity exclusively in the manner just indicated. We will also turn to research on reasons for hostility toward other groups and non-in-group members to find out specifically why some people in the EU may oppose European integration. Two related strands of academic literature are especially

Introduction

19

important. One is the group conflict approach, which contends that members of one group (usually framed within the context of a dominant group) are hostile toward members of another group because the members of the first group feel that the members of the second are taking resources that ‘belong to’ the first group. This explanation is partly based on notions of economic self-interest, or utilitarianism, in that the concern for group resources may stem from concern about one’s own resources. However, there is another aspect of this approach that has little to do with self-interest, and from that aspect, issues of group conflict stem from identity and in-group protectiveness. In other words, members of the in-group want to protect one another, as would be the case in a family, or superfamily, to use van de Berghe’s terminology. This argument will be further outlined in Chapter 4, but the overall point is that this in-group protectiveness of resources may be one of the reasons that some individuals in the EU are opposed to European integration – they worry that the in-group’s economic resources will have to be shared with non-members. The other relevant strand of theory from the in-group/out-group literature points to more symbolic concerns. This approach was originally offered as a counter to the group-conflict approach and contends that the most important reason for out-group hostility is not likely to be worry over resources, but instead is more symbolic in nature. Specifically, members of the out-group threaten certain symbols and values that the in-group holds to be dear. National identity and culture are taken by the author to be among these symbols, but I also explore worries about the loss of language due to European integration, in addition to focusing on less direct indicators of symbolism (again, see Chapter 5). The overall findings suggest that these two theoretical approaches generally provide fairly powerful explanations of variation in attitudes toward European integration and rival the utilitarian approaches in size. However, it is important to note that both models perform well in a multivariate context, and that some people may be viewing the EU more ‘rationally’ than others, or perhaps there is some element of the ‘rational’ and some element of the ‘irrational’ for most Europeans when thinking about European integration. The book will be able to address the question of who the utilitarians are likely to be, and will also examine the concept of rationality and utility much more closely to determine whether my approach really does belong outside of the bounds of utilitarianism, or whether it is primarily utilitarian (that is, based on rational calculations).

20

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Plan of the book In the next chapter, the conceptualisation and measurement of support for European integration are discussed, and evidence of variation in levels of such support in the EU-15 is provided. In Chapter 3, I provide a thorough account of the utilitarian approach to the study of attitudes toward European integration, illustrating the effect of various selfinterest variables on level of support for the EU (again, in the EU-15). I also introduce new evidence that provides a clearer indication than in previous research as to who is perceived to benefit and who is perceived to lose in the process of European integration. In Chapter 4, the general focus of this book is reviewed and the first portion of the identity approach is introduced – that of perceived group conflict over resources. Chapter 5 includes the other portion of the identity approach, which is that of symbolic politics. Because of the likely connections between rationalism and group identity, Chapter 6 investigates the question of whether group identity factors are actually driven by self-interest. Chapter 7 then turns to the question of whether group identity is related to perceptions of the appropriate locus of policymaking control in the EU. That is, where do EU citizens believe policy responsibility ought to lie and are these beliefs affected by perceptions of loss of national symbols and culture? Chapters 2–7 are focused mostly upon older member states (i.e. the EU-15 countries) because these are the countries for which most theories on attitudes to integration have been developed. Chapter 8 investigates the theoretical constructs of utilitarianism and perceived group threat specifically within the context of the ten new member states to determine whether these theoretical constructs can be applied to these countries. Finally, in Chapter 9, conclusions are drawn regarding the nature of opposition to European integration and its potential long-term effects on the integration project.

2 Opposition to European Integration: the Data

This chapter discusses the specific meaning of ‘attitudes toward European integration’, which is the concept under investigation in this book, provides data which display cross-time changes in these attitudes in the EU-15, and then finally discusses the measures of attitudes toward integration that will be used for most of the analyses in Chapters 3–6.

Conceptualisation and measurement Opposition to (or, alternatively, support for) integration implies many things. One is hostility toward the specific project of the European Union. Another is some degree of acceptance for the European Union as it exists now, but general opposition to integration that would proceed any further than economic integration. Feelings about the two are likely to be intimately related, but not necessarily identical. There are a whole range of reasons for opposing the specific entity of the European Union, including opposition to the notion of European integration or opposition to the EU as it is currently constructed. Empirical evidence indicates that opposition to the specific entity of the EU can be traced in part to dissatisfaction with the poor quality of democracy and representation at the EU level (Rohrschneider 2002). However, in general, it can be argued that the EU embodies the current integration efforts and feelings about it should partly reflect feelings about integration. Table 2.1 provides the Pearson’s correlation 21

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Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Table 2.1: Attitudes toward the EU and toward European integration (correlation)

Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland N. Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

For unification – EU membership a good thing (r)

For unification – EU membership a good thing (gamma)

N

0.52 0.59 0.56 0.63 0.48 0.48 0.53 0.37 0.45 0.38 0.39 0.46 0.48 0.55 0.70 0.62 0.66 0.53

0.73 0.70 0.74 0.75 0.70 0.64 0.71 0.52 0.56 0.60 0.63 0.64 0.58 0.76 0.85 0.74 0.79 0.68

73,232 68,559 75,241 54,195 76,203 44,123 75,333 68,447 20,344 28,765 73,079 43,941 72,448 33,299 21,630 17,690 18,705 865,234

Note: Figures are based on the pooled Mannheim Trends File available from the UK Data Archive (www.data-archive.ac.uk).

coefficient (r) between items thought to measure each of these two concepts (see Gabel 1998a, 1998b). The items are: • Generally speaking, do you think that (OUR COUNTRY’S) membership of the European Union is a good thing, a bad thing, or neither good nor bad? • In general, are you for or against efforts being made to unify Western Europe? Are you for – very much, for – to some extent, against – to some extent, against – very much The correlations are calculated using the Eurobarometer Mannheim Trends File, and thus, the correlations for each country are based upon the pooled samples from that country.1 Generally, the correlation coefficient values presented here indicate a high degree of correspondence between feelings about one’s country’s participation in the EU and about the unification project in general. Note that measures that might be more appropriate for these types of data (such as gamma values) indicate a very strong

Opposition to Integration: the Data 23

association.2 The only countries for which the association is somewhat weak (Pearson’s r ≤ 0.40) are the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Ireland. Although it is not possible to conduct a time series analysis of the major questions addressed in this book due to lack of cross-time measures of the key predictor variables under investigation in Chapters 4 and 5, I will present some of the cross-time measures of attitudes toward the EU and toward the integration process. In the figures below, the countries have been grouped by entry to the EU (Original Six, First and Southern Enlargements, and Eftan Enlargement)3 in order to make the graphs readable. The first item to be considered is the question of whether the country’s EU membership has been good or bad. Figure 2.1 provides the ‘good’ responses for all member states, with the EU average overlaid on the graphs. Note that the original data collection on this item began in 1973, soon after the admission of the UK, Denmark and

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Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Ireland, and so these three countries are included in all of the cross-time EU-average calculations. However, the composition of the EU changes in 1981 (when Greece joins), 1986 (when Spain and Portugal join), and 1995 (see note 3 on p. 195), and each of these additions is likely to have had a significant impact on the averaged calculations (across the EU, that is). However, as can be seen in Figure 2.1, after the fairly sceptical Eftan countries joined the EU – potentially decreasing average support for the community (see the discussion below) across the whole entity – support in many of the Original Six dropped as well (in Italy, West Germany and France, for instance). In general, what Figure 2.1 indicates is considerable fluctuation in feeling that one’s country’s membership of the EU has been a good thing. Overall, until the post-1993 period, the majority in each of the Original Six member states clearly felt positively about the EU. After 1993, we begin to see some decline in support for the EU in West Germany, Belgium and France, although it should be noted that by 2000, the majority of Belgians were once again claiming that their country’s EU membership was a good thing. The other countries’ citizens generally can be said to be highly favourable toward their countries’ membership of the EU, but with some fluctuation in the degree of support. One other point to note about Figure 2.1 is that – as documented elsewhere (Bosch and Newton 1995) – the Original Six countries are fairly consistently higher than the EU average in their degree of support for their countries’ EU membership. The upper right-hand portion of Figure 2.1 includes a group of countries that are often below the EU average in levels of support for their countries’ memberships of the EU. The most obvious of these are Great Britain and Denmark. In the former, in the years after Margaret Thatcher’s ascendancy to the prime ministership, percentages thinking the country’s EU membership was good dropped to the mid-20 per cent range. However, there was a clear, steady upward trend from that point to greater than 50 per cent support for the country’s EU membership in 1990; however, this was also followed by a steady decline to early 1980s levels by the late 1990s and 2000. The cases of Ireland and Greece (see the lower left-hand portion of the figure for the Greek trend line) are also interesting to note. Although it is generally assumed that these countries are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about their EU memberships, what the cross-time percentages show is that in Ireland, while support for the country’s EU membership is somewhat high in the 1970s, there is a marked decline in the early 1980s, and then a sharp increase that eventually approaches 80 per cent, and this figure has remained at fairly

Opposition to Integration: the Data 25

consistently high levels through the 1990s. Finally, although a majority of Spanish and Portuguese citizens have thought their countries’ membership of the EU was good from the time of their entry to the EU, and although such positive feelings have been prevalent in close to 80 per cent of the population, far fewer numbers in the 1990s view EU membership as clearly positive. Figure 2.1 (lower right-hand portion of the graphs) also provides similar percentages for the Eftan Enlargement countries, plus East Germany, which became part of the EU when it was unified with West Germany in 1990. The cross-time percentages for East Germany clearly reveal early levels of soaring enthusiasm for participation in the EU marked by a rapid decline into ambivalence toward the EU. By 2000, easterners had become as Euro-sceptic as their West German neighbours. In addition, like those countries in the first enlargement (Great Britain, Denmark and Ireland), the three Eftan countries consist of citizens who are not all that enthusiastic about EU membership. The measure discussed above is a way of gauging opinions regarding the EU itself. We can also examine cross-time attitudes toward the more general idea of European unification using the item ‘Are you for or against efforts being made to unify Western Europe?’ Unfortunately, this item has not been included in a Eurobarometer since 1995, and so it will not be possible to investigate general feelings about unification in the late 1990s in any sort of comparative manner. Ultimately, I will thus need to depend upon a different measure of attitudes toward the integration process in the later analyses in this book. (Note, however, that particular item is a recent addition to EB surveys, and so comparing it to the question of whether the respondent is for or against unification is not possible either.) In any case, we turn to a discussion of cross-time favourability toward European unification before introducing the measures of support for integration used in the rest of this book. Figure 2.2 provides the percentages of those who say they are for efforts to unify Europe (either ‘very much for’ or simply ‘for’). As the figure indicates, citizens living in the Original Six group of countries tend to be overwhelmingly and consistently in favour of European integration. Although the French and Belgians were not quite as enthusiastic as the rest of the countries in the 1970 survey, levels of enthusiasm quickly reached those comparable to the other original member states. Also, while there has been some degree of cross-time fluctuation in support for unification, support has been strong across much of the 1970–95 time period. Additionally, it is important to note that for much of this time span, the original member states have favoured the idea of unification

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

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Figure 2.2: For European unification

at levels that were higher than the overall EU average. Thus, the Original Six have sustained considerable enthusiasm for the idea of unifying Europe since the early 1970s (and presumably prior to the 1970s as well) – again, consistent with findings noted by other observers. This is in contrast to some of the later participants in the project, as can also be seen in Figure 2.2. Support for European unification in Denmark through the mid to late 1980s was particularly low, with the lowest point coming in 1985, which was the beginning of the launch of the idea of completing the single European market. Shortly thereafter, however, enthusiasm for unification appears to have taken hold, and by 1991, almost 65 per cent of Danes supported the general idea of European unification. This support dropped slightly, presumably in the wake of the debates surrounding the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty (Treaty on European Union) in the early 1990s, but it did not

Opposition to Integration: the Data 27

decline to 1970s and 1980s levels. These trends are similar to the ones in Figure 2.1. The other usual group of Euro-sceptics – the British – have also been surprisingly supportive of the European unification project. They do not exceed the EU average at any point, but until the early 1990s, neither were they very far below it. Indeed, even in the highest period of Euro-scepticism (according to this measure, that is), more than 50 per cent of the British claimed to be in favour of efforts to unify Europe. On the other hand, fairly unsurprisingly, in the 1990s, the countries which have been on the receiving end of EU development funds (Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland – this topic will be discussed at greater length in the next chapter) have displayed levels of support for unification that are close to or exceed the EU average. As with perceptions regarding whether EU membership has been good for the country, Irish and Greek citizens were not quite as enthusiastic in the early years as in later times, but would still be counted as enthusiastic, given that the vast majority were clearly in favour of European unification. As mentioned above, this survey item was unfortunately discontinued by Eurobarometer after 1995, which was the time when some of the most Euro-sceptic member states joined the EU. However, these countries were indeed surveyed in 1994 and 1995, and in all three, the majority of citizens were in favour of efforts to unify Europe.4

Measuring opposition to (and support for) integration As discussed above, much of the analysis in the rest of this book will not be able to incorporate the valuable time series component because items used to investigate the group conflict and symbolic threat approaches (which are the focus of the book) are only available in a handful of Eurobarometer surveys. Furthermore, I will not be able to use the second survey item discussed above as a measure of general support for integration because the item also does not appear in the same surveys as my group and symbolic threat items. Thus, it is necessary to find an alternative measure of support for integration. As mentioned above, I will be investigating predictors of attitudes to the general idea of European integration. To repeat, this includes perceptions of the specific entity of the EU as well as attitudes toward further integration. Both of the items selected for my analyses do, in fact, relate to the EU, but one of them also refers to the issue of future integration. The first item chosen as a measure of support for European integration is the question which asks whether the country’s membership of the EU

28

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

has been good or bad, and is a standard measure of EU support (see Gabel 1998a, 1998b; Carey 2002). The second item is as follows: In five years’ time, would you like the European Union to play a more important, a less important or the same role in your daily life? This question was chosen initially for its face value – that is, those who would like the EU to come to play an even more important role in their daily lives would, it seems, like to see the integration process deepen even further, to the point that they can see its effects on a daily basis. On the other hand, those who want the EU to play a less important role in their daily lives would seem to prefer to have the integration process reversed to some degree. Finally, those who prefer the EU to continue to play the same role in their lives as it currently does would appear to be happy with the current level of integration.5 Percentages preferring the EU to play a more important role in their daily lives are displayed in Table 2.2. These percentages were obtained from Eurobarometers 53 and 54.1 (from the Spring and Autumn of 2000, respectively). Note that these two surveys have been

Table 2.2: Preferred importance of EU in future (%)

Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland N. Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

More

Less

Same

DK

N

42.2 43.8 39.6 56.7 66.5 54.0 50.5 44.5 38.8 44.1 45.1 63.3 33.3 38.3 31.0 42.6 35.0 41.9

10.6 20.4 15.2 12.1 4.5 4.5 7.6 10.2 9.2 8.2 9.0 5.8 15.4 19.1 16.6 20.8 15.6 16.2

37.1 32.4 31.2 19.2 19.5 30.1 33.3 31.6 32.3 36.3 36.2 18.4 29.9 31.9 45.7 31.7 34.4 30.0

10.2 3.5 14.1 12.1 9.7 11.5 8.7 13.8 19.8 11.4 9.8 12.6 21.5 10.8 6.8 5.0 15.0 12.0

2111 2000 2023 2006 1987 2000 2005 2001 613 1209 1979 2000 2128 2048 2025 2000 2005 32140

Note: From Eurobarometers 53 (Spring 2000) and 54.1 (Autumn 2000). Percentages are average responses across the two surveys.

Opposition to Integration: the Data 29

chosen for the analysis in this book because they include the key measures needed for the group threat concepts discussed later in the book. As the figures in Table 2.2 indicate, Italians, the Portuguese, Greeks and Spaniards would be particularly happy for the EU to play a bigger role in their daily lives. In most other countries, people would either prefer that the EU continue playing the same role in their daily lives or are not really sure how they feel about this issue. The largest percentages saying they want the EU to play less of a role in their lives are in Denmark and Sweden, but in fact only about 20 per cent of Danes and Swedes claim that they would like to see the EU playing a less important role in their daily lives in the future. The correlations (gamma values) between the two items measuring attitudes to European integration are displayed in Table 2.3, and indicate that there is a relatively strong relationship between the two. Thus, the two items have been combined to create an additive index of support for European integration. Summary statistics for the indices are presented in Table 2.4 and conform to the general trends discussed earlier in this chapter, with the Belgians, Greeks, Italians, Spanish, Irish, Luxembourgers, Dutch and Portuguese displaying higher levels of support for integration and the British and Swedes displaying lower levels.

Table 2.3:

Correlation between support for EU items (gamma)

Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland N. Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

EB 53 Spring 2000

EB 54.1 Autumn 2000

0.56 0.76 0.63 0.53 0.49 0.48 0.62 0.30 0.68 0.38 0.57 0.35 0.72 0.51 0.57 0.69 0.57 0.59

0.56 0.76 0.64 0.36 0.55 0.56 0.61 0.48 0.59 0.40 0.51 0.45 0.65 0.59 0.55 0.63 0.59 0.57

30

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Table 2.4: Summary statistics for dependent variable (support for European integration) Spring

Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland N. Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

Autumn

Mean

SD

N

Mean

SD

N

2.91 2.26 2.49 3.13 3.20 3.07 2.76 3.00 2.40 3.01 2.96 3.21 2.03 2.35 2.27 2.05 2.15 2.66

1.09 1.42 1.21 1.00 0.95 0.97 1.17 0.93 1.08 0.94 0.99 0.90 1.19 1.17 1.21 1.45 1.21 1.21

942 944 921 951 959 964 878 968 263 470 838 920 954 990 949 949 898 14758

2.82 2.24 2.54 2.97 3.16 3.08 2.73 2.91 2.58 3.08 2.85 3.17 2.04 2.41 2.18 1.98 2.28 2.64

1.07 1.42 1.23 1.06 1.01 0.99 1.17 0.97 1.08 0.88 1.04 0.93 1.20 1.21 1.21 1.40 1.24 1.21

1048 1000 1013 1002 987 1000 1003 1001 313 609 1004 1000 1058 1014 1015 1000 1000 16067

Summary This chapter has charted cross-time trends in levels of support for the EU and for European integration and has contended that these two concepts are strongly related, in that the EU embodies current ongoing attempts at European integration. The chapter also introduced a new item to be used in measuring the latter component and provided summary statistics for an index which combines (1) attitudes to the EU, and (2) attitudes to integration. The index was also shown to conform to what is generally known about which country’s citizens tend to be more (or less) supportive of integration. The next chapter introduces the first model of support for integration to be investigated in this book, the ‘rational’, utilitarian model, and uses the index discussed in this chapter to empirically analyse the model.

3 ‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for European Integration

One of the most influential approaches to the study of support for the European integration process in the past decade has been the rational, cost-benefit – also termed ‘utilitarian’ – approach. In this chapter, the general idea of utilitarianism as applied to the study of opposition to European integration is outlined, along with its specific hypotheses, and illustrations of the empirical strength of these hypotheses are provided. The standard utilitarian arguments necessarily make assumptions about which categories of individuals are likely to benefit or lose from integration, but it is also important to consider perceptions of loss or gain. Thus, in contrast to utilitarian research on attitudes to integration, I also include such an analysis of perceptions of who has benefited and who has lost in the integration process.

Egocentric utilitarianism1 Utilitarian accounts of attitudes toward European integration resemble the old adage of ‘where you stand determines where you sit’, and are almost exclusively concerned with economic utilitarianism. Specifically, those who benefit (or are likely to benefit) economically from European integration should be more supportive of the process; those who lose (or are likely to lose) should be more hostile. The theory then infers that the economic policies adopted in the EU, especially since the Single European Act (which came into effect in 1987), pose clear costs and benefits to individuals living within the territory of the European Union, and that these individuals realise they are likely to do well/poorly and determine their positions on the issue of European integration accordingly. The specific portions of the integration project that are argued to present relatively clear costs and benefits are the free movement of 31

32

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

labour and capital provisions, as well as provisions making it easier for businesses to move from one to another of the EU member states. In the absence of a Europe-wide social protection safety net (which is still very much under negotiation), the implications of both the former and latter are quite clear: companies can go freely to where they find cheaper labour or cheaper labour is likely to come to them, providing competition for people who do certain types of work. Those with lowerlevel job skills and low levels of education are thought to be most potentially hard-hit because they are more easily replaceable by companies moving elsewhere or hiring ‘foreign’ (non-national) workers. Alternatively, there are people with other types of work and educational backgrounds who are likely to see potential gains from a Europe-wide market: those with more developed job skills and higher levels of education can easily use their skills and knowledge (of running toplevel international businesses, for instance) to find better-paying jobs, to increase their salaries at their current jobs by threatening to migrate to a country where people in their position are paid higher salaries, or to actually go to another EU member state to start up a business there. They are also likely to be rather hopeful about easier cross-national mergers that would put them at the head of large-scale corporations. Free movement of capital is also likely to benefit some more than others. Those who do not have much capital will not likely care much that it can flow freely across the EU. Those who do have such capital – i.e. those with higher incomes – could benefit from the freed capital market, in terms of banking and purchasing and selling stocks. Moreover, as discussed in Chapter 1, fiscal requirements for participating in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and later in the adoption of the euro were quite strict regarding the size of the national budget deficit and debt that would be allowed, forcing participating member states to try to rein in their spending,2 much of which was for social welfare benefits. Again, especially in the absence of a Europe-wide social protection system – according to the utilitarian approach – it is those with less developed job skills, less education and lower incomes who are likely to be most fearful of the consequences of these national-level spending cuts, as they are the ones who are likely to be most in need of such spending (see Gabel 1998a and 1998b for a thorough discussion of these arguments). Using the surveys that were discussed in the previous chapter (Eurobarometers from the Spring and Autumn of 2000), we investigate the empirical relevance of these components of egocentric utilitarianism: occupation, education and income. Table 3.1 provides the OLS unstandardised

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration Table 3.1:

33

Occupation and support for European integration, EB 53 and EB 54.1

Country

Professional Executive Unemployed

Retired

Small business

Spring 2000 Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland Northern Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

0.57*** 0.36 0.88*** 0.16 0.35 0.33 0.52 0.25 1.38 0.30 0.10 0.33 0.40* 0.63* −0.08 0.76** 0.98*** 0.40***

0.57* 0.50** 0.80*** 0.16 −0.04 −0.08 0.55*** 0.05 −0.01 0.24 0.26 0.38* 0.64*** 0.54*** 0.35 0.97*** 0.50*** 0.34***

−0.03 0.21 0.66** 0.04 −0.15 0.06 −0.06 −0.36* −0.73* 0.17 0.23 −0.10 0.18 −0.01 −0.29 −0.24 −0.43 −0.02

0.05 −0.10 0.48*** −0.18 −0.33* −0.34*** −0.00 −0.19 −0.38 0.29* 0.07 −0.33*** 0.11 0.08 −0.23 0.32* −0.06 −0.03

−0.06 0.50 0.86*** −0.00 −0.09 −0.05 0.04 0.13 −0.48 0.55* 0.63* 0.00 −0.02 −0.19 0.09 0.29 0.12 0.29***

Autumn 2000 Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland Northern Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

0.27 0.90** 0.58* 0.56** 0.36* 0.37 0.38 0.42* 0.45 0.07 0.59* 0.55 0.67*** 0.22 0.31 0.52* 0.01 0.41***

0.29 0.83*** 0.49*** 0.65** 0.54*** 0.37 0.24 0.25 0.06 0.18 0.58*** −0.00 0.36* 0.75*** 0.60*** 0.61*** 0.50*** 0.38***

−0.16 0.16 0.21 0.37 0.18 0.10 0.35 −0.21 0.46 0.25 −0.01 0.14 0.05 −0.20 0.07 −0.26 0.15 0.01

−0.20 0.33* 0.24* 0.27 −0.03 −0.22* −0.09 0.02 0.04 −0.06 0.31* −0.15 −0.23* 0.09 0.03 0.29* −0.07 −0.01

0.08 0.64* 0.02 0.28 0.06 0.34* 0.15 0.28 0.84 0.10 0.16 0.21 0.24 0.13 −0.09 0.37 0.39* 0.34***

Note: Figures in cells are unstandardised regression coefficients (OLS); manual workers are the omitted category. * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

34

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Table 3.1:

(cont.) Occupation and support for European integration, EB 53

and EB 54.1 Country

Farmer

Student

Housewife

Other

Adj. R2

N

Spring 2000 Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland Northern Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

−1.12 −0.12 −0.10 0.14 −0.05 −0.20 −0.36 0.06 −0.63 −0.24 −0.77 −0.42* 0.67 −0.23 −1.28* 0.24 0.61* 0.17*

0.26 0.27 0.85*** 0.26 −0.02 −0.04 0.65 0.33** −0.05 0.35* 0.33* 0.30** 0.92*** 0.62*** 0.27 0.31 0.70*** 0.40***

0.01 0.28 0.50*** −0.06 −0.09 −0.32** −0.14 −0.11 −0.35 −0.05 0.07 −0.23* 0.19 0.27 −0.31 −0.04 0.17 0.18***

0.24 0.13 0.57*** −0.07 0.04 −0.08 0.07 0.05 −0.10 0.20 0.32* 0.22* 0.04 0.05 −0.05 0.26 0.22 0.15***

0.02 0.01 0.04 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.06 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.05 0.02

941 943 920 950 958 963 877 967 262 469 837 919 953 989 948 948 897 14,757

Autumn 2000 Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland Northern Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

0.14 1.23* −0.21 0.60** −0.68 0.76 −0.13 0.05 −0.19 −0.03 −0.80 −0.35 1.03 −0.78 −0.91*** 0.22 −0.32 0.11

−0.00 0.85*** 0.47 0.25 0.31* 0.32** 0.54*** 0.36*** 0.60* 0.03 0.53*** 0.51*** 0.68*** 0.63*** 0.58*** 0.26 0.87*** 0.48***

−0.28* 0.40 0.06 0.23 −0.10 −0.03 0.22 0.00 0.09 0.05 0.24 −0.06 −0.09 −0.37 −0.03 0.21 0.03 0.20***

−0.06 0.01 0.55*** 0.04 0.09 0.01 0.44** 0.01 0.38** 0.04 0.22* 0.03 0.32** 0.02 0.18 0.02 0.12 0.02 0.06 −0.01 0.30* 0.02 0.25* 0.04 0.16 0.04 0.14 0.04 0.26 0.05 0.07 0.01 0.07 0.04 0.21*** 0.02

1047 999 1012 1001 986 999 1002 1000 312 608 1003 999 1057 1013 1014 999 999 16,066

Note: Figures in cells are unstandardised regression coefficients (OLS); manual workers are the omitted category. * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration

35

coefficients for each of the occupational categories available in the Eurobarometer surveys, with ‘manual labourer’ serving as the comparison category and the index of attitudes to European integration discussed in the previous chapter as the dependent variable.3 Recall that manual labourers are predicted by the utilitarian model to be particularly hostile to the integration project because of the degree of vulnerability they face within the context of a free labour and business market. Professionals and executives, on the other hand, ought to be amongst the most supportive of the integration project because of the increased cross-border trade and movement of labour that has resulted from the Single European Act. As indicated in Table 3.1, these expectations receive considerable empirical support. While the professional and executive categories do not achieve statistical significance in many of the member states, this is likely to be a function of the small numbers of observations within each category. On the other hand, in a few countries, the coefficients do indeed achieve statistical significance and imply a fairly powerful impact: for instance, in Western Germany (EB 53), Austria (EB 53) and Denmark (EB 54.1) professionals’ degree of support for European integration is one full point higher (on the 0–4 point index discussed in the previous chapter) than that of manual workers. Moreover, also in West Germany and Sweden (in EB 53) and Denmark (EB 54.1), executives are considerably more supportive of integration than manual workers. For many of the member states, the coefficients for these two types of high-level occupations produces at least a half-point change in level of support for the integration process. The overall EU averages indicate a much weaker impact, however, of less than one-half of a point. Although other job categories are not of particular interest to the utilitarian model as outlined above, one of these clearly deserves mention and ought to perhaps be added to the general utilitarian model, and that category is students. Of all the occupational groupings included in the Spring and Autumn 2000 surveys, the ‘students’ category displays the most consistent results, and indicates that, on average (that is, across the EU), students tend to support the integration project to the same degree as professionals and executives (again, with manual workers as the omitted category). One need only drop into any major university in Europe to understand why students are so supportive of EU integration – having the freedom to move to other EU member states for the purpose of study without needing a residence or work permit is a very obvious benefit of the implementation of free movement provisions within the EU. Level of education, on the other hand, while having a statistically significant effect in almost every country (see Table 3.2), does not help

36

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Table 3.2: Education and support for European integration, EB 53 and EB 54.1 Country

Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland Northern Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

EB 53 (Spring 2000)

EB 54.1 (Autumn 2000)

b

Adj. R2

b

Adj. R2

0.05*** 0.02* 0.06*** 0.03*** 0.03*** 0.04*** 0.07*** 0.03** 0.09*** 0.05*** 0.01 0.05*** 0.07*** 0.03*** 0.02** 0.01 0.06*** 0.01***

0.03 0.01 0.05 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.04 0.01 0.05 0.03 0.00 0.07 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.03 0.00

0.06*** 0.01 0.05*** 0.02*** 0.04*** 0.03*** 0.07*** 0.03** 0.05 0.04*** 0.01 0.05*** 0.05*** 0.06*** 0.02** 0.01 0.06*** 0.01***

0.04 0.00 0.03 0.01 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.00 0.06 0.02 0.04 0.01 0.00 0.03 0.00

Note: Figures in cells are unstandardised regression coefficients (OLS); * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

predict much change in level of support for the EU. The range of the education variables in the two data sets is 6–90 (EB 53) and 6–58 (EB 54.1), and so it could be argued that the maximum impact is indeed quite large.4 However, for this particular variable, it seems more reasonable to consider percentile values in interpreting the OLS coefficients. For both Eurobarometers, the lowest 10 per cent completed their schooling at age 14 while the top 90 per cent cut-off is at the age of 24. With an unstandardised regression coefficient of .01, this implies that people with top levels of education are approximately 0.10 points higher in their support for integration (on a 0–4 point index). In other words, the effect is minuscule. It must be noted, though, that the size of this effect varies considerably by country. For instance, in Belgium, Germany, France, Portugal, Britain and Austria, there is more than one-half a point difference in support for integration between these lower and higher levels of education. Again, however, compared to occupation, the effect still seems rather weak. Finally, we repeat a similar story for income, which has a fairly consistent effect on attitudes to integration (Table 3.3). Once again,

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration

37

Table 3.3: Income and support for European integration, EB 53 and EB 54.1 Country

Low-Medium Medium-High

High

Don’t know Adj. R2

N

Spring 2000 Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland N. Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

0.14 0.11 −0.14 0.08 0.32** 0.44*** 0.07 0.31* −0.00 0.15 −0.07 0.42*** −0.07 −0.08 0.01 0.24 0.30* 0.08*

0.31* 0.49*** 0.09 0.37*** 0.17 0.34** −0.06 0.31* 0.59* 0.45** 0.04 0.50*** 0.03 0.10 0.33* 0.27 0.34** 0.27***

0.12 0.47*** 0.42*** 0.48*** 0.15 0.52*** 0.29* 0.41** 0.34 0.69*** 0.18 0.71*** 0.22 0.18 0.36** 0.69*** 0.53** 0.33***

−0.02 0.36* −0.00 0.07 0.12 0.52*** 0.14 0.23* 0.18 0.39*** −0.12 0.35*** 0.05 0.06 −0.17 0.32 0.28* 0.26***

0.01 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.01 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01

941 943 920 950 958 963 877 967 262 469 837 919 953 989 948 948 897 14,757

Autumn 2000 Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland N. Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

0.38** −0.09 −0.09 0.20 −0.06 0.13 0.06 0.08 0.10 −0.45 0.05 0.09 0.17 −0.12 −0.12 −0.08 0.08 0.00

0.41** 0.67*** −0.00 0.26* 0.25* 0.45*** 0.13 0.35** 0.32** 0.10 0.11 0.40*** −0.05 0.44*** 0.28 0.51*** 0.04 −0.45 0.26 0.48*** 0.07 0.14 0.38*** 0.30* 0.05 0.39* −0.09 0.35** 0.10 0.12 0.28* 0.56*** 0.15 0.60*** 0.11***** 0.29***

0.27* −0.13 0.24* 0.17 0.06 0.03 0.02 0.30** −0.28 0.04 −0.15 0.21* 0.07 −0.08 −0.42** −0.09 −0.06 0.17***

0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.01

1047 999 1012 1001 986 999 1002 1000 312 608 1003 999 1057 1013 1014 999 999 16,066

Note: Figures in cells are unstandardised regression coefficients (OLS); lowest income is the omitted category. * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

38

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

however, the overall effect in the combined EU sample is somewhat weak – the highest income group is only about one-third of a point more supportive of the integration process than is the lowest income group. As with other utilitarian variables, the effect of this one varies by country, with the largest effects found in Luxembourg (especially in EB 53), Portugal (also in EB 53), Belgium (EB 54.1) and Sweden. In many other countries, those in the highest income group are approximately one-half of a point more supportive of the EU than are those in the lowest income category. This is true, for instance, in Denmark, Greece, Spain and Austria in EB 53 and West Germany, France, Ireland, Luxembourg and Austria in EB 54. Thus, while egocentric utilitarianism can be seen to have some effect on attitudes to integration, these effects vary considerably and, on average, are not overwhelming.

Perceptions and utilitarianism The above analyses – which are standard in egocentric utilitarian explanations of support for EU integration – are built upon assumptions about perceptions regarding winning and losing in the integration process. But do EU citizens actually perceive themselves to have received benefits or incurred costs in the way that would be predicted by the utilitarian model? I investigate this question using new survey items that were first introduced in a Eurobarometer survey in the Spring of 2000. Eurobarometer 53 is the first survey in which EU citizens are asked directly about whether they feel that they received personal benefits or losses due to European integration, and also asks these citizens more generally who they perceive to have benefited from integration. Thus, the survey provides a rare opportunity to investigate the utilitarian model more directly than has been possible before. I begin by examining responses to the following question: ‘Do you think you, yourself, have got more advantages or more disadvantages from (OUR COUNTRY) being a member of the European Union?’ Responses to this question are shown in Table 3.4. The modal category was clearly the middle one – most people think that they have received an equal number of advantages and disadvantages from the EU. When we combine this with the percentage who spontaneously reply that they are not sure whether they have received more benefits or not, we then have a clear majority who are neutral about the personal benefits they might have received from the country’s membership of the EU. Amongst

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration

39

Table 3.4: Personal benefits from EU

Belgium Denmark W. Germany Greece Italy Spain France Ireland Northern Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Britain E. Germany Finland Sweden Austria EU

More advantages

As many disadvantages as advantages

More disadvantages

DK

N

26.4 30.4 26.1 37.4 28.5 55.5 20.5 59.0 25.5 34.3 28.9 44.6 19.7 21.1 28.9 19.4 23.4 31.4

47.2 47.9 41.1 45.0 43.6 30.1 51.0 22.4 37.3 46.8 43.7 38.3 32.2 45.9 49.4 46.8 39.8 41.6

11.3 12.5 21.3 8.2 11.1 5.9 14.2 4.3 9.9 10.0 15.2 5.2 23.1 23.7 16.1 26.0 23.3 14.5

15.1 9.2 11.4 9.4 16.9 8.5 14.2 14.3 27.4 8.9 12.3 12.0 25.1 9.4 5.6 7.8 13.6 12.5

942 944 926 951 959 964 878 968 263 470 838 920 954 992 949 949 898 14,765

Source: EB 53 (Spring 2000).

those who do not have a neutral opinion, those who think they have received more advantages clearly outweigh those who think the opposite (31.3 per cent versus 15.1 per cent).5 Are there any particular groups in society that feel they have benefited more than they have lost from the integration process? In terms of human capital, it is expected that those who are in certain occupations – particularly those with better skills – are likely to think they have received more advantages from their country’s membership of the EU than those who have less skills. As is clear from Table 3.5, the group feeling that it has received the most advantages from the integration process is, as predicted by the utilitarian approach, top level managers: 55 per cent of this group feel that they have been personally advantaged by their country’s membership of the EU. Next behind the top managers are employed professionals, followed by students and then some farmers. The groups that feel more disadvantaged than average are, once again, some of the farmers, the unemployed, the retired, supervisors and unskilled workers. However, it must be noted that for all of these latter categories, it is only a very small minority that feels

Winners and losers by occupation

Source: EB 53 (Spring 2000).

Farmer Professional (lawyer, medical practitioner, accountant, architect) Owner of a shop, craftsman, other self-employed person Business proprietors, owner (full or partner of a company) Employed professional General management, director or top management (managing directors, director general) Middle management, other management (department head, junior manager, teacher) Employed position, working mainly at a desk Employed position, not at a desk but travelling (salesman, driver) Employed position, not at a desk, but in service job (hospital, police, restaurant) Supervisor Skilled manual worker Other (unskilled) manual worker, servant Responsible for ordinary shopping and looking after home Student Unemployed or temporarily not working Retired or unable to work through illness Total N

Table 3.5:

21.3 13.6

15.3 19.5 14.9 18.4 13.1 7.8 20.0 19.5

30.6 39.0 40.0 40.4 36.4 28.3 42.1 45.5 44.4 46.0 40.5 43.6 40.1 40.3 34.5 40.2 44.6

41.7 39.5 33.2 33.0 47.0 55.0 39.2 33.1 30.0 27.4 28.1 29.8 26.3 28.7 44.0 26.5 23.2

11.2 15.4

12.3

17.4 17.0 11.1 11.0

Disadvantages

As many advantages as disadvantages

Advantages

11.9 11.7 15.2 18.0 13.7 13.3 12.7

11.2

10.3 10.5

6.5

9.5 9.6 5.5 5.8

6.4 7.9

DK

185 1,450 868 1,860 1,793 937 3,286 16,077

1,095

1,307 469

1,065

609 270 217 191

235 228

N

40

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration

41

disadvantaged by EU membership. As would be expected from Table 3.4, the bulk of the occupational groupings are in the centre (neutral) category. In fact the only groups that take neutral positions at less-than-average rates are farmers, top managers and students, and all of these groups generally feel more advantaged than disadvantaged by their countries’ EU membership. Although there are clear differences in perceptions of benefits received across some of the occupational categories, it is difficult to speak in terms of winners and losers. Clearly, there are some who perceive that they are winners – big business executives, farmers and students – but there do not actually appear to be big losers, in that the bulk of EU citizens either see a balance of advantages or disadvantages or simply do not know whether they have benefited or not from EU membership. Thus, it is perhaps more appropriate to speak in terms of winners and non-winners rather than winners and losers. The utilitarian approach also predicts that people at different levels of income should perceive costs and benefits to themselves. As discussed above, the freeing of capital markets is likely to provide major benefits to those at high incomes, as they will be more able to shop around for better interest rates on bank loans and better returns on pan-European stocks, and also do not have to worry anymore about the transaction costs associated with currency exchange across most of the EU. On the other hand, those with lower incomes are expected to be more threatened by the integration process because of the same issues raised above – integration makes it more possible for businesses to relocate to hire less costly labour, leaving those at lower income scales especially vulnerable. Further, this is likely to become an even greater threat as a result of the CEE enlargement.6 As indicated in Table 3.6, the relationship between income and perception of winning and losing in the integration process is quite similar to that found for the occupation variable. Namely, it is clear that larger percentages of those at higher income levels feel that they have indeed been personally advantaged by their country’s membership of the European Union. However, those at the lowest income levels are only marginally more likely to claim that they have been disadvantaged by European integration. In addition, there are fairly small differences between the income groups among the neutral answers, and this mostly falls with the realm of responding ‘don’t know’ to the question of whether the respondent has benefited from integration. Thus, once again, we would conclude that there are a few more people who perceive themselves to be winners among the highest income group

42

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

Table 3.6: Winners and losers by income

Lowest income Low-mid income High-mid income Highest income Don’t know Total

Advantages

As many advantages as disadvantages

Disadvantages

DK

N

25.7 27.5 33.6 37.4 32.0 31.2

42.2 44.5 43.5 42.8 37.7 41.5

17.2 17.5 14.7 13.0 13.8 15.1

15.0 10.4 8.2 6.9 16.5 12.2

2,686 2,903 2,689 2,594 5,205 16,077

Source: EB 53 (Spring 2000).

than the lowest, but that it is difficult to argue that there are also clear losers among the lowest income group. Education levels across those who felt advantaged and disadvantaged by the EU were also examined and no differences were detected, confirming the results presented above. Overall, then, it appears that there is not a tremendous difference in perceived personal benefits from European integration by different economic groups in society. In other words, while there is some difference across groups, it is not overwhelming and on balance, the personal benefits and costs seem to cancel each other out. However, is it possible that Europeans perceive certain other groups as gaining more advantages or disadvantages from the integration process? According to EU citizens themselves, there are three very clear winners in the EU: politicians, large businesses and those who speak foreign languages (see Table 3.7). Young people and professionals, such as lawyers and doctors, are also perceived to be highly advantaged by the country’s EU membership. Rather surprisingly, the group that people seem to think is most disadvantaged is farmers.7 Given the high degree of protectionism provided to farmers by the Common Agricultural Policy, it is quite unexpected that ordinary citizens think farmers on balance have been subjected to more disadvantages than advantages. Other groups that are perceived to be relatively disadvantaged by integration include the elderly, rural inhabitants, the unemployed and pensioners. In sum, the findings in this section regarding perceived costs and benefits support those in the previous section – there are indeed differences across occupational and income groups in perceptions of whether they have personally received more advantages and differences in overall perceptions of who in society has benefited from integration.

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration

43

Table 3.7: Perceived winners and losers Advantages As many Disadvantages advantages as disadvantages Those who speak foreign languages Children Young people Middle-aged people Elderly people Politicians All the (NATIONALITY) Inhabitants of (CAPITAL OF OUR COUNTRY) Inhabitants of our region Inhabitants of rural areas Large businesses Small and medium sized businesses Self-employed craftsmen Factory workers Teachers Civil servants Office workers/managers in the private sector Farmers Lawyers, doctors, architects, etc. Other employed/selfemployed people The unemployed Pensioners People belonging to a minority group in terms of race, religion or culture Everybody (SPONTANEOUS) Nobody (SPONTANEOUS)

DK

63.8

20.8

2.8

12.5

51.5 52.0 24.8 14.8 71.5 29.6 34.4

34.2 28.8 44.6 38.8 14.4 45.3 36.2

6.6 7.3 16.0 30.8 3.5 12.3 6.8

17.7 12.0 14.6 15.6 10.6 12.8 22.6

24.7 23.3 68.4 33.6

42.2 32.3 16.5 35.9

16.4 29.1 4.1 17.2

16.7 15.3 11.0 13.3

22.4 19.7 29.4 39.4 35.8

37.0 41.3 42.6 36.8 39.3

24.1 21.8 8.6 6.2 6.8

16.5 17.2 19.4 17.6 18.1

27.8 44.4 21.9

23.0 33.1 46.2

37.4 4.6 11.7

11.8 17.9 20.2

20.0 13.4 32.6

33.7 40.1 32.7

28.4 28.9 13.1

18.0 17.7 21.6

7.3 2.5

13.0 9.7

8.9 8.6

70.8 79.2

Source: EB 53 (Spring 2000); the total number of observations varies somewhat from item to item, but is approximately 16,070.

Big business and students are perceived to be advantaged and perceive themselves to be more advantaged by integration than other groups. This, in turn, is thought to make them more supportive of European integration. That is, they are favourable toward integration for very instrumental reasons, and the rest of society (perhaps correctly) also

44

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

realises that these groups are among the major beneficiaries of the European project. The only misperception detected here was in relation to farmers. Farmers themselves feel that they have received more advantages than disadvantages from European integration (at higher than average rates), whereas most members of society perceive this group as being harmed by integration. On the other hand, the response to these questions by the farmers themselves indicates that some of them may indeed have been harmed by European integration.

Sociotropic utilitarianism The economic utilitarianism argument goes beyond economic benefits that are expected by an individual based on her socio-economic position and contends that the actual benefits received by the member states have an impact on levels of support for the EU (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993). In countries where the net benefits are negative, levels of support are expected to be lower than in countries where such benefits are positive. There are two primary sources of economic benefits and costs to EU member states. One is the EU budget – wealthier member states like Germany and France traditionally have paid far more into the EU budget than they have received. Once the Structural Development Funds (SDFs) were established and Southern European countries began receiving the bulk of the EU SDF budget, it likely became clearer as to which countries were benefiting and which were losing. Another of the economic benefits that EU member states can receive relates to the increase in trade levels within the EU resulting from the removal of barriers to free trade. Countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, for instance, run large positive trade balances with the EU, whereas Southern Europe, the UK and Austria have large trade deficits with the EU. According to the utilitarian model, these benefits and costs ought to translate into greater and lesser support for the integration process respectively (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993). Prior empirical research has indicated that these two economic factors do indeed have an impact on support for the integration project (Anderson and Reichert 1996; Gabel 1998a; Eichenberg and Dalton 1993). Using the Spring 2000 Eurobarometer survey, I will illustrate the aggregate effect of having a large positive budget balance and a large positive trade balance on levels of support for the EU.8 As can be seen in Figure 3.1, a country’s budget balance with the EU is clearly related to attitudes toward the EU – people living in countries that maintain a

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration

80

Ireland Luxembourg Netherlands

Want EU Play More Important Role, Spring 2000

EU Membership a Good thing, Spring 2000

80

70 Portugal Belgium

60

Italy

Spain

Greece

Denmark 50

France Finland

Germany

40

Sweden Austria United Kingdom

30

Italy Greece 60

50

–10000

80

0

40 Germany 30

United Kingdom

Belgium

Denmark France

Finland

Germany

40 Austria Sweden 30 United Kingdom

0

Trade Balance, 1999

20000

40000

Rsq = 0.1114 60000

Want EU Play More Important Role, Spring 2000

EU Membership a Good thing, Spring 2000

Greece Portugal Italy

–10000

Rsq = 0.1787 10000

0

80

Spain

20 –20000

Austria Denmark Finland

Budget Balance, 1999

Ireland

50

Luxembourg Ireland

Netherlands

Sweden

20 –20000

10000

Netherlands

60

Spain

France Belgium

Budget Balance, 1999

70

Portugal

70

Rsq = 0.2406

20 –20000

45

Italy 70

Portugal Greece

60 Spain France

50

Belgium Ireland

40

Germany

Sweden

Netherlands

Austria Denmark 30 Finland United Kingdom 20 –20000

0

20000

40000

Rsq = 0.0755 60000

Trade Balance, 1999

Figure 3.1: Sociotropic utilitarianism and support for integration (EB 53, Spring 2000) Note: Budget and trade statistics are in millions of euros.

large positive budget balance (that is, they receive far more than they pay in) tend to think their country’s membership of the EU has been ‘a good thing’ in much higher numbers, and tend to prefer that the EU play a more important role in their lives in five years’ time when compared to people living in countries that have been paying far more into the budget than they receive.9 For instance, Germany runs a budget deficit with the EU of more than 10 billion euro, and approximately 40 per cent of Germans agreed in 2000 that their country’s membership of the EU had been a good thing; approximately 35 per cent would also like to see the EU play a more important role in their lives in the future. This is in comparison to Spain, which has a positive budget balance of almost 10 billion euro, and in which 65 per cent claim that EU membership has been a good thing for their country and

46

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

approximately 55 per cent would like to see the EU playing a greater role in their daily lives in the near future. Unless these results are spurious (driven by other factors), they indicate quite clearly that feelings about the EU are indeed driven to a great degree by instrumental considerations. The trade graphs, however, tell another story.10 Apparently increased trade is not nearly as relevant to explaining support for integration, and indeed the figures indicate extremely counter-intuitive results. Namely, running a positive trade balance with the EU seems to have very little bearing on feeling that one’s country’s membership of the EU has been a good thing. There is a slightly positive effect, but this is mainly because of an outlier, the Netherlands. Also, it is clear that a high level of trade balance with other EU countries is associated with wanting the EU to play a less important role in one’s daily life. While this finding seems particularly counter-intuitive, it must be noted again that the same countries that run large positive trade balances in the EU are also net contributors to the EU budget. Thus, it is likely that in a multivariate analysis, the latter will be more important in explaining individual attitudes toward the EU than the former.11 It is to this analysis that we now turn.

The general utilitarian model The above analyses were all simple bivariate models in which each element of the economic utilitarian model was explored separately. From these analyses, it appears that occupation and budget balance both have significant effects on level of support for the EU. What happens to these variables when they are entered into a full model that controls for each of the other utilitarian variables? Moreover, can such a model provide a more complete picture of the nature of utilitarianism in the realm of attitudes toward the EU? The findings are quite similar to those discussed in previous sections of the chapter, but we are now able to estimate the effect of high levels of occupational skill, education and income simultaneously and controlling for one another (as well as aggregate-level utilitarian factors). It is important to first note that the effect of education is, once again, weak and is now statistically insignificant (Table 3.8). Given its explanatory weakness, I have decided to omit it from further discussion here. As for occupation and income, it appears that someone who is a professional or executive and has a middle-high or high level of

‘Rational’ Explanations of Support for Integration

47

Table 3.8: (Economic) utilitarian model of support for European integration EB 53 b Occupation Professional Executive Unemployed Retired Small business Farmer Student Housewife Other occupation Education Income Low-mid income Mid-high income High income Income – DK Budget balance, 1999 Intra-EU trade, 1999 Constant Adj R2 SEE N

0.36 0.33 0.05 0.01 0.20 0.06 0.37 0.12 0.11 −0.005

EB 54 SE

0.09*** 0.08*** 0.07 0.08 0.09* 0.20 0.06*** 0.10 0.05* 0.01

b

0.39 0.37 0.08 0.05 0.27 0.03 0.47 0.13 0.18 −0.01

SE

0.10** 0.06*** 0.06 0.06 0.06*** 0.23 0.08*** 0.08 0.06** 0.01

0.10 0.24 0.27 0.21

0.06 0.07** 0.09** 0.09*

0.03 0.12 0.25 0.13

0.04 0.06* 0.08** 0.07

0.00007 0.00001 2.50 0.06 1.17 14,287

0.00*** 0.00*** 0.15***

0.00006 0.000008 2.51 0.05 1.19 15,456

0.00*** 0.00** 0.14***

Note: Coefficients are OLS with White robust standard errors; * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

income is likely to be more supportive of European integration by about one-half of a point on the 0–4 index. Note once again that this relative weakness of effect is a result of pooling the member states. Recall that the effects of occupation and income varied across countries, and in the process of pooling, very strong effects are, of course, combined with very weak effects. However, such pooling was necessary in order to introduce the aggregate variables of budget and trade balance. The effect of budget balance is considerably greater than the effect of high income and job skill – in Spring 2000, a country with a negative 10 billion euro budget balance with the EU (e.g. Germany) tends to be about 0.7 points below average in their support for European integration. On the other hand, carrying a positive 10 billion euro budget balance would bring about a 0.7 point increase in support for the EU. No member

48

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

state ran that high a positive budget balance with the EU in 2000, but Spain was the net beneficiary of approximately 7 billion euro, thereby boosting its level of support for integration by approximately half of a point. Thus, the overall impact of this variable is approximately 1.25 points. The size of the effect for the Autumn survey is almost exactly the same. After controlling for the budget balance, the level of intra-EU trade also has a positive effect on attitudes toward the integration process, but it is much weaker than that of budget balance. A shift from running a 10 billion euro trade deficit (e.g. Spain, UK) to running a 60 billion euro positive trade balance (e.g. Germany and the Netherlands) produces about one-half of a point increase in level of support for the EU. What is obvious from these combined results is that while individuallevel utilitarianism is somewhat important for influencing people’s opinions regarding the EU, country-level costs and benefits in the form of budget contributions and receipts tend to carry far more weight with Europeans. The former conclusion is also supported by the investigation of the questions related to perceptions of who are winners and losers in the EU. Although sociotropic and egocentric concerns were described in separate sections and as somewhat alternative ways of thinking about perceived costs and benefits, it should be recognised that there is likely to be some link between these two. The most obvious linkage can be seen in Table 3.4, which indicates that the Spanish and Irish are far less ambivalent about the personal benefits they have received due to European integration than are other nationalities. Thus, the aggregatelevel benefits that go to those two countries do seem to translate into perceptions of personal benefits received by the average Spaniard or Irish citizen.

Summary and conclusions Overall, the utilitarian model as specified in this chapter receives some empirical support. Particularly powerful are the sociotropic utilitarian explanations of support for integration. However, as indicated earlier in the chapter, the individual-level utilitarian argument requires reformulation, in that while groups that had been hypothesised to see themselves as benefiting from European integration do indeed benefit, those who were hypothesised to see themselves as losers did not do so. Finally, it is clear from the empirical results that there is still room for improvement in our understanding of opposition to integration.

4 Group Conflict Theory and European Integration

Utilitarian theory explains support for European integration in terms of how each individual benefits from integration; alternatively, it explains opposition to integration by arguing that some individuals lose in this integrative process. Or – at the very least – people perceive that they are likely to win or lose, and this perception fundamentally depends upon their socio-economic position in life. As should be apparent, this approach is extremely individualistic in nature. In addition, the evidence presented in Chapter 3 indicates that the standard utilitarian predictors are not all that powerful in explaining variation in attitudes toward the European Union, nor perceptions of specific costs and benefits to the individual provided by integration. Moreover, in most of the EU member states, the majority of the population does not seem to think they personally have benefited or lost from the integration process. In this chapter, we move away from these individualistic, utilitarian approaches and present an alternative theory that focuses on group-level interests. This alternative approach stems from a body of literature grounded in group conflict theory.

Two related literatures: self-interest and group conflict That people’s behaviour can be explained in terms of self-interest is a fundamental assumption of most economic approaches to the study of human behaviour. Indeed, as argued by Sears and Funk, ‘The notion that human behaviour is governed at least in part by selfish urges plays a role in virtually every psychology and moral philosophy in Western thought’ (1990: 147). Theoretical approaches that question this assumption point to multiple empirical examples of behaviour that is not necessarily consistent with a rational calculation of costs and benefits to the individual himself. 49

50

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

As Sen (1990) points out, prominent economists themselves will usually admit that individuals do not solely make decisions based on utilitarian calculations. However, for the sake of parsimony, and for the sake of explaining the main phenomena that are of interest to the economist, the self-interest assumption continues to dominate. However, as several of the authors in Mansbridge’s (1990) Beyond Self-Interest contend, many human behaviours simply do not have their basis in self-interest. On the positive side, giving to charities, voting, giving blood, not cheating on income taxes when it would be easy to do so are all examples of something other than self-interest motivating the individual’s behaviour. On the negative side, acts of vengeance that bring nothing positive to the actor can also be thought of as examples in which something other than economic self-interest motivates human behaviour. Jencks (1990) points to three different sources of unselfishness – empathy, community and morality. Of interest for the current research is the notion of unselfishness revolving around community, which involves ‘identification with a collectivity rather than with specific individuals’ (Jencks 1990: 54). Furthermore, people may come to put the interests of the collective ahead of their own, or even think about many issues primarily in terms of the benefits and losses to the collective. Included in the types of collectivities found in modern society is the nation-state (as well as other groupings like the family) and one of the major contentions of this book is that many individuals respond to European integration in terms of the collectivity of the nation. Group conflict theory was originally created as an explanation for the hostility that develops between different ethnic groups living in the same environment (neighbourhood, city, etc.). The central contention of the theory is that such hostility is a result of perceptions of members of groups other than one’s own (usually minority groups) receiving benefits at a cost to one’s own group (Blumer 1958). To put it more bluntly, it is perceived that members of the other group are taking resources that ‘belong to’ one’s own group. A similar theoretical approach that expands on group conflict theory is known as realistic group conflict theory. As developed by Bobo (1983, 1988; see also LeVine and Campbell 1972), one central element of the theory is that real competition for resources must exist, and that the individuals in the threatened group must perceive a collective and individual threat. However, Quillian (1995) contends that the perception of threat to the group’s resources is quite enough to produce hostile reactions to the other group, regardless of whether there is a real threat to the

Group Conflict Theory and Integration 51

group’s resources or not. Furthermore, it should be stressed that the important point is that it is the perceived threat to the group that tends to produce the most hostile reactions, not threat to the individual (Kinder and Sears 1981; for a review, see Sears and Funk 1990). Thus, it is primarily the threat to in-group interests that produces hostility toward alternative ethnic groups. An examination of literature related to other policy issues indicates that this notion of group interest helps explain a whole range of attitudes and behaviours. Specifically, individual policy preferences often do not stem from concerns for the well-being of the person herself, but instead illustrate concern for some larger group interest – often seemingly the national interest. Similar findings also appear in the voting behaviour literature, where worries about a declining national economic situation tend to be far stronger predictors of vote choice than worries about the individual’s personal economic situation (Fiorina 1981; Lewis-Beck 1990; Kinder and Kiewiet 1979). Indeed, Kinder (1981) conducts multiple tests across various time points and finds that despite economic dislocations, citizens still tend to consistently rely on their evaluations of the national economy far more than concerns about personal economic problems. Finally, the review article by Sears and Funk (1990) indicates that self-interest rarely has an effect on voting behaviour in elections and referenda, nor does it have much effect on policy preferences. Some might contend that a person’s concerns for the group, or for society, are ultimately driven by concerns that the individual has for himself and his own well-being. For instance, in the case of economic voting, perhaps the individual worries that if the national economy declines, his personal financial situation will also deteriorate. In other words, behind concern for the economy of society is a very rational, individualistic worry about whether one’s job will be lost, whether one can purchase a new automobile as planned, etc. Indeed, Bobo and Kluegel (1993: 445) claim that these two areas should not be thought of as separate: ‘The distinction between individual and group self-interest should not be overdrawn. Often there is a direct tie between individual self-interest and patterns of group identification.’ However, their analysis does not attempt to determine whether the interest investigated does indeed revolve around concerns for personal losses or concerns for the group’s losses, and converts these two distinct ideas into one by referring to them as ‘group self-interest’ (see p. 459, for instance). These two concepts cannot, in fact, be assumed to be identical. Funk and Garcia-Monet

52

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

(1997), for instance, conduct extensive analyses in order to test for the possibility that expressions of group interest are mostly a result of self-interest and find that there is indeed a significant indirect effect for individual finances on attitudes toward various policies; however, this effect is consistently weak, and the authors conclude that some other explanation of sociotropic (group-level) evaluations must be found. Part of the reason that self-interest is such a weak predictor of voting behaviour and policy preferences appears to be that people are often not aware of the implications of policy outcomes for their own lives. It has been shown that when people are either aware that they have a large stake in a policy outcome or when they have been primed in a previous question to think about their personal interest in the policy, then self-interest does indeed have a strong impact on policy evaluations (Chong, Citrin and Conley 2001; Sears and Funk 1990). Sears and Lau (1983) also show with experimental evidence that when respondents are primed or reminded of their interests before being asked about their policy preferences, self-interest has a much stronger effect on such policy evaluations than when the respondent has not been primed. Indeed, Green and Gerken (1989) find an extremely powerful effect for self-interest in an instance where the person’s stake in a policy outcome – namely smoking restrictions – was clear. Specifically, smokers were clearly more opposed to such restrictions than non-smokers. Funk (2000) draws similar conclusions and contends that among those who have no personal stake in a policy outcome, there tends to be a great deal of reliance on perceptions of societal interest. The implication is that people generally do not go through life worrying about the effect that a change in government or government policy will have on their personal lives, and so when they are asked to evaluate various policy proposals or to make a voting choice, they are using something other than personal interest to do so. The conclusion drawn by much of this research is that this other element is sociotropic evaluations, or societal interest. Research from Europe on attitudes toward the welfare state and health care policies points to similar conclusions (Gelissen 2000; Gevers et al. 2000). Perhaps even more telling is that even if a person expects no personal benefits from a policy but is likely to incur costs, that person is still likely to support the policy if she sees a societal-level benefit to be gained by the policy (Funk 2000). Thus, in general, grouplevel interests are rather powerful predictors of individual-level attitudes and behaviours that can be conceptually and empirically separated from individual-level interests.

Group Conflict Theory and Integration 53

Group conflict and opposition to European integration A major contention of this book is that in the search for rational, utilitarian answers to the question of why some people oppose European integration while others are in favour, we have missed a terribly important aspect of individuals’ thinking about politics in general. We know that individuals think about the group when forming their attitudes toward other policies, so why would this not be the case when forming attitudes regarding the integration process? Specifically, is it not likely to be the case that some individuals are more concerned about losses to the group resulting from European integration than others, and that such concerns are likely to lead them to oppose this integration process? To be even more specific, the current integration project poses an obvious threat to the main terminal societal grouping to which most people have become attached, the nation-state (see Carey 2002). If individuals are concerned about the withering away of their nation-state, then it is likely that their concern is based on considerations of loss of national resources. For instance, what is to become of national resources as state boundaries disappear? Naturally, those national resources would be given to some individuals who are not currently members (or citizens) of the nation-state. This is similar to notions of group conflict in the realm of attitudes toward immigration (see Quillian 1995). Members of the community, or the nation-state, often worry that the resources that belong to the dominant nationality will be given away to those who are not part of the community, namely immigrants. Concern about one’s own interests, on the other hand, are not very powerful predictors of anti-immigrant hostility (McLaren 1996). In other words, group interest seems to stimulate a strong desire to expel non-members of the national community, whereas self-interest does not. Why, then, should this not also be true in the case of European integration?

Measuring group conflict As indicated in Chapter 2, I will be analysing data from Eurobarometer 53 of Spring 2000 and Eurobarometer 54.1 of Autumn 2000. These two surveys were selected because they contain the best measures of the main independent variables of interest in this research, group conflict (discussed in this chapter) and symbolic threat (discussed in the next chapter). Moreover, the questions in the two surveys refer in similar ways to two different issues – one to minorities living within the

54

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

country and the other to the possible effects of integration on the nation-state. Thus, we will be able to determine whether group interest sorts of concerns expressed regarding minorities are indeed the same as interest expressed in the realm of European integration, as I suspect they are. This will be discussed further below. As just indicated, the measures of perceptions of group conflict in EB 53 refer to feelings about minority groups living in the country. Specifically, they follow a question that asks whether the respondent feels that she belongs to one of the majority groups or one of the minority groups in the country, in terms of race, religion and culture. Only 8 per cent of the entire EU sample responded in the affirmative, and all of these individuals were removed from the statistical analyses below. The subsequent questions that will be used in the analyses here are: • In schools where there are too many children from these minority groups, the quality of education suffers. • People from these minority groups abuse the system of social benefits. • The presence of people from these minority groups increases unemployment in (COUNTRY). Respondents were asked to state whether they tend to agree or disagree with these statements, which appear in a list of several others also asking about perceptions of minority groups. These measures of threat perception might be seen as problematic for two reasons. First, it may not be all that clear to whom ‘minority groups’ is referring. Of course, there is no definitive way to know exactly what the respondent is thinking in answering these questions, but, based on answers to other survey questions, we can infer that respondents are most likely imagining relatively recent (i.e. post-World War Two) migrants to their country. One point that leads to this conclusion goes to what the items mean ‘on their face’. As discussed above, the respondent has been cued in a previous question to consider minority groups in terms of different race, religion and culture. The use of the word ‘race’ is especially likely to make the respondents think about non-Europeans (and thus, non-EU citizens). Indeed, if we examine the responses to questions from a previous Eurobarometer (EB 30) about who the respondent thinks of when he hears about people of a different race, the vast majority in all EU countries point to ‘Blacks’, Arabs, Turks, the ‘Yellow Race’, Indians, Pakistanis or Sri Lankans, depending on which of these groups have migrated in large numbers to the respondent’s country. Thus, if the respondent is asked to think

Group Conflict Theory and Integration 55

about people from minority groups in terms of race, religion and culture, he is most likely imagining Muslims from Turkey, North Africa, or Pakistan, Chinese Buddhists, or Hindus from India, not Basques living in Spain or Catholics in Northern Ireland (McLaren 2002). In other words, while the questions might appear to be extremely ambiguous at first glance, I contend that the reference is likely to be rather clear, and that the items listed above are capturing an underlying sense of threat posed by out-groups. Another piece of evidence that points to a similar conclusion is that these two items are very strongly related to attitudes toward legal migration (McLaren 2003). Those who are unthreatened by members of minority groups tend to be more positive about the treatment of legal migrants, whereas those who are more threatened by ‘these’ minority groups tend to favour harsher treatment for such migrants. Thus, it appears that people are indeed mostly thinking about immigrants when they are asked about minority groups of different races, religions and cultures. A second potentially problematic aspect of these measures is that they do not specifically gauge level of perceived threat from other EU citizens. Indeed, as just argued, the questions are very likely to not be measuring perceptions of other Europeans at all. While one might expect that EU citizens think very differently about other EU citizens compared to non-EU citizens, my own research (McLaren 2001) indicates that this is not necessarily the case – survey respondents generally prefer to treat the two groups almost identically when it comes to allowing them to migrate to the respondent’s home country, for instance. Thus, the distinction that one might expect does not appear in reality. Furthermore, I am arguing that it is a general fear of the degradation of the resources of the nation that leads some to be hostile toward the European Union. Why would such fears be relevant to attitudes toward European integration, though? The answer to this question revolves around the notions of group protectiveness outlined above. Whether there is any real threat to resources of a group or not, many individuals are likely to view policy decisions in terms of how they will affect the group. Thus, things like jobs, social welfare benefits and public education fit within the realm of resources that ought to be reserved and preserved for those in the group. Like immigration, the whole process of European integration – the creation of an open market in which people can move freely in search of better lives (or better business) – means that those who are not conceptualised as part of the traditional national grouping are allowed free access to the group’s resources, and this particular problem is likely to be a major threat to those who do indeed think in these terms.

56

Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration

This issue is also investigated more directly in this chapter using the context of resource-based threat coming specifically from the EU. These survey questions (from Eurobarometer 54.1, Autumn 2000) begin as follows, ‘Some people may have fears about the building of Europe, the European Union. Here is a list of things which some people say they are afraid of. For each one, please tell me if you – personally – are currently afraid of it, or not?’ The items selected to measure conflict over resources are: • The loss of social benefits. • The transfer of jobs to countries which have lower production costs. • More difficulties for (NATIONALITY) farmers. Some might contend that these particular items are far better measures of the type of threat with which this book is concerned, in that they tie the issue of European integration more specifically into the notion of groupbased threat than do the migration-related items. On the other hand, this can also be viewed as a weakness – these items are so close to the concept of support for integration that it might seem unreasonable to expect that answers to them and answers to questions about the integration process are not one and the same. It is for this reason that including measures of group resource-based threat that make no reference to the EU (as with the migration items above) is important. That is, if both approaches indicate that concern for the loss of group resources, whether from immigrants or from integration, affect attitudes toward the EU, then it is less likely that we will conclude that the relationship is either spurious or driven solely by closeness of the measurement of the items. It might also be argued that these survey items (both the immigrationrelated items and the integration-related items) are really capturing self-interest and not group-level interest. This issue will be addressed extensively in Chapter 6. The findings of that chapter indicate, however, that the above items can indeed be validly used as measures of perceived threats to group interests. Beginning with fears about the quality of education where there are many children of minority backgrounds, we see considerable variation in concern about this potential problem (see Figure 4.1a). It is apparent that respondents in countries where the post-World War Two history of influx of immigrants is more recent and where there are relatively fewer numbers of migrants (Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal) tend to be much less concerned about this – less than a majority of the respondents in these countries claim that education does indeed suffer when there

Group Conflict Theory and Integration 57

(a) Education suffers

(b) Minorities abuse social benefits

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0 ia str n Au ede Swland any Fin erm itain G r E. t B ea al Gr rtug nds a Po herl ourg t Ne emb x Lu and l Ire nce Fra in a Sp y l Ita ce ny ee a Gr erm .G k W mar n Delgium Be

ia str n Au ede Swland ny a Fin erm itain G r E. t B ea l Gr rtuga nds a Po herl urg o t Ne emb x Lu and l Ire nce Fra in a Sp y l Ita ece ny a e Gr erm .G k W mar n Delgium Be

(c) Minorities increase unemployment 100 80 60 40 20 0 ia str Au den e Sw and ny l a Fin erm tain i G E. t Br ea l Gr rtuga nds Po herla urg t bo Ne em x Lu and l Ire nce Fra in a Sp y l Ita ce y ee an Gr erm G k W. mar n Delgium Be

Figure 4.1:

Perceived threat from minorities, Spring 2000

are many cultural minorities attending the local school. Note that only a minority of Finns also express such a concern; although Finland is a country of immigration, its immigrant population is, in fact, rather small. This lack of worry about minorities creating problematic educational atmospheres can be contrasted to countries like Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, where very large majorities do believe that the quality of education in the midst of many children of non-native descent is reduced. When we examine expressions of concern about social benefits being abused by minorities (Figure 4.1b), a somewhat different pattern emerges. The only two countries where small minorities (