Euroscepticism and The Future of European Integration Catherine E de Vries Full Chapter
Euroscepticism and The Future of European Integration Catherine E de Vries Full Chapter
Euroscepticism and The Future of European Integration Catherine E de Vries Full Chapter
Catherine E. De Vries
1
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For Hector,
who made me see the European project through different eyes
Preface
1
The Eurobarometer has conducted biannual surveys in all the EU member states (as well as
some candidate countries) since 1973. While its purpose is to chart the policy preferences of
European publics and provide input for EU policy making, the Eurobarometer surveys have
provided an invaluable resource for academic research in Europe. For more information see
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm.
Preface
European project, the single currency, and the possibility for reform were
tainted by ‘my’ national perspective.
The second conversation took place at the annual meeting of the European
Political Science Association in Vienna in June 2015. On the last evening of
the conference, I had dinner with colleagues. One of these was my friend and
co-author, Elias Dinas, who is Greek. During dinner, Elias was eagerly trying to
get ahold of his mother in Greece. Earlier that day the Greek government had
restricted the amounts of money people were allowed to withdraw from their
bank accounts. His mother urgently needed cash for groceries and was not
able to get hold of her money. Our dinner conversation about the situation in
Greece and the role the European Union played in it, against the backdrop of
people going about their normal lives on a Saturday night in Vienna, made
me realize again that the way each of us sees the European project and
evaluates it is deeply influenced by ‘our’ national viewpoints. These two
dinner conversations and many other exchanges since then led me to the
insight that underpins this book and the theory of European public opinion it
presents: people’s evaluations of and experiences with the European project are
fundamentally framed by the national circumstances in which they find themselves.
Although the idea that national conditions matter for public opinion about
European integration has been addressed in the literature before, most notably
in the important contributions of Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca (2000) and Robert
Rohrschneider (2002), we currently lack an understanding of the exact way in
which they do and how they relate to behaviour in elections and referendums.
This book presents a benchmark theory of public opinion towards European
integration. It provides both a comprehensive country and individual level
mechanism of how national and European evaluations are linked and interact
to produce certain kinds of behavioural consequences. The contribution of this
book is not only to provide an insight into how public opinion, and especially
Euroscepticism, is structured, how it comes about, how it changed in the midst
of the Eurozone crisis, and how it is linked to national conditions, but also
what possible consequences it has for the future of the European project.
The writing of this book has been an extremely rewarding experience that
would not have been possible without the help of others. Some people advised
me over a cup of coffee, while others attended various talks or workshops
where ideas were presented, and others again took valuable time out of their
busy schedules to read entire drafts of the manuscript. A very special thank
you goes to the Bertelsmann Foundation and in particular Isabell Hoffmann.
A large part of the data collection would not have been possible without the
generous support of the Bertelsmann Foundation. I am grateful for their
continued dedication to understanding the contours of public opinion in
Europe. Especially my close cooperation with Isabell has been crucially
important for my thinking. I wish to thank her for all her advice and her
viii
Preface
ways of challenging me to always think about the bigger picture and the
political ramifications of my findings.
Second, I would like to express my gratitude to several wonderful colleagues
who have helped sharpen my thinking. There are many, but I especially wish
to thank Elias Dinas, David Doyle, Aina Gallego, Tim Haughton, Armèn
Hakhverdian, Stephanie Hofmann, Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, Spyros Kosmidis,
Gary Marks, Robert Rohrschneider, Christina Schneider, Marco Steenbergen,
and Mariken Van der Velden for their extremely helpful comments on various
ideas and drafts. A special thank you also goes to Kalypso Nicolaïdis and the
staff at the Centre for European Studies at the University of Oxford for
organizing a book workshop in February 2017. At this workshop some of my
former Oxford colleagues and students took the time to engage with my ideas.
I especially want to thank Kalypso and Alexander Kuo for their extremely
insightful and constructive comments and thorough reading of the book. In
addition, I wish to acknowledge two very bright students in International
Relations at Oxford, Kira Huju and Christine Gallagher, who provided very
helpful comments. I also wish to thank Dominic Byatt, my editor at Oxford
University Press, for his continued support. His advice on how to write a book
about a target that is continuously changing was extremely valuable.
Finally, I wish to thank four people in particular who stood by me in the
process of writing this book. The first is my longstanding friend and co-author
Sara Hobolt. Your clarity of thought and dedication to understanding the deep
problems the European Union faces at the present time amazes me every time
we meet. This book has benefited from all our exchanges and your thoughtful
insights. Our academic and personal friendship means so very much to me.
The second is my ‘Doktor-Mutter’ and co-author Liesbet Hooghe. Without
your valuable advice, critique, and support this manuscript would never have
been published. You are an inspiration to me to this day. I also wish to
wholeheartedly thank my husband and co-author, Héctor Solaz. I am eternally
grateful for all the long walks and talks during which you supported me when
I felt stuck, and clarified the core argument I wanted to make to myself. Thank
you for every minute. Without your love and support this book would have
never seen the light of day. Finally, I want to thank my little daughter Mila.
You move so gracefully between three European cultures and languages. Your
life truly represents what European connectedness is made of. I hope for you
and for your future life companions that Europe finds a way to champion its
accomplishments and cherish its differences as strengths rather than as
weaknesses.
Braiswick
May 2017
ix
Contents
List of Figures xv
List of Tables xix
Contents
xii
Contents
Appendix 223
Bibliography 227
Index 243
xiii
List of Figures
xvi
List of Figures
xvii
List of Figures
8.8. Support for economic reform among the four types by national
conditions 197
8.9. Expectations about future of Eurozone among the four types 198
8.10. Expectations about future of Eurozone among the four types by
national conditions 199
8.11. Support for Eurozone budget and finance minister among the
four types 200
8.12. Support for Eurozone budget and finance minister among the
four types by national conditions 200
8.13. Support for EU response to member state in financial difficulty
among the four types 201
8.14. Support for EU response to member state in financial difficulty
among the four types by national conditions 202
9.1. Summary of the differences between the four types 208
xviii
List of Tables
Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that
ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm. Disil-
lusioned with the great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the
present reality better than we have been doing until now.
Donald Tusk, 30 May 2016, Brussels
The European Union (EU)1 is currently facing one of the rockiest periods in its
sixty years existence. Not often in its history has the country bloc looked so
economically fragile, so insecure about how to protect its borders, so divided
over how to tackle the crisis of legitimacy facing its institutions, and so under
assault by Eurosceptic political entrepreneurs. While government leaders aim
to find unity, intergovernmental conferences in recent years have been beset
by deep divisions over how to bring the Eurozone and refugee crises to an end.
The dream of Europe’s founding father Jean Monnet to build a Union of men
rather than states seems almost out of reach. These latest developments have
left a mark on public opinion. Eurosceptic sentiment is on the rise. It is no
longer a phenomenon tied to small segments of society, extremist political
parties or to specific economic cycles. The outcome of the Brexit referendum
in Great Britain2 provided a first glimpse of what may lie ahead when Euro-
sceptic sentiment hardens. In June 2016, against the recommendation of
most political and economic experts, the British people voted to leave the EU.
1
The European Union (EU) has changed its name several times during its existence. In this
book, I will use the words ‘EU’, ‘Europe’, and ‘Union’ interchangeably.
2
In this book, I will use the term Great Britain rather than the United Kingdom. This is because
some of the public opinion data sources that I use do not always include Northern Ireland. In order
to be consistent, I rely on data from Great Britain only.
Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration
The result sent a shock wave through the political establishment in London,
Brussels, and beyond. Was the result based on British exceptionalism, or
indicative of a larger process of a revolt against Brussels? The British public
has always displayed a stronger pull towards Euroscepticism compared to
public opinion on the continent. Yet, recent election contests demonstrated
a steady rise of Eurosceptic sentiment throughout many parts of the Union. In
fact, Eurosceptic parties have seized their largest ever vote shares in the 2014
European Parliament elections.
These election and referendum outcomes have to be seen against the back-
drop of the economic and political challenges that the EU has faced in the
previous decade or so. The Eurozone and refugee crises have proved to be real
stress tests for Europe. While economic recovery may be on its way, at least in
some member states, what many citizens have learnt from these recent tribu-
lations is not to blindly trust politicians and technocrats who blithely promise
that more Europe will automatically deliver economic prosperity and geopol-
itical stability. For a long time public opinion was viewed as largely irrelevant
for an understanding of the course of European integration. This viewpoint is
perhaps best reflected in the writing of Ernst Haas. In his seminal volume The
Uniting of Europe, Haas (1968: 17) wrote: ‘It is as impracticable as it is unneces-
sary to have recourse to general public opinion surveys. . . . It suffices to single
out and define the political elites in the participating countries, to study the
reactions to integration and assess changes in attitude on their part.’ The days
of a permissive consensus in which elites could pursue further integrative
steps with little to no regard for public opinion are gone (Hooghe and Marks
2009; Risse 2015). Leaders in Brussels and throughout Europe’s capitals are
confronted with a new and challenging political reality. At a time when
Europe faces some of its biggest economic, political, and social challenges
since the Second World War, the integration project itself has become highly
contested among the public. As a result, the EU finds itself faced with an
existential challenge: the unprecedented development in supranational governance
in recent years has led to greater public contestation, yet at the same time the Union is
more reliant on public support for its continued legitimacy than ever before.
The days of the permissive consensus are over, but the question is: what has
come in its place? Pundits, journalists, and politicians suggest that we are
currently dealing with a rise in Euroscepticism. Feelings of discontent and
anger over Brussels’ divided response to economic downturn and refugee
flows seem to have plummeted public support for the European project to
an all-time low. This sentiment is illustrated by the former President of the
4
Introduction
European Council Herman Van Rompuy (2010: 10) who in his speech on
9 November 2010 in Berlin commemorating the Kristallnacht warned: ‘We
have together to fight the danger of a new Euroscepticism. This is no longer
the monopoly of a few countries. In every member state, there are people who
believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world. It is more than
an illusion: it is a lie.’ Prominent scholars of European integration, like Liesbet
Hooghe and Gary Marks (2009), suggest that the permissive consensus may
not necessarily have been replaced by all-out Euroscepticism, but rather that
we are witnessing a constraining dissensus. This is partly because the deepening
and widening of European integration has put questions of identity at the
forefront of political debates (e.g. McLaren 2002, 2005; Kuhn 2015; Risse
2015). As a result, public opinion is deeply divided over the European project.
Due to the fact that these identity-based concerns are increasingly mobilized
by political parties in electoral and referendum contests, public preferences
today constrain jurisdictional choices in Europe.
These accounts of the nature of public opinion towards the EU are compel-
ling in many ways, but also raise key questions. What exactly do we mean by
Euroscepticism? Has it become a widespread phenomenon cutting across
national and social lines? Is Euroscepticism primarily linked to people’s feel-
ings of national identity, or is it rooted in socio-economic insecurity, or
perhaps in both? Is Euroscepticism the driver of recent Eurosceptic party
success, or do national conditions and evaluations play a more important
role? And finally, when does Eurosceptic public opinion have the ability to
constrain the preferences of national and European elites who shape jurisdic-
tional choices in Europe? These are the key questions this book addresses. It
suggests that in order to fully grasp public opinion and understand its causes
and consequences for the integration process, we need to take a step back and
revisit the precise nature of popular sentiment towards the EU. In the chapters
that follow, I present a benchmark theory of EU public opinion. This theory
suggests that the way people view the EU is intrinsically linked to the national
conditions in which they find themselves as well as their comparison of these
conditions to those at the EU level. It is not only a result of a comparison of
objective conditions, but also of people’s subjective perceptions of these
conditions. EU public opinion resembles a kaleidoscope mirroring people’s experi-
ences with and evaluations of starkly different national political and economic
contexts that together make up the Union.
This book maintains that public opinion cannot be simply characterized as
Eurosceptic or not, but rather consists of different types. This is important
because: (a) the different types of sceptics display distinctive sets of issue
positions, priorities, and reform preferences; (b) only certain types of scepti-
cism have the ability to threaten the EU’s existence because they are linked to
preferences for secession and support for hard Eurosceptic parties; and (c) the
5
Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration
3
I wish to thank Tim Haughton for suggesting this formulation.
6
Introduction
The deeply divided nature of public opinion that this book uncovers
has important consequences for the future of the European project. It puts
European and political elites in a very difficult position. Public opinion is more
responsive to real-world conditions today than in the past and this means that
citizens demand solutions to the current European crises. Yet, the deep divi-
sions within the public represent something of a policy conundrum. There is a
growing rift between different types of sceptics within and across countries in
terms of their policy demands. Some sceptics, especially within the North
Western region, demand less intra-EU migration, while others, most notably
in Southern and Central and Eastern European member states, wish to see
more economic investment and employment programmes. It appears difficult
to come up with policy proposals that could satisfy both these constituencies
simultaneously, especially in the short run. Combatting unemployment and
sluggish growth in the Union to revive struggling member states, especially in
the South, would necessitate the introduction of some sort of monetary
transfer or debt reduction that may require a further allocation of policy
competences to the EU level (Stiglitz 2016). This is something that some
sceptics do not wish to see. Moreover, the restriction of immigration to please
some of the sceptics would violate one of the core principles of integration,
namely the free movement of people. This in turn is not popular among other
segments of the population. Although it might be possible to strike a balance
between these different demands by introducing some sort of transfer mech-
anism or debt reduction that would allow poorer economies to grow and thus
depress the demand for migration in the future, the fruits of such reforms
would most likely only come to bear in the medium or long run. Given the
importance of EU matters in domestic elections and for the re-election of
national governments (De Vries 2007, 2010; Schneider 2013), current incum-
bents will most likely focus on their short-term political survival rather
than medium- to long-term policy solutions. The way for the EU to deal
with these different constituencies, this book suggests, is to fully embrace
the diversity within its borders and provide more differentiated and flexible
policy solutions.
This book revisits core questions about the nature of public opinion and
its role in the integration process. Not surprisingly there is a burgeoning
literature on public attitudes towards European integration (for an overview
see Hobolt and De Vries 2016a). Early studies focused on EU support (see
for example Inglehart 1970; Gabel 1998), whereas over the last decade or
so scholarly attention has shifted to the study of opposition, namely
7
Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration
8
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Language: Finnish
Kirj.
Elina Vaara
SISÄLLYS:
SATU SYDÄMESTÄ JA AURINGOSTA
Kaukaiset metsät.
Satu sydämestä ja auringosta.
Mennyt suvi.
Lumikkosydän.
Järvellä.
Hiiden hovi.
Syysromanssi.
Saaren soittaja.
VILLIVIINI
Karnevaalihuume.
Käsky — kielto..
Kuolleet.
Judithin tuska.
Villiviini.
HILJAISIA AKORDEJA
Puutumus.
Hiljainen huone.
Akordi.
Hiljaisimmat.
Hartaus.
Keväthämärä.
Blayn prinssi.
Trubaduurilaulu.
Aavelinna.
Suleika.
Yö keitaalla.
Oi Sulamith, on päivät hämärtyneet.
Netkron sadusta.
PUISTOKUJA
Kevät.
Kultaiset pallot.
Kellastuneesta vihkosta.
Katkenneiden pilarien kaupunki.
Tähtisumua.
Uneksijat.
Puistokuja.
SATU SYDÄMESTÄ JA AURINGOSTA.
KAUKAISET METSÄT.
MENNYT SUVI.
LUMIKKO-SYDÄN.
Sun nuoruutesi kuninkaallinen on kristalliseen arkkuun
suljettuna, ja parvi kääpiöiden itkee, palvoo sua vuorten yössä
vahakynttilöin.
JÄRVELLÄ.
HIIDEN HOVI.
SAAREN SOITTAJA.
———
KARNEVAALIHUUME.
KÄSKY — KIELTO.
KUOLLEET.
JUDITHIN TUSKA.
VILLIVIINI.
PUUTUMUS.
HILJAINEN HUONE.