A blessing and a curse? Examining public preferences for differentiated integration

Abstract

This study examines public preferences for two forms of differentiated integration (DI): opt-outs and multi-speed EU. Due to the low salience of DI in domestic politics, we suggest that people use ideological benchmarks when forming opinions about DI mostly relating to their general predispositions towards the EU. While pro-EU citizens are more in favor of DI in the form of multiple speeds as this might pose a solution to overcome gridlock, Euroskeptic citizens display more support for opt-outs as a means to accommodate concerns about national identity and control. These differences are in turn accentuated by people’s left-right ideology. We test our hypotheses using public opinion data from the Eurobarometer between 2004 and 2018 and complete it with novel survey data. Our results suggest that while support for DI has increased in recent years, DI preferences largely coincide with ideological predispositions. Our findings indicate that rather than overcoming preference heterogeneity within the EU, DI might entrench existing fault lines.

Does differentiated integration weaken parliamentary involvement? Evidence from the European Union's interparliamentary conferences

“…6. On citizens' assessments on DI, see also De Blok and De Vries (2023) and Schuessler et al (2023).…”

Does differentiation beget differentiation?: Examining the link between implementation of and support for differentiation

“…Despite our increasing knowledge of what drives individual support for differentiated integration, we still do not know whether citizens are equally likely to prefer differentiation in all policy areas. Existing research (Blok and De Vries 2023;Leuffen et al 2022;Telle et al 2022) has largely focused on individual support for differentiated EU integration. Even those favouring an "ever closer…”

“…The phenomenon of differentiated integration is extensively investigated conceptually (Bátora and Fossum 2020;Leuffen et al 2013;Schimmelfennig and Winzen 2014), empirically (Gänzle et al 2019;Malang and Holzinger 2020;Ott et al 2017;Schimmelfennig and Winzen 2017;Winzen 2020) and normatively (Bellamy 2019;Eriksen 2019;Lord 2021;Nicolaïdis 2004). The few contributions investigating individual support for differentiated integration focus on liberal economic values (Leuffen et al 2022), Euroscepticism (Blok and De Vries 2023;Schuessler et al 2023), territorially exclusive self-identification (Moland 2022) and party cues (Telle et al 2022). However, we still do not know whether past exposure to differentiated integration leads to greater support for flexible integration in the future.…”

“…Previous literature finds that sociotropic economic evaluations, in contrast to egotropic ones, correlate with support for differentiated integration (Leuffen et al 2022). I measure support for national governments, an important control variable (Armingeon and Ceka 2014; Blok and De Vries 2023;Harteveld et al 2013), through a dummy asking respondents whether they believe their nation's government is doing a good job. As an indicator of income, I add a variable asking respondents to evaluate their own economic situation relative to others in their age group.…”

“…While increasing attention is paid to what shapes popular preferences for such differentiation (Blok and De Vries 2023;Leuffen et al 2022;Schuessler et al 2023;Telle et al 2022), we know little about how actual exposure to it has helped change attitudes towards differentiation. While one of the few contributions examining the effect of differentiation on public opinion shows that allowing for differentiation may strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the EU (Schraff and Schimmelfennig 2020), important knowledge gaps remain.…”