Ambivalent Europeans? Public Support for European Integration in East and West

Abstract

In the midst of the economic crisis sweeping across the European continent, popular support for European integration has become a common theme in political discourse. This article revisits the debate regarding popular support for European integration. Although many journalists, politicians and pundits currently argue that the public is becoming increasingly sceptical of further steps towards integration, this study qualifies that claim and suggests that public opinion towards Europe is best described as ambivalent. Also, it shows that ambivalence regarding European integration is higher in Western than in Central and Eastern Europe. This is probably due to the fact that as citizens in Western Europe have gained more experience with the positive and negative consequences of integration over the years, they have also become more ambivalent about the European project. Rather than suggesting that citizens are by and large turning their backs on Europe, I put forward the view that we seem to be witnessing growing uncertainty about the future scope and depth of the integration process. This, I argue, could be viewed as a natural by-product of experiencing both the virtues and the vices association with membership. Consequently, attitude ambivalence as such may be demonstrative of a maturation of public opinion concerning European integration.

What about Ambivalence and Indifference? Rethinking the Effects of European Attitudes on Voter Turnout in European Parliament Elections

“…Building on these arguments, a more recent strand of research on European public opinion suggests that if EU voters can distinguish between different aspects of European integration and their support for the EU has different dimensions, then it is possible that their opinions about the EU are not simply univalent (De Vries , De Vries and Steenbergen ). In other words, citizens may not have either purely positive or negative attitudes (Stoeckel, ) towards the EU as earlier studies on EP turnout assumed.…”

“…In other words, citizens may not have either purely positive or negative attitudes (Stoeckel, ) towards the EU as earlier studies on EP turnout assumed. Thus, as De Vries (, p. 435) argues, support for European integration may instead be ‘inherently variable, reflecting differential degrees of certainty’. According to this view, there are ambivalent individuals who simultaneously hold positive and negative attitudes about different dimensions of the EU.…”

“…Although there is usually a ‘neither good nor bad’ option in the Eurobarometer surveys to identify respondents with neutral attitudes, it is impossible to know whether they are actually ambivalent or indifferent since both attitudes could lead to selecting that option. When examining the causes of ambivalent attitudes, De Vries (), and De Vries and Steenbergen () used heteroskedastic regression models to predict variability in respondents' attitudes towards the EU. They relied on the survey question that asks respondents to rate their support for European unification on an 11‐point scale, with zero being ‘unification has already gone too far’ and 10 being ‘unification should be pushed further’.…”

“…Ambivalent individuals, on the hand, are more likely to participate than indifferent individuals are, as they have some emotional investment in the attitudinal object. Links between ambivalence and indifference and European integration and voter turnout, however, have not been studied in the EU literature since most existing research on ambivalence and indifference focuses on their causes rather than consequences (de Vries, ; de Vries and Steenbergen, ; Stoeckel, ). This lack of interest is surprising for at least three reasons.…”

“…First, ambivalence in support for the EU is likely to increase in the near future. As de Vries () notes, Central and Eastern Member State citizens view the EU mostly in a positive light at the moment since they believe the EU will foster economic growth and democratic values in their country. However, once they gain more experience with the costs and benefits of European integration, their level of ambivalence will probably increase, as has happened in Western European Member States.…”