Post-accession congruence in Bulgaria and Romania: measuring mass-elite congruence of opinions on European integration through mixed methods

Abstract

This article proposes a mixed methods measurement of the mass-elite congruence of opinions on the EU based on a combination of speech and survey data. It focuses on two countries (Bulgaria and Romania) that were known for their pro-European profile until their EU accession, but which faced many political difficulties afterwards. The analysis covers the 2013-2017 period that includes a great deal of these post-accession difficulties. The article illustrates how we can make meaningful comparisons between short-term, dichotomous mass and elite attitudes with timeframes determined by non-electoral events.

Targets and Resources

“…The choice of method had two main drivers-time and convenience. The qualitative analysis of articles allowed the researcher to gain an independent assessment on the potential impact of the identified factors in circumstances where data availability is a challenge (Bankov and Gherghina 2020). The downside of this approach is that it is based on external media narratives rather than internal insights from people directly involved in the campaign (Macnamara 2005).…”

Mass–elite differences in new democracies: Tunisia as a case study (2010–2016)

“…2 Position identifies where actors, masses and elites in our case stand in relation to a particular issue, while salience estimates the importance each actor attaches to such an issue (Laver 2003: 66). In addition to new methodological approaches proposed by Bankov and Gherghina (2020) and Bornschier (2020), this article suggests an inductive approach to measuring mass-elite policy congruence by studying issue positions and issue salience of masses before turning to elites. Starting with the masses is grounded in the "delegate model" of political representation according to which political representatives should represent the views and interests of their constituency (Mill 1869;Pitkin 1967;Pettit 2009).…”

“…Shim and Gherghina (2020) map the different measurement options and data sources for both issue position and issue salience. As an alternative to party manifesto data, Bankov and Gherghina (2020) illustrate how to gauge elite issue positions by analysing speeches of political leaders. However, the fact that many sub-categories in the latest Manifesto Project's coding instructions include positional coding, either positive or negative, justifies using manifesto data to identify party positions.…”