Public Support for European Integration: An Empirical Test of Five Theories

Waiting for a European Identity … Reflections on the Process of Identification with Europe

“…6 Some authors continue to analyse support for European integration, and place greater emphasis on evaluative rationality behind positive or negative attitudes to the EU (Gabel 1998;Hooghe & Marks 2004;McLaren 2004McLaren , 2006. For these authors, national identity is understood as an affective dimension of opinion as opposed to an evaluative rationality; although they acknowledge both should be taken into account, the latter is key, according to them, in determining the support (or lack thereof) for further integration.…”

When Europe matters: The impact of political information on voting behaviour in EU referendums

“…In addition to these variables relating to attitudes and elite cues, the model also includes variables relating to Gabel's utilitarian expectation explanation (Gabel, 1998a;1998b). By including five-point scales of income and education levels, the model is testing whether or not the "human capital hypothesis" is significant in terms of influencing voting behaviour in EU referendums.…”

“…Finally, a third school contends that utilitarian expectations determine voting behaviour in EU referendums. Matthew Gabel (1998aGabel ( , 1998b has explained support for European integration as a function of individuals' ability to exploit the economic opportunities created by market liberalization in the EU. According to this rational economic actor model, individuals who believe they will benefit economically from European integration are more likely to vote "yes" in an EU referendum.…”

Public perceptions of the EU as a system of governance

“…Not only did they find support for this economic explanation but also coherent and accompanying socio-economic status (SES) and social location effects in the form of education, age, income, and occupation (see below). In another effort, Gabel (1998b) refuted the sociotropic economic argument of Eichenberg and Dalton (1993) demonstrating that declining unemployment and inflation, and rising GDP are associated with less support for integration. Furthermore, when Gabel and Whitten (1997) included both objective national-level indicators and subjective individual-level indicators, they found the latter to be a stronger predictor of EU support.…”