Studying European Citizens' Attitudes: Potential and Limits of Secondary Qualitative Data Analysis
(2013) 20th International Conference of Europeanists — Location: Amsterdam (25.June.2013)
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- Abstract
- This paper aims to build on and broaden previous research on citizens’ attitudes towards European integration, which was conducted in the framework of the Citizens Talking About Europe project (Duchesne & alii, 2013). Before the crisis of 2008 citizens in Britain, France and Francophone Belgium were 'overlooking' Europe by ignoring it in favour of globalisation, economic flows, and crises. Innovative focus group methods allowed analysis of the nature of their reactions and positions, and demonstrate how euroscepticism is a red herring. They articulate instead indifference to and ambivalence about Europe (Van Ingelgom, forthcoming). But this specific research focused on citizens’ attitudes as they were observable in 2006. We now wish to test the generalizability of our results by adopting a diachronic approach. This would be undertaken by secondary analysis of the interviews conducted by Belot in 1995-96 in France and in Britain (Belot, 2000). The paper thus has an important methodological component as it aims to test the possibility of producing new material from the secondary analysis of qualitative data (Elman, Kapiszewski & Vinuela, 2010). This contribution, and the research project on which it relies Reanalysis, aims to produce substantial results on the methodological level, as well as contributing to our understanding of how ordinary citizens appropriate (or not) the European political order. Thus, this paper is part of the qualitative turn in European studies and both complements and challenges established knowledge on European attitudes (Diez Medrano, 2003; Meinhof, 2004 ; Bruter, 2005 ; White, 2010; Gaxie & alii, 2011).
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Van Ingelgom, V. (2013). Studying European Citizens’ Attitudes: Potential and Limits of Secondary Qualitative Data Analysis. 20th International Conference of Europeanists, Amsterdam. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/42437