Citizens
(2023) The Elgar Companion to the European Union — ISBN: [978-1-80088-342-0], p. 194 - 208, published
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- Abstract
- This chapter will focus on presenting the literature dealing with Europeans’ support for European integration and more recently with their Euroscepticism. It will first detail the evolution of the research on public support for and opposition to European integration by stressing how this strand of the literature has been driven by political events, theoretical trends in EU studies as well as data availability (Ray, 2006; Van Ingelgom, 2014). On the heels of the increasing politicization of the EU and the growing interest in understanding citizens’ attitudes that goes with, a well-established literature focuses on the conceptualization and causes of support for and opposition to European integration (de Vries and Hobolt, 2016). In a second section, this chapter thus addresses main approaches dealing with the explanation of public support and Euroscepticism: utilitarian, identity-based and cues approaches. In a third section, this chapter aims to introduce readers to the main contemporary challenges and development in public opinions studies. The chapter illuminates that although a growing literature has sought to explain individual support for European integration, more work is needed to understand the ways in which citizens’ attitudes are shaped by their national and social context. Moreover, this section suggests that citizens’ reactions to European integration cannot be reduced exclusively to either a rise in Euroscepticism or a declining support for European integration, but that indifference and ambivalence need also to be brought into the picture. This chapter offers also a comprehensive review on the existing quantitative and qualitative literature in the field and opens up new perspectives on attitudes towards European integration. In particular, the conclusion reflects on how increasing public contestation of the EU poses a challenge to, and an opportunity for, the future of European integration.
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Citations
Van Ingelgom, V. (2023). Citizens. In Samuel B.H. Faure; Christian Lesquesne (ed.), The Elgar Companion to the European Union (p. p. 194 - 208). Edward Elgar. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/29324