Europeans and the European Community: the dynamics of public support for European integration

TLDR

Europeans assess the European Community based on its economic performance, political salience, and role in international relations. The study seeks to explain public support for European integration by integrating comparative political economy and international relations. It applies pooled cross‑sectional and time‑series analysis to comparative public‑opinion data. Across two decades, support for integration rose when inflation fell, trade share grew, EC elections and referenda heightened attention, and during relaxed East‑West relations, and was unaffected by national budget shares; recent reforms are likely to sustain or increase support despite past setbacks.

Abstract

Europeans evaluate the European Community (EC) according to its economic performance, political salience, and role in international relations. During the last two decades their measured attitudes toward European integration warmed especially when inflation rates fell, as the EC share of the country's trade expanded, when EC elections and referenda increased attention to the community, and to some extend during periods when East-West relations were relaxed. Europeans did not vary their support according to their countries' shares of the Brussels budget. Thus, notwithstanding Denmark's 1992 rejection of the Maastricht treaty and the end of the cold war, recent EC reforms that increase monetary stability, intra-European trade and political attention are all likely to maintain or increase citizen support for the EC. These findings result from a model that blends comparative political economy with international relations in one of the first applications of pooled cross-sectional and time-series analysis to the comparative study of public opinion.