Sources of EU Support: The Case of Germany

Abstract

The determinants of support for European integration and the European Union have been analysed by previous research from a comparative perspective: factors that help to explain the differences between the levels of support of the EU member states are considered to be the factors that drive EU support in general. This article takes a different approach using a cross-time perspective to identify the sources of EU support and to investigate the causal structure of the effects. We analyse German support for European integration which is very volatile over time and test potential explanations for these fluctuations. Three bundles of factors are considered: the economy, the increasing scope of EU policies, and the domestic political process. It appears that all three are associated with fluctuations of German support for European integration. However, domestic politics seems to be mightier than often understood. The empirical evidence that is presented in support of these claims is taken from the Mannheim Eurobarometer Trendfile and recent Eurobarometer surveys, from the Comparative Political Data Set, and from the official handbook of the Bundestag.

Notes

E.g. Gerhard Brunn, Die Europäische Einigung von 1945 bis heute (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2002).

E.g. Martin Greiffenhagen and Sylvia Greiffenhagen, Ein schwieriges Vaterland. Zur politischen Kultur im vereinigten Deutschland (München: List, 1993).

This is certainly a correct description of the European integration process at least until the integration steps that followed the completion of the ‘Single European Market’, i.e. the treaties of Maastricht, Nice, and Lisbon plus the draft constitutional treaty which is currently in its second round of ratification.

Richard C. Eichenberg and Russell J. Dalton, ‘Europeans and the European Community: The Dynamics of Public Support for European Integration’, International Organization 47 (1993), pp.507–34.

Christopher J. Anderson and Karl C. Kaltenthaler, ‘The Dynamics of Public Opinion toward European Integration 1973–93’, European Journal of International Relations 2/2 (1996), pp.175–99; Jenna Bednar, John Ferejohn and Geoffrey Garrett, ‘The Politics of European Federalism’, International Review of Law and Economics 16/3 (1996), pp.279–94; Matthew Gabel and Guy Whitten, ‘Economic Conditions, Economic Perceptions, and Public Support for European Integration’, Political Behavior 19/1 (1997), pp.81–96.

Richard C. Eichenberg and Russell J. Dalton, ‘Post-Maastricht Blues: The Transformation of Citizen Support for European Integration, 1973–2004’, Acta Politica 42 (2007), pp.128–52.

E.g. Oskar Niedermayer and Richard Sinnot (eds.), Public Opinion and International Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Hermann Schmitt, ‘The European Parliament Elections of 2004: Still Second-Order?’, West European Politics 28 (2005), pp.650–79.

Thoma König and Lars Mäder, ‘Das Regieren jenseits des Nationalstaates und der Mythos der 80-Prozent-Europäisierung in Deutschland’, Politische Viertelsjahresschrift 49/3 (2008), pp.438–64.

E.g. Hermann Schmitt and Jacques Thomassen (eds.), Political Representation and Legitimacy in the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Ignacio Sanchez-Cuenza, ‘The Political Basis of Support for European Integration’, European Union Politics 1 (2000), pp.147–72.

Robert Rohrschneider, ‘The Democracy Deficit and Mass Support for an EU-Wide Government’, American Journal of Political Science 46/2 (2002), pp.463–75.

See Angelika Scheuer, How Europeans see Europe. Structure and Dynamics of European Legitimacy Beliefs (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005a), p.113.

Ibid., pp.81–2.

Note however that the proportion of missing values has risen over time from around 3–5 in the early years to around 13–15 per cent of all interviewed.

Klaus Armingeon, Marlène Gerber, Philipp Leimgruber, Michelle Beyeler and Sarah Menegale, Comparative Political Data Set I (2007), http://www.ipw.unibe.ch/content/team/klaus_armingeon/comparative_political_data_sets/index_ger.html (accessed October 2008).

For a discussion of the distributional characteristics of German GDP see Bernd Lucke, ‘Is Germany's GDP Trend-Stationary? A Measurement-With-Theory Approach’, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik 225 (2005), pp. 60–76.

Michael F. Feldkamp with Birgit Ströbel, Datenhandbuch zur Geschichte des Deutschen Bundestages 1994–2003 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2005).

Leon N. Lindberg and Stuart A. Scheingold, Europe's Would-be Polity. Patterns of Change in the European Community (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970); Philippe C. Schmitter, ‘Dangers and Dilemmas of Democracy’, Journal of Democracy 5/2 (1994), pp.3–13; Lisbeth Hooghe and Gary Marks, Multilevel Governance and European Integration (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001). For a visual summary see Schmitt, ‘The European Parliament Elections of 2004’.

See for an elaboration of those concepts David A. Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: John Wiley, 1965); David A. Easton, ‘A Re-Assessment of the Concept of Political Support’, British Journal of Political Science 5 (1975), pp.435–57.

For a discussion of the properties of the indicator see e.g. Hermann Schmitt, ‘Party Government in Public Opinion’, European Journal of Political Research 11 (1983), pp.353–76; Dieter Fuchs, Giovanna Guidorossi and Palle Svensson, ‘Support for the Democratic System’, in Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs (eds.), Citizens and the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.323–53.

Eastern and Western levels are not distinguished in the graph; see for a detailed description of the separate trend-lines Angelika Scheuer, ‘Demokratiezufriedenheit in Deutschland sinkt unter EU-Niveau. Eine europäisch vergleichende Analyse’, Informationsdienst Soziale Indikatoren 33 (2005b), pp.8–11.

Even the best fit-indicator cannot prove that the theoretical model is ‘true’. There might always be another system of structural equations with an equal or even better ‘fit’ in the data structure.

There is a hierarchical order in the importance of these three pieces of information. If the model does not fit the data, one must not trust any result – fit indicators are therefore of utmost importance. A model might fit the data without explaining much variance, in which case it is probably not wrong but certainly not very helpful. Explained variance therefore comes second in the hierarchy. Individual effects therefore are important only when a model fits the data, and can explain substantial portions of variance in the data structure.

E.g. the World Bank scores in Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi, ‘Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996–2006’, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4280 (2007).