Does more knowledge about the European Union lead to a stronger European identity? A comparative analysis among adolescents in 21 European member states

Abstract

Strengthening European identity is often considered as one of the mechanisms to address the perceived lack of legitimacy of the European Union (EU). In this study we test the explanatory power of cognitive mobilization for the development of European identity (more knowledge about the EU leads to a stronger European identity) and we challenge this model by the inclusion of both an economic utilitarian explanation for European identity (benefiting more from EU integration leads to a stronger European identity) and a political trust approach (having more political trust leads to a stronger European identity). The multilevel regression analysis on the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009 data, which is collected among adolescents in 21 member states, shows that knowledge about the EU has a significant but limited effect on European identity. Personal economic benefits because of EU membership and having trust in national political institutions, in contrast, are more important determinants for the development of European identity.

Keywords:

• European identity
• European Union
• International Civics and Citizenship Education Study 2009
• political knowledge
• economic utilitarianism
• political trust

Notes

1. The research was carried out in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, UK, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. It is important to remark that the national educational authorities were responsible for financing this research. More precisely this meant for Belgium that only the Dutch language community participated. The French-speaking community did not allocate financial resources to participate. In the UK only England participated, not Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The Netherlands originally did take part in the study, but the Dutch research team failed to meet the necessary response rate and therefore the Dutch data are not included in the data-set and the current analysis.

2. Hooghe and Dassonneville (2011) also included variables that measure how often adolescents watch or listen to the news broadcast and talk about politics. There appeared to be multicollinearity between these variables and the variable interest in our model. We keep the variable interest in our model because this measures more directly respondents’ interest than when we measure interest more indirectly by looking at media use.

3. The original member states that are included in our sample are Belgium, Luxembourg, and Italy. Between 1973 and 1995 are Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, and England that accessed. The new member states in our sample are Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.