VOTING PARTICIPATION AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE EUROPEAN UNION

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the long-held thesis that political participation educates and transforms individuals. The theoretical framework of this study combines two theories: the theory of the formative effect of elections and the participatory democracy theory. The central contention of this research is that the more an individual has participated in EP elections, the more strongly one holds positive attitudes toward the EU. To deal with the reverse causality that might flow from positive attitudes toward the EU to voting participation in the EP elections, this study employs instrument variable (IV) regression analysis. The results of the analysis using Eurobarometer 54.1 provide support for a significant effect of voting participation in the EP elections on the formation of positive attitudes toward the EU.

Keywords:

• attitudes toward the EU
• EP election
• voting participation

Notes

¹There are works that examine the interaction effect of economy and identity on public attitude toward the EU. For example, Garry and Tilley (2009) show that the impact of identity is conditional on economic context.

²Radcliff and Wingenbach (2000) state that some disagreement exists over the strength of educative effects of participation and that a few studies have found the educative effect of participation to be ‘negligible’. For example, Finkel (1985) and Freie (1997) each report inconsistent evidence on the extent of participation's influence on political efficacy. And, Sobel (1993), while generally supportive of educative benefits, concedes that the relationships are only of ‘modest’ strength.

³Additionally, it should be noted that considering the yet undeveloped status of pan-European education, the mass media systems, and language, elections can work more powerfully in gradually forging over-arching public compliance with and acceptance of the EU among European citizenry. Currently, there are few effective pan-European education systems yet; and what they teach is mostly determined by national, not European, priorities (Smith 1992). Also, the fact of great linguistic diversity in Europe often has been cited as the highest barrier preventing the emergence of a genuine sense of community (Laitin 1997). Neither do the mass media play an important role in forming positive attitudes toward the EU, yet. News stories tend to be relayed or at least interpreted from a national standpoint, and drama, comedy shows, and the weather reports accord the national state and its literature and outlook first place (Smith 1992). Also, media outlets are either skeptical about or uninterested in the EU (Corbett et al. 2003; Peter et al. 2003).

⁴The title of the Eurobarometer used is ‘Building Europe and the European Union, the European Parliament, Public Safety, and Defense Policy, November–December 2000’. The sample size is 16,067.

⁵We have also conducted a separate analysis using each question for every empirical test that follows. The substantive results do not change. Also, it should be noted that the correlations between the three items are all above 0.4, which is significant at 0.01.

⁶In a similar vein, Inglehart and Rabier (1978) and Anderson and Kaltenthaler (1996) emphasize the importance of timing of entry and length of membership on support for integration. They argue that the longer a country has an active participation in the common market, the more likely it is that its public support will increase.

⁷Age is based on a respondent's age in years. With respect to gender, male is coded as 1 and female as 2. Education is measured by asking how old respondents were when they stopped full-time education, which is recoded as a 9-point scale. Income is measured by respondents’ household income under four main categories.

⁸A personal economic prospect is based on the index of three items measuring respondent's expectations concerning (1) the respondent's future life; (2) their financial situation; and (3) their job situation. The national economic prospect variable is from the index of two items measuring the respondent's expectations concerning (1) the economic situation in the respondent's country and (2) the employment situation in their country.

⁹A respondent's member state's net contribution to the EU budget is measured by GDP per capital % of the EU average (1998–2000). This information is taken from the European Commission.

¹⁰For the variables of national attachment and European attachment, this study uses the questions that ask respondents to tell how attached they feel to their country and to Europe (1 = very attached … 4 = not at all attached). Exclusive national identity is a dichotomous variable that takes the value of 1 for respondents with exclusive national identity (nationality only). This is recoded from the question, ‘In the near future, do you see yourself as (1) nationality only, (2) nationality and European, (3) European and nationality, or (4) European only.’ Multiculturalism is measured by the question that asks, ‘Thinking about the enlargement of the European Union to include new countries, do you tend to agree or tend to disagree with the following statement: with more member countries, Europe will be culturally richer’ (1 = tend to disagree, 2 = tend to agree). Political ideology is measured by asking respondents, ‘In political matters, people talk of ‘the left’ and ‘the right’. How would you place your views on this scale?’ (1 = left … 10 = right).

¹¹For aggregate voter turnout, election-day weather was suggested as a proper instrument in Hansford and Gomez (2010). Different from Hansford and Gomez's work, an independent variable of interest in our study is individuals' voting, which is based on the question of how many European Parliament elections respondents have voted in. The data used in this paper does not contain a question that asks if one voted in a specific election. Therefore, it is impossible to match one's voting with election-day weather.

¹²Opinion leadership is an index of (1) how often respondents discuss political matters and (2) how often respondents try to persuade friends, relatives, or fellow workers. Hooghe and Marks (2005) use the same questions to measure opinion leadership.