Public support for differentiated integration: individual liberal values and concerns about member state discrimination

ABSTRACT

Research on differentiated integration (DI) in the European Union has burgeoned in recent years. However, we still know little about citizens’ attitudes towards the phenomenon. In this article, we argue that at the level of individual citizens, liberal economic values increase support for DI. Stronger preferences for equality, in contrast, make opposition to the concept more likely. Similarly, concerns about discriminatory differentiation at the member state level lead citizens to oppose DI. We test the theoretical claims by analysing survey data on citizens’ attitudes towards a ‘multi-speed Europe’. Supporters of DI, indeed, are marked by liberal economic attitudes. In contrast to general EU support, we do not find robust correlations with socio-demographic variables. Moreover, the data reveal striking differences amongst macro-regions: support for DI has become much lower in Southern European states. We attribute this opposition to negative repercussions of the Eurozone crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• differentiated integration
• European Union
• public opinion
• inequality
• liberalism

Acknowledgements

We presented a previous version of this article at the International Studies Seminar Series, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz. We thank all the participants, in particular, Katharina Holzinger, Gerald Schneider, Christina Zuber, Max Heermann, Gijs Jan Brandsma, Anke Hoeffler, Daniela Kroll, Thomas Malang, Sophia Timmermann and Michael Herrmann, for their helpful comments. In addition, thanks go to Frank Schimmelfennig, John Erik Fossum and two excellent reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Note that the divide between Southern, Northern and Eastern EU member states, widely diagnosed for the Eurozone crisis, has recently resurfaced in discussions of the Corona recovery fund, pitching solidary concerns against claims of autonomy.

2 Research has indeed highlighted that the Eurozone crisis has had a substantive impact on citizens’ evaluations of the EU as well as of member state institutions (cf. e.g., Gomez (2015), Foster and Frieden (2017) and Morlino and Raniolo (2017)).

3 This allows for a non-linear relationship. We simplified the 1–10 scale so that approximately 50 percent of respondents are at the centre, and 25 percent belong to the left or right, respectively.

4 A possible shortcoming of this item is that the question asks about responses to ‘global challenges’, which may not directly elicit respondents’ intrinsic attitudes towards equality or free markets. For future research, developments in behavioural and survey measures of economic preferences might be of relevance (Falk et al., 2018).

5 A summary of all variables and their operationalization can be found in the Appendix.

6 See Bechtel et al. (2014) for a similar approach.

7 Our regional coding follows Hobolt and de Vries (2016): North: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom. South: France, Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta. East: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia. Net EU budget contributors (in 2016): Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, UK.

8 Hobolt (2014) and Malang (2017) follow a similar approach by directly comparing the same regression model with different attitudinal outcomes.

9 We use the following items: ‘Which of the following do you think are the main challenges for the EU?’, with answers ‘Environmental issues’ and ‘Migration issues’ coded as dummies, as well as ‘From the following items, which two should our society emphasise in order to face major global challenges?’, with ‘Protecting the environment’ coded as a dummy.

10 We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this.

11 The item in Eurobarometers 64.2 (2005), 65.2 and 66.1 (2006), and 68.1 (2007) reads, ‘What is your opinion on each of the following statements? Please tell me for each statement, whether you are for it or against it.’ … ‘The speed of building Europe being faster in one group of countries than in the other countries’. In Eurobarometer 67.2 (2007), the same item as in the 2011–2017 surveys analysed previously was asked.

Additional information

Funding

Work on this article was generously supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement 822419.

Notes on contributors

Dirk Leuffen

Dirk Leuffen is a professor of International Politics at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz.

Julian Schuessler

Julian Schuessler is a PhD candidate at the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, and guest researcher at the Institut for Statskundskab, Aarhus University.

Jana Gómez Díaz

Jana Gómez Díaz is a PhD candidate at Pompeu Fabra University and a pre-doctoral researcher at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals.