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20 - The Multidimensional Nature of Public EU Attitudes

from Networks and Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2023

By
Claes H. de Vreese ,
Andreas C. Goldberg  and
Anna Brosius
Edited by
Mathieu Segers  and
Steven Van Hecke
Mathieu Segers
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
Steven Van Hecke
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
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Summary

It is a truism that not all citizens hold the same opinions when it comes to the European Union (EU), European collaboration, integration, the euro and more. That is rather logical. Why would they? The EU today covers a vast range of policy areas and it seems perfectly legitimate to support some initiatives more than others. Some citizens might be satisfied with how the EU operates, but do not feel that they reap the (economic) benefits, or vice versa.

In general terms, the past decades have seen a significant rise of Euroscepticism across many EU member countries. At the same time, support for pro-EU parties has also increased. This may seem contradictory, but it could also be a hint that EU attitudes can be mixed, ambivalent or multidimensional. We currently do not have a very good overview of how different dimensions of attitudes to the EU have developed over time. Most research was constrained to very limited indicators of public support in most public opinion surveys.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the European Union , pp. 516 - 535
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Recommended Reading

Boomgaarden, H. G., Schuck, A. R., Elenbaas, M. and de Vreese, C. H.. ‘Mapping EU Attitudes: Conceptual and Empirical Dimensions of Euroscepticism and EU Support’, European Union Politics 12, no. 2 (2011): 241–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vries, C. E. and Hobolt, S. B.. Political Entrepreneurs: The Rise of Challenger Parties in Europe (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2020).Google Scholar
Hameleers, M. and Goldberg, A. C.. ‘Europe against the People: Does Eurosceptic News Exposure Relate to Populist Attitudes? Evidence from a Linkage Study across Nine European Countries’, Political Research Exchange 4, no. 1 (2022) online, unpaginated.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutter, S., Grande, E. and Kriesi, H. (eds.). Politicising Europe: Integration and Mass Politics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gattermann, K. The Personalization of Politics in the European Union (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. C., van Elsas, E. J. and De Vreese, C. H.. ‘Eurovisions: An Exploration and Explanation of Public Preferences for Future EU Scenarios’, Journal of Common Market Studies 59, no. 2 (2021): 222–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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