Over the last 20 years, several scholars have argued that the legitimacy of the European Union (EU) suffers from an alarming level of public apathy toward EU affairs. Such critiques often assume that the public is largely ignorant about EU politics. However, we have yet to empirically determine the extent to which Europeans understand the EU or to identify the conditions that lead the public to become better informed about European politics. Given the higher salience of national issues and the greater media attention devoted to national politics, I theorize that most individuals indeed know more about their national government than the EU. Using data from Eurobarometer 61.0 and the 2009 European Election Study, I find individuals indeed perform worse on knowledge batteries at the European level. To better explain the public's understanding of EU affairs, I then model a number of micro- and macro-level predictors of knowledge and find that some of the usual suspects (such as education and the media) influence EU knowledge. Implications are drawn for the study of political behaviour in multilevel political systems.
This article seeks to explain the role of identity politics in defining national elites' perceptions of the European Union (EU) and their subsequent foreign-policy choices. It is argued that when analysing the foreign-policy choices of national elites, not only interests and preferences, but also identity questions must be taken into account. In any national context, ideas, identities and perceptions of self and the EU are expected to impact on subsequent policy choices about Europe. This article seeks to explain this impact by applying a combination of the fusion and social constructivist approaches.Key Words: Europeanizationidentityforeign policysocial constructivismfusion
Abstract In June 2009, European citizens voted in the European Parliamentary elections. Despite the relevance of the election, turnout across countries was particularly low. In Italy, too, abstention is growing and this paper aims to explain why. Traditionally, low turnout in European Parliamentary elections is explained by the fact that they are considered second-order elections and, thus, less important than national elections. According to this perspective, national factors are the main cause of lower turnout as compared to national elections. Thus, it is generally considered that low turnout is not related to citizens' support for the European Union or other European attitudes, such as European identity. In this article, this perspective is questioned and other individual factors are considered. In particular, a number of European attitudes are considered as independent variables together with national factors. The findings show that abstention in European Parliamentary elections in Italy is directly linked to citizens' disaffection with politics, rather than disaffection with government performance. Furthermore, attitudes toward the European Union integration project play a role only when the level of political involvement is high. Thus, European questions matter and turnout in European Parliamentary elections is driven not only by national-level factors, but also by citizens' satisfaction with the European Union and sense of European identity.
Since the early 2000s, the German labour market has undergone a sweeping institutional transformation. While during the 1990s and early 2000s, Germany was usually regarded as the ‘sick man of Europe’, the country's economy has recently been described in many respects as an international role model. Around a decade ago, a reform package was introduced that resulted in the unemployment rate being almost cut in half, in spite of the difficult economic climate due to the financial crisis and the succeeding and still ongoing problems in the Eurozone. However, the success has also been challenged due to its alleged internal and external unpleasant side-effects by critics. After having explained the essence of the German social market economy and its development prior to the deep downswing of 2008/2009 which was coined the ‘Great Recession’ by leading US economists, the paper summarises the key aspects of the rather unexpected German labour market successes since 2009 and addresses claims of related distributional injustice of these reforms within the country as well as assertions that the German success of ongoing high exports and current account surpluses is based on beggar-thy-neighbour policies. Finally, the paper briefly asks whether Germany has faced up to its responsibilities during the crisis in the Eurozone since the end of 2009.
Calls for a referendum on UK's membership in the EU entered permanently into the political debate, and several surveys showed that many British citizens may like to leave the European community. This article examines the portrayal of the EU in the British press during the eurozone recession. It presents analysis of news sections in four newspapers: The Guardian, The Times, The Sun and The Daily Mail, which was conducted between November 2011 and July 2012. The research shows inaccuracies in the coverage of the eurozone crisis that lead to a very unfavourable portrayal of the EU as an artificial, undemocratic organisation dragging Britain and the world into financial problems.
This paper presents a detailed technique for identifying links between the electoral cleavages and political divides, on the one hand, and between the electoral cleavages and factors of social stratification, on the other. The described methodology is subsequently used for studying the political and social content of the electoral cleavages in post-Soviet Russia (1993–2011). Two ‘full’ long-term electoral cleavages are detected that can be interpreted both politically and socially: (1) ‘pro-market modernists versus anti-market traditionalists’; (2) ‘authorities versus community’. The first cleavage defined the political development of the country in the 1990s, the second determined it for the period after 2000. The first cleavage has strong correlation with left-right (socioeconomic) and ‘modernist–traditionalist’ political dimensions, the second with the ‘authoritarian-democratic’ division. Both cleavages are conditioned socially first of all by urban–rural differences or, what is the same, the economic successfulness of different territories. The ‘pro-market modernists versus anti-market traditionalists’ cleavage also has a strong connection to the level of sociocultural development of the territories, the ‘authorities versus community’ cleavage to their demographic characteristics (particularly, ethnic composition).
This paper examines the Europeanization of social movements through frame analysis. Focusing on the case of the French and German pro-asylum movements, it shows how they build new collective identities and increasingly recognize the role of EU institutions and policies. This analysis shows first of all that social movements' organizations coming from different national contexts Europeanize their frames to the same extent and through similar paths. It shows then that, within each country, social movements' organizations with different characteristics frame European institutions and policies differently. These differences are explained by their distinct strategies of protest and alliance at the European level. Organizations acting in Brussels through lobbying techniques tend to follow a process of frame transformation, and organizations protesting at the transnational level tend to follow processes of frame extension and frame bridging. This analysis concentrates on a panel of 23 organizations representative of the pro-asylum movements in France and Germany.
From autumn 2009 onwards, the euro area has experienced a sustained economic crisis that has mutated into a social and political crisis. In 'hard times', existing paradigms come under strain and a high level of contestation concerning policy prescriptions is to be expected. Crises tend to act as focal points for institutional, policy and political change that leave significant legacies. European Union and euro area actors had to engage in a process of collectively decoding the crisis and the problems it engendered given the strong and sustained signals emanating from the financial markets, rating agencies and Europe's international partners. The crisis opened up a deep cleavage within the euro area between creditor and debtor states or Europe's core and periphery. The objective of this paper is to analyse how the crisis was decoded as this had a major impact on the choice of policy instruments and policy responses.
(2014). Portugal Is Not Greece: Policy Responses to the Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Consequences for the Portuguese Political Economy. Perspectives on European Politics and Society: Vol. 15, The Effects of the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis: Differentiated Integration between the Centre and the New Peripheries of the EU, pp. 346-360.
This article analyses the intergovernmental Fiscal Compact, which represents the latest layer in the emerging new governance framework European Union (EU) governments have adopted in response to the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone. The crisis has initiated a new wave of selective functionalist spillover towards noticeably different levels of policy coordination between the eurozone-18 core and the remaining EU member states, who are divided into a semi-periphery and an outer periphery group. As an intergovernmental contract with currently 25 EU member states the Fiscal Compact signifies the decline of the traditional community method of universal supranational integration in favour of a more differentiated form of intergovernmental policy coordination between groups of member states.
Corruption is unanimously recognized as an endemic pathology of the Italian political system. Even after the ‘Tangentopoli’ scandals that broke down the Prima Repubblica and rapidly changed the partisan configuration, corruption remains one of the most relevant problems that affects the public sector. The different successive governments do not seem to have achieved significant results in constraining corruption. Italian citizens perceive institutions as corrupt and are increasingly disenchanted about politics. But what is the opinion of the Italians about the role of the European Union (EU) institutions in facing the problem of corruption? The purpose of this paper is to analyse the perceptions of Italian citizens about the spread of corruption within EU institutions and their potential role in preventing and fighting corruption in their country. In line with the scholarly literature on this topic, we expect that citizens' attitudes toward the EU in relation to the problem of corruption are mainly driven by their perceptions of the domestic national context. Taking advantage of data gathered from the Eurobarometer and comparing the Italian and the European contexts, the paper shows that citizens' opinions about corruption within EU institutions are drawn by their perceptions at the national level. However, at the same time, citizens who express more negative evaluations of the performance at the national level tend to be more confident about the role played by the EU in restraining corruption.
This contribution discusses three pivotal post-Lisbon challenges of EU constitutional law and EU policies vis-à-vis European citizens, using the Decision 1093/2012, which established the European Year of Citizens (EYC) 2013, as a case study or a starting point for further reflection. Because of its silence on these challenges, the Decision unravels them: the need to dissociate legitimacy in the EU from information campaigns and move towards the establishment of additional instruments that will augment democratic legitimacy; the need to reconceptualize the so-called market citizenship, moving beyond references to and reliance upon free-movement rights; and the need to adequately address and protect the rights of third-country nationals. The remainder of this article examines whether the new procedure for the election of the Commission President could turn 2014 a more promising EYC, and considers the provisions of Article 17.7 TEU in relation to the aforementioned threefold constitutional framework.
This article examines approaches and official discrepancies characterising Western European rhetoric with regard to the Kosovo status question. Since the early 1980s, Kosovo has been increasingly present in European debates, culminating with the 1999 international intervention in the region and subsequent talks about its final status. Although the Kosovo Albanians proclaimed independence in February 2008 and the majority of EU Member States decided to recognise Kosovo as an independent state, Western European rhetoric has been rather divided. This article shows that in addition to five EU members who have decided not to recognise Kosovo from the very beginning, and thus are powerful enough to affect its further progress, both locally and internationally, some of the recognisers, although having abandoned the policy of "standards before status", have also struggled to develop full support for the province - a discrepancy that surely questions the overall Western support for Kosovo's independence.
Locked in the commitments of previous governments and arrangements negotiated with the Troika back in 2010 and early 2012, the Greek government continues to channel the burden of fiscal adjustment towards the private sector, killing any nascent thoughts of investment and entrepreneurship in Greece. Simultaneously, bold structural reforms are kept hostage to the uncertain balance of the ruling coalition and negligible majority in the Greek parliament. Caught literally between a rock and a hard place, the authorities seek to attain a primary fiscal surplus, hopeful that this will help to bring an end to the essentially faulty economic adjustment programme for Greece in 2014. Surprisingly, the talk of fiscal surplus alone seems to have ignited positive expectations that the crisis might, in fact, be nearing an end. This suggests that in the same way as the crisis in Greece was provoked by irresponsible and inaccurate statements about Greece's fiscal position and Grexit was a viable option through 2011, discourses on Grecovery may prove constitutive of the end of the crisis. This paper explores this issue and by so doing contemplates the evolving nature of the core-periphery relations in the EU and its policy-making.
The 2010 parliamentary election resulted in the unprecedented electoral success of the Public Affairs, the first electorally successful exclusively populist political party in the history of the Czech Republic. The article examines the history, ideological profile and the internal organization of the party and concludes that the success of the party was facilitated by the growing dissatisfaction with the political situation. The VV result also indicates (together with the success of TOP 09 and the drop in electoral support for ODS) that the dynamics of the party system are changing, and that the right-wing/centre part of the political spectrum in the Czech Republic is undergoing restructuring. When assessing the organizational structure of the party, VV can be labelled as an excellent example of business-firm party.
This paper presents contrasting stories of three pro-EU nations, Germany, Ireland and Slovakia, which have seen their European projects put on a collision course with their political traditions, expectations and material interests. Slovaks can no longer be confident in strengthening their post-communist democracy through its engagement with Europe. In Germany, people are concerned that they can no longer trust their currency, the euro, let alone see it as the bedrock of economic and political stability. Germans are also profoundly worried about the erosion of the rule of law, the Rechtsstaat, through euro rescue measures, which are yet to prove their effectiveness. In Ireland too, people who had experienced European integration as hugely beneficial, both economically and politically, have been forced to question their commitments. To sum up, many German, Slovak and Irish citizens have seen their EU-integration goals severely undermined by the crisis. What is more, the strategies that have been employed to safeguard the single currency have resulted in increased scepticism towards the European project as such. Instead of differentiated integration, the conflicting goals may well be pointing towards Europe's disintegration.
In this article, we analyse Euroscepticism as a common trait of current radical right-wing formations. Public opinion in Italy has become increasingly polarized on the issue of European integration, and largely Eurosceptic. Thus, it is relevant to understand whether there is an ideological opposition to the European Union (EU) in Italy, both inside and outside the Parliament, which, in the future, could capture the malaise of the citizens and grow within the political system. Particularly, we explore differences and similarities between the parliamentary and the extra-parliamentary right. We show that the ways in which they perceive and (negatively) represent the EU through frames is strikingly similar, despite the fact that these organizations do not really cooperate and are even in competition with each other. Ultimately, despite many factors being mature for issue mobilization and the creation of an EU cleavage in Italy, the success of this process largely depends on the ability of the radical right organizations to come to terms with their ideological background, give priority to this emerging cleavage and establish more synergies with each other.
During the last decade, Greek non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have not only increased in number, but have also raised many questions regarding their legitimacy. Their image is negative. With that in mind, the aim of this article is to examine the environment within which Greek NGOs have to operate, and in particular, the interaction between NGOs, the state and the media. In so doing, the following questions will be asked and analysed: first, what is the role and position of Greek NGOs in their interaction with the political system and the media? Are they an expression of bottom-up and citizen volunteerism or a top-down process? How does this enhance or undermine their autonomy and credibility? Second, which opportunities are available to Greek NGOs in a society where culture, combined with the unprecedented economic crisis, heavily doubts and challenges their existence and importance?
AbstractThis paper focuses on the changing boundaries of welfare between EU and national levels by developing a dynamic and actor-centred approach, where different groups of actors compete to influence the social and economic dimensions of EU social policy. The success of ideas and policies around welfare-state reform changes over time in line with socio-economic conditions as well as shifting political-party governmental coalitions in the Council. We argue that in particular the economically oriented actors, including the European Central Bank, have been successful in the context of the Great Recession. More recently, social priorities around notions such as social investment are becoming more central in the EU debate on economic and social policy.Key words: Boundaries of welfarepolitics of welfareEU and welfare-state reform
