Domestic Contestation of the European Union

Sara B. Hobolt, Toni Rodon, Sara B. Hobolt, Toni Rodon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367767846
• eBook ISBN: 9781000399219
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines how Europe-wide issues – such as immigration, cross-national redistribution and further European integration – have reshaped electoral democracy and party competition across Europe.

After decades of scholars and commentators bemoaning the limited politicization of the EU nationally, European issues have come to dominate domestic electoral politics. From the Eurozone crisis to the struggle of dealing with growing numbers of migrants and refugees entering Europe, EU-wide issues now occupy a salient part of the domestic political debate. This book examines what drives public opinion towards some of the key Europe-wide issues of the day and how these EU issues shapes electoral behaviour and party competition. It brings together leading scholars from different fields to explore what shapes preferences towards Europe-wide policy issues, how they influence electoral behaviour and party fortunes and what the implications are for the quality of European democracy. Overall, this book deepens our understanding of the state of European democracy domestically in an era in which national and Europe-wide problems and policy solutions are inextricably linked.

The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of European Public Policy.

OPEN ACCESS

Europe belongs to the young? Generational differences in public opinion towards the European Union during the Eurozone crisis

Fabian Lauterbach and Catherine E. De Vries

ABSTRACT

The notion that younger people hold more favourable attitudes towards the European Union (EU) is prevalent in both academic and popular discourse. While certain events like the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom fit this intuition, other developments such as Eurosceptic parties garnering considerable support among millennial voters in some member states do not. To understand these diverging trends, this study draws our attention to how specific events shape EU support. It empirically demonstrates how the Eurozone crisis shapes generational divides. Younger cohorts in debtor countries have become significantly more sceptical of the EU than their peers in creditor states. The opposite pattern emerges for older cohorts. Older generations are more supportive of the EU in debtor countries compared to creditor states. These findings have important implications for our understanding of how public support for the EU will develop in the future by suggesting that generational divides are highly context-dependent.

Introduction

The notion that younger people hold more favourable attitudes towards the European Union (EU) is dominant in both scholarly and popular discourse (e.g., Down and Wilson 2013, 2017; Fligstein 2008; Ford and Goodwin 2014; Keating 2014; Lubbers and Scheepers 2005, 2010). Much of the empirical evidence to date suggests that younger people are more likely to be positive about European integration. The reasons for this finding are manifold. Younger people are socialized in an increasingly integrated Europe (Down and Wilson 2013, 2017), and therefore less ideologically and affectively bound to national institutions and sovereignty (Scherer 2015). Younger cohorts are also characterized by higher levels of education and political sophistication, therefore possibly more post-materialist in their value orientations (e.g., Inglehart 1984), and less concerned about their national identity as a result (McLaren 2002). Recent developments in some member states fit the notion of a more supportive youth. Take the United Kingdom for example. In the 2016 Brexit referendum, about three-quarters of the 18–24-year-olds voted to remain in the EU.¹ Yet, the picture of a more supportive youth becomes murkier when we consider recent developments in other member states, such as France and Italy for example. Rightwing Eurosceptic presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was more popular among young voters, those aged between 18 and 24, than Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 French presidential elections.² Meanwhile in the 2018 parliamentary elections in Italy, over sixty per cent of millennial voters supported the two main Eurosceptic parties, the League and the Five Star Movement.³

How can we account for these different developments across member states? This study draws our attention to context. It suggests that the distinct experience a generation makes with the EU shapes intra-generational divides in EU support. To empirically illustrate how context may shape generational patterns in support for the EU, this study focuses on the Eurozone crisis. The Eurozone crisis erupted after the financial crisis broke out in the United States following the collapse of the investment bank Lehmann Brothers. In Europe, financial turmoil quickly turned into a sovereign debt crisis. By 2012, several EU member states had received some form of financial bailout. Youth unemployment was one of the most important channels through which the consequences of Eurozone crisis were transmitted differently across member states. Youth unemployment reached over 20% in the EU as a whole at the height of the crisis, and only slightly decreased to about 17% in 2017. These numbers mask huge variation between debtor and creditor countries. Debtor countries, like Greece and Spain, entered the Eurozone crisis with youth unemployment rates of 23 and 18% respectively, but as crisis took hold of their economies about one in two of young people became unemployed. In contrast, the youth unemployment rate in a creditor country like Germany, overall much less affected by the crisis, declined within the Eurozone crisis timeframe from about 12 in 2007 to 8% in 2013. In 2017, youth unemployment in Greece and Spain remained high, with 44% and 37% respectively, while in creditor countries, like Germany and the Netherlands, it was only about 8% and 9% respectively. European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi highlighted the significance of these persistent differences in a 2017 speech: ‘the persistence and heterogeneity of youth unemployment across member states point to continued underlying problems in labour market structures, with correspondingly high costs for our societies’.⁴

The experience with the Eurozone crisis differed tremendously across creditor and debtor states with considerable effects on public opinion and political behaviour (on the importance of crisis, see Lefkofridi and Schmitter 2015). What we do not know is how these different experiences shaped public support for the EU across generations. Existing work on generational divides stems largely from North Western Europe and fails to take into account the important ways in which generational divides differ across contexts. This study aims to remedy this lack of understanding by exploring generational divides based on the Eurozone crisis experience, i.e., being a debtor or creditor country. If, as we argue, generational effects differ based on the experience of the crisis, we should find very different generational patterns in support for the EU across creditor and debtor states. While we would expect generational divides to be quite similar before the crisis, they should diverge as the crisis kicks in. Specifically, we expect the differences between younger and older cohorts in debtor countries, that were worst hit in the crisis, to become less pronounced during the crisis compared to those in creditor countries and other member states that were overall less affected.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically examine the context-dependent nature of generational differences in support for the EU. In doing so, it empirically tests the popular image of young Europhiles versus older Eurosceptics. By stressing the importance of how the Eurozone crisis affected age cohorts⁵ differently across member states, this study contributes to the broader literature on the causes and dynamics of public support for the EU. The results somewhat temper the widespread belief that Euroscepticism will gradually disappear simply with the passing of time and through generational replacement. The specific experiences that each generation makes with the EU will be crucially important.

This study proceeds as follows. First, we examine existing work on generational trends in public opinion towards European integration, distinguish key issues that we think require further examination, and outline how this study aims to fill current gaps in our understanding. Second, we provide an overview of the data and method used to examine generational divides. Third, we present the results of the empirical analysis. Finally, we conclude by highlighting the importance of these findings.

Generational trends in public opinion towards European integration

Public opinion towards European integration has enjoyed extensive academic attention over the years (Hobolt and De Vries 2016). One key topic in scholarly work has been generational differences in support for European integration. As early as 1971, Ronald Inglehart introduced the notion that younger generations should be more supportive of European integration. Based on the idea that the youth is more likely to adopt post-materialist value orientations, Inglehart (1971: 1) expected them to ‘be much less nationalistic, and perhaps relatively ready to surrender some of their national sovereignty to European political institutions’. Younger generations were more likely to approve of the EU’s normative role in international politics more generally (Inglehart 1984).

The notion that younger people hold more favourable opinions about the EU is dominant in the literature (e.g., Down and Wilson 2013, 2017; Fligstein 2008; Ford and Goodwin 2014; Keating 2014; Lubbers and Scheepers 2005, 2010). Two key mechanisms have been put forward to account for generational differences: one rooted in education and one in socialization. Higher educational attainment is generally seen as a key factor in creating more support for the EU (Gabel 1998). Research suggests that increased educational attainment may not only make larger proportions of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Domestic contestation of the European Union
• 1 Europe belongs to the young? Generational differences in public opinion towards the European Union during the Eurozone crisis
• 2 Labour market dualism and immigration policy preferences
• 3 Preferences for European unemployment insurance: a question of economic ideology or EU support?
• 4 Cross-cutting issues and electoral choice. EU issue voting in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum
• 5 Electoral fortunes of social democratic parties: do second dimension positions matter?
• 6 Responding to far right challengers: does accommodation pay off?
• 7 Multidimensional incongruence, political disaffection, and support for anti-establishment parties
• 8 Mismatch? Comparing elite and citizen polarisation on EU issues across four countries
• 9 Unity in diversity? Polarization, issue diversity and satisfaction with democracy
• Index