scholarly journals Trust in context: National heuristics and survey context effects on political trust in the European Union

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Brosius ◽  
Erika J van Elsas ◽  
Claes H de Vreese

Trust in the European Union is strongly related to trust in national political institutions through extrapolation, i.e. cues from national politics. Most evidence for this mechanism, however, is based on surveys using question blocks that present several institutions at once in non-randomized order. We conducted six split-ballot survey experiments in five European countries, asking about trust in national and European Union institutions (a) separately or in the same question block and (b) in different question orders. Our findings demonstrate survey context effects: asking about two institutions within the same question block increases the correlation of reported levels of trust in these institutions. Furthermore, our findings indicate that national primes decrease reported trust in the European Union, providing novel micro-level evidence for extrapolation and cue-taking from national politics in the formation of public opinion about the European Union.

Author(s):  
Anna Michalski

This chapter examines the adaptations that have occurred in Sweden’s political and administrative system following its admission to the European Union on 1 January 1995. Sweden became a member of the EU on 1 January 1995 after a long period of hesitation. After fifteen years of membership, reticence has given way to a more positive stance, best characterized as pragmatic support. The chapter first considers patterns in Sweden’s membership in the EU before discussing Swedish public opinion towards the EU and the impact of Sweden’s EU membership on the country’s political parties, political institutions, public administration, and sub-national actors such as the civil service. The chapter goes on to explore Sweden’s approach to EU public policy and concludes by comparing its experience with those of other member states, including Austria and Finland.


Author(s):  
Paolo R. Graziano ◽  
Maarten P. Vink

This chapter explores a number of fundamental issues that arise when studying Europeanization. It first explains what Europeanization is and what it is not, why some parts of political life seem more affected by the process of European integration than others, and how to interpret variation between member states of the European Union. It then considers the theoretical debates about the relevance of Europeanization, focusing on new institutionalism, goodness of fit, mediating factors, and domestic compliance. It also provides examples of Europeanization studies and shows how to design a good Europeanization study. Aside from Europeanization, the chapter examines public opinion and parties, political institutions and governance, and public policy, along with methodological issues such as operationalization, the use of counterfactuals, and different qualitative, quantitative, and mixed approaches.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Fernando Casal Bértoa ◽  
Zsolt Enyedi

On New Year’s Day 1993 Czechoslovakia was dissolved, giving place to two new European countries, Czechia and Slovakia. Czechs and Slovaks lived under Habsburg rule for centuries, then, between 1918 and 1938 and between 1945 and 1993, under a common state. Their coexistence, their shared culture and their common experience of Communism provided them with a similar background for the development of democratic party politics. Their new political institutions (parliamentarism, proportional electoral system, etc.) and their membership in the European Union (EU) after 2004 enhanced the forces of convergence. Yet, in the mid-2000s the Czechs were considered to have one of the most stable party systems in post-Communist Europe, while the Slovaks had a rather chaotic party landscape....


Author(s):  
Yulia S. Chechikova

Digitization of a national cultural and scientific heritage is one of the long-term strategic problems of the European countries’ governments. Member countries of the European Union make major efforts in providing access to their cultural heritage. In the article the process of an access provision is described for Finland.


Author(s):  
Suzana Mehmedi Ph.D ◽  
Ilir Mehmedi Ph.D

The problem of research is very current for several reasons. Namely, the dominant approach on the basis of which are based all have developed and established theories of European integration, developing modern theories of international relations is a realistic basis. Neo-functionalism, inter-guvernmentalism, neo-liberalism, institutionalism (in most of its variants) as the most developed branches of the theory of European integration, despite differences in their settings to keep the basic premise that states are rational, unitary actors, whose interest stems from the assessment of their position in the system of states. For our study caused a special interest model of constructivism using Habermas theory of communicative action according to which entities in mutual interaction is open to other arguments and their validity appreciate having regard to the outgoing reasons and norms on which they are based, thereby seeking consensus as a common goal. Apply to the European Union, this approach allows European institutions were perceived as a place of discussion to reach consensus on solving common problems, rather than just the arena for bargaining. Functional adaptation to the numerous petitions which sets the European Union, requires thorough and integrated activities in the economic, institutional, administrative and legislative spheres. This process should be understood as a continuous, painstaking and long process, not a single radical surgery. Republic of Macedonia, as countries aspiring for membership in the European family must meet the political and economic criteria and to adapt political institutions in the country with those of the European Union and their needs and requirements. The aim of this paper is to perceive the key features and trends in the politics of enlargement and to make a comparison between the policy of expansion applied in the process of accession Central and Eastern Europe and the policy of expansion in the process of stabilization and association, with special emphasis on the Republic of Macedonia. Of course, previously been necessary to develop theoretical and practical approach to the concept of policy integration, development and its major elements and modalities.


Author(s):  
Tracey Raney

This paper is about the ways that citizens perceive their place in the political world around them, through their political identities. Using a combination of comparative and quantitative methodologies, the study traces the pattern of citizens’ political identifications in the European Union and Canada between 1981 and 2003 and explains the mechanisms that shape these political identifications. The results of the paper show that in the EU and Canada identity formation is a process that involves the participation of both individuals and political institutions yet between the two, individuals play a greater role in identity construction than do political institutions. The paper argues that the main agents of political identification in the EU and Canada are citizens themselves: individuals choose their own political identifications, rather than acquiring identities that are pre-determined by historical or cultural precedence. The paper makes the case that this phenomenon is characteristic of a rise of ‘civic’ identities in the EU and Canada. In the European Union, this overarching ‘civic’ identity is in its infancy compared to Canada, yet, both reveal a new form of political identification when compared to the historical and enduring forms of cultural identities firmly entrenched in Europe. The rise of civic identities in both the EU and Canada is attributed to the active role that citizens play in their own identity constructions as they base their identifications on rational assessments of how well political institutions function, and whether their memberships in the community will benefit them, rather than on emotional factors rooted in religion or race. In the absence of strongly held emotional identifications, in the EU and Canada political institutions play a passive role in identity construction by making the community appear more entitative to its citizens. These findings offer new theoretical scope to the concept of civic communities and the political identities that underpin them. The most important finding presented in the paper is that although civic communities and identities are manufactured by institutions and political elites (politicians and bureaucrats), they require thinking citizens, not feeling ones, to be sustained.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.179


Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries

The European Union (EU) is facing one of the rockiest periods in its existence. At no time in its history has it looked so economically fragile, so insecure about how to protect its borders, so divided over how to tackle the crisis of legitimacy facing its institutions, and so under assault by Eurosceptic parties. The unprecedented levels of integration in recent decades have led to increased public contestation, yet at the same the EU is more reliant on public support for its continued legitimacy than ever before. This book examines the role of public opinion in the European integration process. It develops a novel theory of public opinion that stresses the deep interconnectedness between people’s views about European and national politics. It suggests that public opinion cannot simply be characterized as either Eurosceptic or not, but rather that it consists of different types. This is important because these types coincide with fundamentally different views about the way the EU should be reformed and which policy priorities should be pursued. These types also have very different consequences for behaviour in elections and referendums. Euroscepticism is such a diverse phenomenon because the Eurozone crisis has exacerbated the structural imbalances within the EU. As the economic and political fates of member states have diverged, people’s experiences with and evaluations of the EU and national political systems have also grown further apart. The heterogeneity in public preferences that this book has uncovered makes a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing Euroscepticism unlikely to be successful.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Eva Eckert ◽  
Oleksandra Kovalevska

In the European Union, the concern for sustainability has been legitimized by its politically and ecologically motivated discourse disseminated through recent policies of the European Commission and the local as well as international media. In the article, we question the very meaning of sustainability and examine the European Green Deal, the major political document issued by the EC in 2019. The main question pursued in the study is whether expectations verbalized in the Green Deal’s plans, programs, strategies, and developments hold up to the scrutiny of critical discourse analysis. We compare the Green Deal’s treatment of sustainability to how sustainability is presented in environmental and social science scholarship and point out that research, on the one hand, and the politically motivated discourse, on the other, do not correlate and often actually contradict each other. We conclude that sustainability discourse and its keywords, lexicon, and phraseology have become a channel through which political institutions in the EU such as the European Commission sideline crucial environmental issues and endorse their own presence. The Green Deal discourse shapes political and institutional power of the Commission and the EU.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 435-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet P. Stamatel

This study utilized a fairly new measure of gender equality from the European Union to dissect the relationship between gender-specific homicide victimization rates and different forms of gender equality across a sample of European countries. Results showed support for a curvilinear relationship between financial equality and female and male homicide victimization, providing support for amelioration and backlash theories, but no support for absolute economic marginalization. While there were some similarities between the female and male models, there were enough differences to warrant further investigations of gendered theories of violent victimization.


2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONIS ANTONIADIS

Ranging from the denial of direct effect to WTO law by the Court of Justice to a WTO-friendly legislative culture currently booming in the EU's political institutions, different approaches towards WTO law have been adopted within the EU. This article classifies the different approaches into reactive, coactive, and proactive by drawing on their common characteristics. The principal aim is to explore the considerations shaping the development of the different approaches and to argue that these stem from the interaction between the judiciary and the legislature. In doing so, this article purports to provide a comprehensive view of the application of WTO law within the Community legal order.


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