Rage Against the System or its Measures?
Polity and Policy related Euroscepticism in Times of Economic Crisis
Author: Hanne Gewecke Supervisor: Christer Karlsson Master’s thesis 30 hp
Department of Government Uppsala University
2020-09-25
Word count: 19 996
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Rage Against the System or its Measures?
Polity and Policy related Euroscepticism in Times of Economic Crisis Abstract
This master’s thesis offers a descriptive investigation of how public Euroscepticism has changed during the economic crisis. By regarding Eurosceptic opinions as positions on a scale as well as differentiating between opposition towards policy (concrete decisions and measures) and polity (the EU as a political system), the results show that overall, European citizens have not only become negative towards how the EU handled the crisis in terms of policy output. Policy opposition also tends to spill over into the polity area, entailing increasing preferences for reducing EU competences and for leaving the union all together. The policy-polity distinction is a perspective on Euroscepticism as opposition, that has largely been set aside in previous research.
Furthermore, the paper describes how support for the EU polity and its policies has changed in different member states through a cross country analysis. The results show that there is great and unexpected variation between countries that would be assumed to display a similar development in the light of previous research. In addition, there are similarities between countries that were expected to develop differently. This indicates a limited understanding in this research field of how national factors influence public attitudes towards the European Union. A topic that needs to be investigated further.
Keywords: Euroscepticism, Public opinion, Euro crisis, European integration
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Table of contents
Abstract ... 1
1. Introduction ... 4
1.1. Background ... 6
2. Previous research ... 7
2.1. Defining Euroscepticism... 7
2.2. Euroscepticism in times of crisis ... 12
2.3. Hypotheses ... 18
3. Research design and methods ... 22
3.1. Case selection ... 22
3.2. Measuring Euroscepticism ... 24
4. Results and Analysis ... 28
4.1. EU25 ... 28
4.2. Most affected EMU countries ... 30
4.3. Least affected EMU countries ... 36
4.4. Least affected non-EMU countries ... 40
4.5. Most affected non-EMU country... 45
4.6. Summary of cross-country comparisons and hypotheses evaluations ... 47
5. Conclusions ... 49
References ... 53
European Commission: Eurobarometer datasets ... 55
Appendix ... 58
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Polity and policy support in the EU (25 members states) 2004-2015 ... 29
Figure 2: Polity and policy support in Greece 2000-2015 ... 31
Figure 3: Polity and policy support in Spain 2000-2015 ... 32
Figure 4: Polity and policy support in Portugal 2000-2015... 34
Figure 5: Polity and policy support in Ireland 2000-2015 ... 35
Figure 6: Polity and Policy support in Germany 2000-2015 ... 37
Figure 7: Polity and Policy support in Austria 2000-2015 ... 38
Figure 8: Polity and Policy support in Finland 2000-2015 ... 40
Figure 9: Polity and policy support in the UK 2000-2015 ... 41
Figure 10: Polity and policy support in Sweden 2000-2015 ... 43
Figure 11: Polity and policy support in Poland 2004-2015 ... 44
Figure 12: Polity and policy support in Hungary 2004-2015 ... 46
Figure 13 (Appendix): GDP Growth in EU member states 2008-2013 ... 58
Figure 14 (Appendix): Unemployment rates in EU member states 2008-2013 ... 59
Figure 15 (Appendix): General Government Debt in EU member states 2008-2013... 60
List of Tables
Table 1: Analytical tool: Scales for policy and polity opposition to support ... 11Table 2: Cases ... 23
Table 3: Operationalizations of polity support and opposition based on patterns – examples... 26
Table 4: Operationalizations of policy support and opposition based on patterns – examples .... 27
Table 5: Comparison of hypotheses and results ... 47
Table 6 (Appendix): Operationalization of polity support based on correlations... 61
Table 7 (Appendix): Proportions and confidence intervals for important points in time... 61
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1. Introduction
The last decade has been characterized by several crises for the European Union. Principally the economic crisis that begun in 2008 put a strain on European institutions and displayed their shortcomings and it was followed by the migration crisis (2015-2016), resulting from the conflicts following the Arab Spring. Now, the union also finds itself in a new crisis caused by the COVID- 19 pandemic, with closed borders between members states and grave economic consequences as a result. These crises have partly deepened European integration – the process of transferring nation state competences to the EU (see Hooghe and Marks, 2009; Stone Sweet, 2012; Moravcsik, 2018) – and one example of such transfer is the stability mechanism in the Eurozone area. But the crises have also led to disintegration, the most extreme example being Brexit. Among the political elite, a need for closer cooperation has become apparent, as well as increased transfer of political competences from national governments to European institutions (that is European integration).
However, since the member states’ citizens are responsible for electing some of the decisionmakers in the European institutions directly and others indirectly, it is of utmost importance to account for how this period of crisis has affected public opinion. Moreover, in the case of Brexit, public opinion also played a crucial role in enabling this drastic disintegrative measure, seeing as the decision to leave was based on a referendum.
Although most scholars would agree that there has been a rise in public Euroscepticism, there is however certain confusion concerning what kind of Euroscepticism these crises have entailed. This is mostly because previous research in the area has applied several (and somewhat unclear) definitions of the concept. In a first step, this thesis hence offers a critical review of the most frequently applied conceptualizations of Euroscepticism (Kopecký and Mudde, 2002; Lubbers and Scheepers, 2005; Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2008). Drawing on these definitions as well as on Mair's (2007) distinction between different kinds of opposition, I propose that Euroscepticism should be regarded as different positions on a scale, and that a distinction between opposition against polity (the EU as a political system) and policy (the concrete outputs in terms of decisions and measures as well as their outcomes) should be made. This approach to categorizing different kinds of opposition has largely been set aside in previous research on Euroscepticism. However, Euroscepticism is after all a form of opposition, and the application of a policy/polity perspective thus facilitates the understanding of public opinion in the supranational versus the national context.
While policy Euroscepticism concerns the same kind of classical opposition (directed towards particular decisions and their outcomes) usually seen at the national level, polity Euroscepticism entails opposition towards the EU as a political system, which logically would have more dire
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consequences in terms of disintegration. To shed some light on the dynamic between these forms of opposition in the EU, this thesis first seeks to answer the following question:
How has polity Euroscepticism changed compared to policy Euroscepticism in the EU during the economic crisis?
A major part of previous research on Euroscepticism examines the potential explanatory power of different individual level factors while controlling for select country characteristics such as net contribution to the EU, degree of politicization or corruption (see for example Lubbers and Scheepers, 2010; Hakhverdian et al., 2013; Ejrnæs and Dagnis Jensen, 2019). These studies integrate data from all or several member states in the same analyses and consequently give an indication as to who is a Eurosceptic during which circumstances. Nevertheless, it is difficult to control for all relevant country specific factors and important variation risks going unnoticed when the member states are analyzed together or in subgroups such as EMU versus non-EMU, old versus new and north versus south versus central-east. When it comes to integration and disintegration, it does not matter if most European citizens support the EU if opposition is high in particular member states.
Seeing as the decision to leave is taken on a country basis, research in this field needs to pay more attention to differences between individual member states when it comes to public Euroscepticism.
Although previous research has identified factors associated with Euroscepticism on both the individual and national level, we still lack basic descriptive knowledge of how support for the EU has changed in different countries during the crisis. While there are some case studies on particular states (see for example Clements, Nanou and Verney, 2014) comparisons between a larger number of member states, without lumping them together in groups, is still rare if not absent. In addition, this thesis consequently investigates a second question:
How have polity and policy Euroscepticism changed in different member states during the economic crisis?
To summarize, the purpose of this thesis is principally to fill two important gaps in the existing literature. Firstly, there is a lack of descriptive understanding of how support for the EU has changed during the economic crisis due to the conceptual confusion surrounding the subject as well as a predominant focus on more explanatory approaches. Secondly, since countries are rarely analyzed separately and in comparison, there are potentially great and unnoticed differences between members states in how support has changed. To understand what this crisis has meant for the EU, it is important paint a more detailed picture of how Euroscepticism has evolved, towards what aspects of the union opposition is directed and where it has been growing.
This paper is structured as follows: In the next section, I provide some background information on the economic crisis. In the section “Defining Euroscepticism” I offer a critical review of
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previous conceptualizations and argue why the policy/polity approach is better suited for the purpose of this paper. After this, I present previous research centering around country level factors that can account for changes in polity and policy related Euroscepticism during the economic crisis.
Based on these factors, I present hypotheses regarding the expected changes in policy and polity related support. In the methods section, I make a strategic selection of member states for cross country analysis based on the most important national factors. I also discuss the different problems associated with Euroscepticism operationalization and describe which indicators I will use, and how, to mitigate these problems. Lastly, results for the EU as a whole and for the selected countries are presented and analyzed followed by conclusion.
1.1. Background
The economic crisis is widely considered to have started as the housing bubble collapsed in the United States, sending families into insolvency as the houses they had bought decreased dramatically in value, while their debt remained the same. Furthermore, banks had been investing in risky but also highly profitable subprime loans (offered to individuals with low credit score to a higher interest rate) (Pritchard, 2020). When people could no longer pay back what they owed, banks thus began to fall, starting with Lehman Brothers in 2008 (Europaportalen, 2020). The crisis spread to Europe, quickly turning into a balance sheet recession – during which the private sector decreases its spending in order to increase solvency – leading to reduced household consumption and decreasing investments among private companies (Torrero Mañas, 2014; Costas and Arias, 2015).
Consequently, the wheels of the economy slowed down, and GDP growth reached negative levels in almost all EU member states in 2009. The countries that were particularly affected (for example Greece, Spain and Portugal) maintained negative growth (their GDP decreased) during several years (World Bank, 2020a). Governments tried to counter this development by, for example, buying up private sector debt and providing bailouts for banks, with increasing public debt as a result. Since some countries had exceptionally high public debt already before the crisis, their credit rates were lowered, making it difficult to obtain new loans. These countries consequently had to turn to principally the EU and the IMF for help, which was granted in the form of bailout loans, on the condition that they implemented extensive austerity measures with the purpose of reducing public spending and debt (Europaportalen, 2020). However, the budget cuts had a negative effect on economic development seeing as the public sector could not increase its spending and hence was unable to compensate for decreasing demand in the private sector (Torrero Mañas, 2014).
Although GDP growth in most members states started increasing again after 2009, unemployment
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rates in the EU did not peak until 2013 (World Bank, 2020a, 2020b). Based on this data, and seeing as the purpose of this paper is to investigate public opinion (which will likely be more affected by unemployment than growth seeing as the average voter is more likely to notice increasing unemployment) in relation to the economic crisis, I consider the principal crisis years to be 2008 to 2013.
2. Previous research
The following sections review the research field of public Euroscepticism focusing on two aspects:
Firstly, I present the most popular conceptualizations of Euroscepticism and provide an analytical tool based on these. Secondly, I review the evidence for different explanatory factors and mechanisms, with a focus on national characteristics and circumstances, and their relevance during the economic crisis. Lastly, I present hypotheses concerning the expected development of policy and polity related Euroscepticism in the EU as a whole and concerning differences between member states.
2.1. Defining Euroscepticism
Before moving further into the topic of this thesis, it is necessary to clarify what Euroscepticism actually means. This section thus offers a critical review of the most frequently applied conceptualizations: hard/soft Euroscepticism (Taggart and Szczerbiak, 2008), diffuse/specific support (Kopecký and Mudde, 2002) and political/instrumental Euroscepticism (Lubbers and Scheepers, 2005).
While Hooghe and Marks (2007, p. 120) define the concept as a general doubt or disbelief in Europe and European integration that encompasses a wide range of different critical positions towards the EU, others have tried to form subcategories of these critical positions. For example, Taggart and Szczerbiak (2008, pp. 7–8) distinguish between two forms of Euroscepticism among political parties. Hard Euroscepticism concerns a principled opposition towards the EU and European integration, entailing a preference for leaving the union. Soft Euroscepticism instead regards a concern that there is a conflict between the national interest and the EU’s development which entails opposition in specific policy areas.
In addition, some authors have has developed this distinction further, for example Flood (2002, p.
5) presents attitudes toward European integration as a scale ranging from Rejectionist (the hardest form of Euroscepticism that rejects the EU as a political system and advocates complete disintegration) to Maximalism (the most positive attitude to the EU that promotes further integration). One thing that these definitions of Euroscepticism have in common is that they differentiate between categories based on what parties (or citizens) oppose or support. Considering for example hard versus soft Euroscepticism, the major difference between these is that hard
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Eurosceptics oppose the whole of EU as a political system while soft opposition is limited to certain policy areas.
Consequently, to place Euroscepticism in wider theoretical context, it is important to distinguish between opposition against polity and policy. According to Mair (2007, pp. 9–12), a lack of politicization and opposition on the content (that is concrete decisions and measures) of European politics (policy) among political parties can create a rejection of the EU as a political system (polity) among voters. In other words, when all the traditional parties forward the same agenda in the EU, European politics become depoliticized in the sense that parties do not communicate what kind of policies they want to implement. Thus, voters cannot choose between different policy options, and the only kind of opposition available is to speak against the EU polity. These anti-EU sentiments can then be used and mobilized by extremist and/or Eurosceptic parties. Hence, public attitudes towards the EU does not only have a positive-negative (support-opposition) dimension, but also a policy-polity aspect. The most common conceptualizations of Euroscepticism do not separate these dimensions but tend to regard policy opposition as a milder form of polity opposition.
Furthermore, although attitudes towards the EU have been considered more of points on a scale in some previous research, the existing literature on Euroscepticism in relation to the economic crisis seems to have forgotten about this perspective. To summarize, there are two important aspects to the concept that largely have been lost in a major part of the literature in this area: Firstly, opposition can be directed towards the concrete content of European politics (policy) or towards the EU as a political system (polity). Secondly, individuals are not limited to being completely for or completely against the EU but should rather be placed on a scale depending on which policies they support or oppose, and how deep they prefer European integration to go.
Other definitions of Euroscepticism focus more on why opposition occurs. One such conceptualization of Euroscepticism, which is frequently applied in previous research, has been developed by Kopecký and Mudde (2002) who distinguish between two dimensions: diffuse support for the underlying ideas behind the European project and specific support for how the EU is developing in practice. The authors base this distinction on Easton’s original concepts that define specific support as the result of an evaluation of short-term political outputs. Diffuse support, on the other hand, concerns trust in the political system, its institutions and authorities, as well as a sense of belonging to a political community (Easton 1965; 1975 as cited by Koehler, Weber and Quiring, 2019, p. 47). Two categories can be derived from the diffuse dimension: those who support the underlying ideas of the EU are categorized as Europhiles while those who oppose these ideas are considered Europhobes. Regarding the two categories of specific support/opposition, the authors present EU-optimists as positive towards the union as it is and
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the general direction in which it is going, while EU-pessimists have a negative attitude (Kopecký and Mudde, 2002, pp. 300–302). This classification scheme in diffuse versus specific and support versus opposition (or Euroscepticism versus Euroenthusiasm) is not entirely compatible with the policy-polity approach and hard versus soft Euroscepticism presented earlier. Diffuse support is presented as a baseline or requirement for the next level of categorization, that is specific support/opposition, and both EU-optimists and -pessimists are hence considered subgroups to the Europhiles. The fact that Europhobia and EU-pessimism are considered two kinds of Euroscepticism while EU-pessimism simultaneously is regarded a subcategory to Europhilia (one of two forms of Euroentusiasm) makes this definition quite confusing.
While hard/soft Euroscepticism and diffuse/specific support/opposition are concepts that were originally developed to classify political parties, another frequently applied definition regards public attitudes more specifically: Lubbers and Scheepers (2005) differentiate between political and instrumental Euroscepticism. The instrumental aspect is measured by Eurobarometer questions regarding if the respondents think that their country has benefited from being a member of the EU and if they consider the membership to be a good or a bad thing. Political Euroscepticism on the other hand regards the preferred decision-making level of different policy areas: the national level or jointly within the European Union. Political Euroscepticism is thus similar to polity opposition, while the instrumental aspect, in terms of believing one’s country has benefited from the EU is closer to policy opposition. However, instrumental support/opposition also concerns a broader attitude towards the EU membership (good or bad), which in theory could encompass evaluations of both policy and polity as well as personal values related to diffuse support.
Furthermore, this definition is inseparable from its operationalization, an issue which will be discussed further in the methods section.
To summarize, although Euroscepticism definitions in previous research tend to overlap, they are not identical. The major differences can be reduced to the fact that scholars tend to approach conceptualization from a what or a why perspective. A distinction between descriptive and explanatory definitions of support and opposition to the EU should therefore be made. While descriptive conceptualizations regard attitudes to European policy or the EU as a polity, the explanatory definition discussed previously can be divided into diffuse and specific support/opposition as reasons behind these attitudes. Furthermore, the positive-negative aspect of the descriptive definition is necessarily viewed as a scale rather than two separate categories. For example, the consequences are quite different if citizens want to leave the EU compared to if they only want to reduce its competences in certain areas. In other words, dividing individuals into dichotomous
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categories based on whether they support or oppose the EU polity respectively its policies is far too simplistic.
But how are descriptive and explanatory definitions of Euroscepticism connected? Regarding diffuse opposition, a clear difference between this concept and that of polity opposition is that it originates from the individual’s own values. When these clash with the founding ideas of the EU, it provokes a rejection of the membership and the political system. In other words, diffuse opposition is a mechanism though which polity opposition can surge. Specific opposition – the kind of explanatory Euroscepticism that entails dissatisfaction with the way EU is currently operating – regards the EU’s short-term output in the form of concrete measures and decisions.
Dissatisfaction with the way the EU is currently operating in terms of its policy output (and the following outcomes of these policies) can create opposition to those particular policies. This is usually the case with public opposition at the national level.
However, as previously mentioned, policy opposition in the EU tends to cause polity opposition:
when voters feel that they have no way of influencing the content of EU policy, they turn against the EU as a political system (Mair, 2007, pp. 9–12). This mechanism is thus another example of specific opposition – how dissatisfaction with the way the EU is currently operating (in terms of how its institutions function and the conditions for public input) in combination with policy opposition, creates a negative attitude towards the political system. Nevertheless, to define specific opposition as policy opposition as well as the mechanism through which policy opposition leads to polity opposition is somewhat confusing. I thus propose, in order to clarify the difference between the explanatory and descriptive concepts in relation to public opinion, that specific opposition should be redefined as the mechanism through which policy opposition in combination with the EU’s democratic deficit creates a simultaneous lack of input and output oriented legitimacy that leads to polity opposition. While input oriented legitimacy concerns the extent to which the government’s decisions mirrors the will of the public and mechanisms for public influence, output oriented legitimacy takes into account if these decisions assure the welfare of the population as a whole, as well as the efficiency of the government apparatus (Scharpf, 1999, pp. 7–11). In other words, when the public feels discontent with the results of the EU’s policies, it creates a lack of output legitimacy, and when citizens feel that they cannot influence the decision making, the EU suffers from a lack of input legitimacy.
For the purpose of this paper, however, I will limit the definition of Euroscepticism to opposition against the European polity or its policies, while considering the more explanatory definitions to be mechanisms. Nevertheless, the concepts of diffuse and specific support/opposition are
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important in relation to individual level factors that have been used to explain Euroscepticism in previous research. For example, specific support/opposition can be linked to the utilitarian approach which explains Euroscepticism as being based on a cost-benefit analysis, while diffuse support/opposition relates to the identity approach which highlights the importance of values and identification with a community (for a review of these approaches, see Hobolt and de Vries, 2016).
Analytical tool for categorizing Eurosceptic opinions
To clarify the difference between polity and policy, the latter is subject to a more classical form of opposition against concreate decisions and measures, while expressions of polity opposition in the EU context regards the processes of integration. For example, a negative view of the EU’s ban of single use plastic items is a case of policy opposition. On the other hand, a negative attitude towards environmental policy being an EU competence, is an expression of polity opposition, together with more extreme Eurosceptic opinions such as a preference for leaving the union altogether. In comparison, opposition at the national level is usually limited to policy, with exceptions such as the separatist movements in for example Scotland and Catalonia which are cases of polity opposition.
The polity-policy distinction thus facilitates comprehension of opposition and support in the EU in relation to the national context.
Table 1: Analytical tool: Scales for policy and polity opposition to support
Negative Neutral Positive
Policy
Strong policy opposition (oppose all of the EU’s concrete decisions and measures) Similar concepts:
Soft; Instrumental Euroscepticism
Weak policy opposition (oppose many of the EU’s concrete decisions and measures) Similar concepts:
Soft; Instrumental Euroscepticism
Neutral policy position (support for and opposition against the EU’s concrete decisions and measures are at a tie)
Weak policy support (support many of the EU’s concrete decisions and measures)
Strong policy support (support all of the EU’s concrete decisions and measures)
Polity
Strong disintegration preference (leave the EU) Similar concepts:
Hard
Euroscepticism
Weak disintegration preference (reduce EU competences) Similar concepts:
Soft; Political Euroscepticism
Status quo preference (support for the current division of competences between the EU and the member states)
Weak integration preference (increase EU competences)
Strong integration preference (federal EU)
As previously mentioned, Euroscepticism defined as opposition towards polity or policy, and the scale dimension of this concept, are aspects that largely have been emitted from previous research on public attitudes towards the EU. In this thesis, I therefore develop an analytical tool for identifying and categorizing Eurosceptic opinions as well as support for the EU based on these dimensions. In table 1, four typical Eurosceptic positions (two each for policy and polity) are found
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at the negative end of the scale (pink). The table also clarifies how these positions correspond to similar concepts: hard, soft, political and instrumental Euroscepticism.
The most negative end of the policy scale (strong policy opposition) theoretically describes individuals that oppose everything the EU does, in terms of concrete decisions and measures. The opposite end (strong policy support) corresponds to those who support all decisions and measures.
In between these poles, we can find all possible combinations of support and opposition to different policies. To simplify, I have reduced policy support/opposition to three additional positions apart from the most extreme ones. Weak policy opposition regards cases where the individual opposes many (but not all) concrete measures and decisions, and opposition consequently outweighs support. Weak policy support concerns the opposite. In between these we find a neutral position where the individual supports some measures and decisions and opposes others but cannot decide whether EU policy in general is good or bad.
The polity scale, which I also have simplified by displaying five different positions, regards attitudes towards European integration. It ranges from a strong disintegration preference, which would entail leaving the union, to supporting a European federation as the strongest integration preference. In between these extremes we find preferences for decreasing (weak disintegration preference) or increasing (weak integration preference) EU competences. A neutral position on the polity scale entails a preference for the status quo – the individual considers the current division of competences between national and supranational level to be the best option. What is to be considered status quo changes both in time and space, however, since integration deepens with time and differs between countries (for example, not all member states have implemented the euro).
2.2. Euroscepticism in times of crisis
The following sections contain a review of previous research in the field of public Euroscepticism.
I depart from the two major approaches concerning explanatory factors and mechanisms at the individual level but focus primarily on the evidence for national level factors and mechanisms, and their potential roles during the economic crisis.
Benchmarking costs versus benefits
Most of the research related to Euroscepticism is conducted in the form of regression analyses on explanatory factors at the individual level, some of which can be grouped together in the utilitarian approach. This perspective argues that the public evaluate the EU based on a personal cost-benefit analysis, and since the economic aspects of European integration principally benefit well educated citizens with higher incomes, these socioeconomic factors should have a positive effect on the support for the EU. To elaborate, the free movement of capital and people creates more flexibility
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for companies in production and hiring, which in turn increases competition for low skilled labor, while creating more job opportunities for high skilled labor (Hobolt and de Vries, 2016, p. 420).
Such socioeconomic factors have been found to have a statistically significant effect on Euroscepticism in a number of studies (see for example Lubbers and Scheepers, 2010; Brigevich, 2016).
The underlying logic behind the utilitarian approach (cost-benefit analysis) is also theorized to affect the individual’s position on European integration based on national level factors. In other words, when evaluating the EU, citizens consider if their country has benefited from membership, not only if they themselves have benefited personally. For example, voters in member states with a positive net contribution to the EU budget are likely to be more Eurosceptic than voters in countries that receive more in transfers from the EU than they pay. This hypothesis has gained support in some previous research, but other studies find no significant effect of net contributions to the EU (Hobolt and de Vries, 2016, p. 420). Lubbers and Scheepers (2010) only find support for this hypothesis in Spain and the Netherlands. In addition, de Vries (2018, pp. 16–17) highlights the fact that patterns of Euroscepticism emerging after the crisis contradicts the utilitarian hypotheses in some countries: for example, Euroscepticism is comparably low in Germany and Luxembourg even though these countries were among the biggest net contributors to the European Stability Mechanism. Moreover, Brexit has largely been explained in a utilitarian fashion, highlighting discontent among voters with a lower socioeconomic status. Nevertheless, people in some of the poor regions in Northern Ireland and Scotland tended to vote Remain while some richer southern areas voted Leave. These exceptions contradict the utilitarian approach completely.
To explain them, de Vries presents a Benchmark theory on public opinion and European Integration in which voters’ disintegrative preferences (leave the EU) depend on their estimations of how well their country would do on its own. In this processes, they evaluate benchmarks in the form of for example their country’s economic performance compared to the EU’s economic performance as proxies1 for an alternative state of being a non-member compared to the status quo of staying in the EU, estimating the benefits of both options (de Vries, 2018, pp. 29, 37–38). She finds support for this theory comparing the difference in attitudes towards the EU versus the national government between countries with high unemployment and low quality of government and countries with low unemployment and high quality of government (unemployment and quality of government are benchmarks in this case). Not only did people display higher levels of trust in the European Parliament (EP) in countries with high unemployment and low quality of government, the
1 This is different from theories suggesting that voters use national performance as a proxy for EU performance and hence punish the EU for their national government’s mistakes.
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difference between their trust in the EP compared to their trust in the national parliament was bigger and in the EP’s favor (de Vries, 2018, pp. 50–55).
Hobolt and Wratil (2015, p. 244), who investigate public support for the single currency during the crisis, find that while support has remained stable in the eurozone, it has decreased in non-EMU countries. The Benchmark theory offers a likely explanation to these circumstances: when citizens in the non-EMU countries see that the Euro is associated with great risks, compared to their own currencies, they become less inclined to support integration in the monetary area. Citizens in the EMU countries, on the other hand, likely perceived the costs of going back to their old currency as too great, the EMU membership increased their stakes in the euro which made them less Eurosceptic. This suggests that the more a country stands to lose from disintegration, the more pro-integration (or at least pro the status quo) its population becomes. In other words, the
“alternative state” is too risky. Hobolt and Wratil (2015, p. 245) further examine changes in a more policy related indicator: which actor the respondents think is the most able to effectively handle the crisis. The authors show that the share of respondents who thought that the EU was the most effective actor increased during the initial years of the crisis and that this increase was greater in the eurozone. This could be interpreted as an increase in policy support in the EU as a whole.
However, it is important to note that European citizens might still find the EU’s measures ineffective but consider the EU to be the least ineffective among several ineffective actors.
Clements, Nanou and Verney (2014, pp. 249–253), whose article focuses on the Greek context, find that the economic crisis has principally caused soft rather than hard Euroscepticism: support for the euro increased during the crises although other indicators for support decreased. Does this correspond to an increase in policy or polity opposition in Greece? As shown in the section
“Defining Euroscepticism”, soft Euroscepticism can entail opposition to both polity and policy while hard Euroscepticism tends to be limited to wanting to leave the EU, that is the most extreme form of polity opposition. Although Clements, Nanou and Verney do not differentiate between polity and policy, their results can still offer an indication. The fact that support for the single currency increased during the crisis supports the authors’ claim that the general Greek position is not a case of hard Euroscepticism (strong disintegration preference) – if the Greek do not want to leave the euro, they are unlikely to want to leave the EU. This is also consistent with the findings regarding EMU versus non-EMU countries (Hobolt and Wratil, 2015), and suggests that for Greece, the EMU membership increases the cost of leaving the EU, as per the Benchmark theory.
An additional factor that has been showed to influence support for the Euro is its exchange rate with the national currency in the implementing country. In a study on support for implementation
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of the common currency before the referendums in Denmark and Sweden, Hobolt and Leblond (2009) find that when the Swedish krona was weak compared to the Euro, support increased. In Denmark there was no such effect since the Danish krone has a fixed exchange rate to the Euro.
This further supports the benchmark theory considering that a strong krona could be one such benchmark that the Swedes evaluate when deciding if their country would do better with the euro or without it.
Macroeconomic shocks
Macroeconomic factors such as inflation have also been linked to support for European integration in terms of the common currency. High inflation in a non-EMU member state can increase support for adopting the Euro as this is assumed to entail price stability in the long run (Banducci, Karp and Loedel, 2009, p. 565). Other factors that have been linked to Euroscepticism are GDP and unemployment rates. Lubbers and Scheepers (2010) show in their study that citizens in countries with high unemployment were likely to display a more positive attitude towards joint decision making at the EU level, while an increase in unemployment was insignificant except in the Netherlands where it led to more Euroscepticism. Regarding changes in GDP they find no significant effects. Jones (2009, p. 1095) has argued that people are generally unaware of macroeconomic indicators such as exchange rates, inflation, and even unemployment rates, and consequently these are not likely to influence their attitudes towards the EU. However, these variables should not be disregarded completely considering that Lubbers’s and Scheepers’s analysis was conducted using data from 1994 to 2004. Jones’s article was published in 2009, during the beginning of the crisis, but he bases his argument regarding public awareness of macroeconomic indicators on a study from 1997. Changes in GDP and unemployment are indicators of economic expansion and recession and are hence more likely to display significant effects during an economic crisis. Especially unemployment is more likely to become salient to voters in times of grave recession as this indicator relates more to the general conditions of ordinary people than GDP growth: citizens are more likely to notice if they or people they know lose their jobs, than if for example exports or industrial production increases. Furthermore, in times of economic crisis, unemployment rates change dramatically and become more noticeable. Nevertheless, it is important to stress that a rise in Euroscepticism should principally be visible in relation to the actual unemployment increase during the crisis, while generally high unemployment levels would correlate with less Euroscepticism as they likely entail a higher economic dependence on the EU, and the “alternative state” outside the EU would be worse than remaining a member as per the Benchmark theory.
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Research on Euroscepticism in the EU’s most crisis affected county – Greece – appear to support the idea that dramatic negative macroeconomic changes can affect support for the EU. Clements, Nanou and Verney (2014, p. 249) highlight that austerity measures created problems concerning output legitimacy and led to increasing Euroscepticism in Greece. In addition, they suggest that citizens felt that they could not affect these measures through the regular democratic mechanisms (national elections), since the austerity demands were imposed by European authorities.
Consequently, the EU’s actions during the Greek debt crisis appear to have caused a simultaneous input and output legitimacy problem. As has been highlighted previously in this paper, policy opposition in combination with a dissatisfaction with how democracy works in the EU can lead to polity opposition.
The authors further show that the share of Greek respondents who thought that their country had not benefited from EU membership increased during the first years of the crisis, while support for the euro increased (Clements, Nanou and Verney, 2014, pp. 251–253). This indicates that while the Greek population became increasingly unhappy with EU policy during the crisis, the increased support for the euro suggests a certain preference for the status quo in terms of polity support, at least in the monetary area. However, judging by the extreme public opposition towards the austerity measures, the economic crisis has probably entailed both policy and polity opposition, even though the Greek are unlikely to want to leave the EU as a result. Nevertheless, since the former kind of opposition appears to be driving the latter, increases in policy opposition should be more dramatic.
The role of politicization
Since European integration nowadays encompasses more than the common market, and entails pooling of state powers, some suggest that this process erodes national sovereignty and blurs borders between nation states. Consequently, individuals’ identities and their attitudes towards foreigners should influence support for European integration. People who identify strongly with their nation state and/or have a negative attitude towards immigrants are more likely to oppose integration according to this identity approach (Hobolt and de Vries, 2016, pp. 420–421). This perspective has gained support in previous research (Brigevich, 2016; Erisen, Vasipopoulou and Kentmen-Cin, 2019).
One explanation to why identity affects Euroscepticism has been proposed by Hooghe and Marks (2009, pp. 5–13). The permissive consensus – European citizens had limited knowledge about the EU and consequently let decisionmakers manage integration the way they saw fit – has given way to a constraining dissensus – the diverging opinions of the public limit the political elite’s options when making decisions on European integration. In this process, political entrepreneurs such as radical
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right-wing parties use the discrepancy between the institutional scope of the EU and strong national identities among parts of the population. By discursively constructing the EU as a threat to the national identity, they lay the foundation for Eurosceptic opinions to grow. Voters do not have conclusive knowledge about the EU, nor do they always choose party based on the rational cost- benefit analysis highlighted by the utilitarian approach. Instead, they rely on emotional cues such as identity or culture. When Eurosceptic parties portray themselves as guardians of the nation state or the national culture, individuals with exclusive national identities2 are attracted to them based on these cues.
However, political parties do not only cue on identity but also on other issues. While right-wing Eurosceptic parties usually politicize identity, left-wing parties tend to use economic issues when forwarding a Eurosceptic agenda (Hobolt and de Vries, 2016, p. 422). The role of parties is thus not only tied to identity mobilization, but they can also mobilize voters based on a utilitarian rhetoric where the costs of Europe (for example the austerity measures) are not compensated by the benefits of membership. Politicization of European integration does not only depend on parties, however. Another essential aspect is mass communication which links the public and the political elite. By voicing their opinions on Europe in the media, political actors can make the topic salient to voters and influence their opinions (Statham and Trenz, 2015, pp. 288–296).
How has politicization of Europe changed during the economic crisis? Most of the papers in this area are case studies focusing on how the crisis has caused politicization of European integration (that is polity support) in different countries. For example, Katsourides’s (2016) interviews with chief editors at Cyprus’s major newspapers suggest that the EU was increasingly criticized in media due to the crisis, and that the newspapers both took public opinion into account as well as tried to influence citizens. Furthermore, Verney (2015) argues that the increase in votes for Eurosceptic parties in Greece after the crisis cannot only be attributed to the fact that voters wanted to punish the mainstream parties for their national policies, but that it was also a result of the increased salience of European integration. Politicization was partly driven by national parties who blamed each other and external actors, such as the EU, for the economic situation. The fact that public opinion as well as party rhetoric changed simultaneously, suggests that the Eurosceptic votes were partly a result of politicization of European integration.
Politization of European issues appears to have taken different directions in different countries, however. Reviewing studies on party debates in Austria and Germany, Miklin (2014) finds that, in both countries, there was a clear division between left- and rightwing parties regarding which
2 They identify only with their nation rather than with Europe or both.
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measures should be taken to tackle the crisis. However, in Austria, this conflict was subordinated to a pro/anti EU debate regarding whether further integration or disintegration was preferable.
These results suggest that, at least in some countries, party driven politicization increased the salience of European policy, although it might have been less visible than the integration issue (polity). A more extensive mapping of politicization in relation to the economic crisis (and the refugee crisis) has been provided by Hutter and Kriesi (2019) who describe this topic in 15 countries between 2000 and 2017. Performing a content analysis of newspaper articles during national election campaigns, the authors find that politicization of European integration as a result of the economic crisis principally occurred in southern Europe, which can be explained by the fact that these countries were more affected by the crisis. They further argue that the economic crisis did not cause politicization in northwestern and central-eastern Europe due to the comparatively quick recovery in these regions. Furthermore, central-eastern European countries generally displayed lower levels of politicization of European integration which the authors attribute to their party systems being less institutionalized than in the rest of Europe: parties in these countries are generally more unstable as organizations, lack stable roots in society are sometimes perceived as illegitimate. Moreover, the lines between parties in political conflicts tend to be less clear (Hutter and Kriesi, 2019, pp. 1002–1007).
It is important to note, however, that although Hutter and Kriesi suggest that the euro crisis did not cause politicization of European integration in Germany, Miklin’s (2014) review do indicate that such politicization occurred. In addition, Hutter’s and Kriesi’s study shows certain variation within regions: Greece displayed the highest levels of politicization among the southern countries, followed by Portugal. Among the northwestern members states, politicization did occur in the Netherlands during the euro crisis. To summarize, apart from the fact that some countries were more affected by the crisis and that EMU-members had higher stakes in the euro, the level of politicization of the crisis and the EU’s role in it could explain differences between states in terms of changes in polity and policy support. In the following section, I relate the evidence presented in previous research to the questions posed in this paper, with the purpose of identifying hypotheses regarding which results can be expected in terms of changes in polity and policy related Euroscepticism.
2.3. Hypotheses
The first question posed in this paper was: “How has polity Euroscepticism changed compared to policy Euroscepticism during the economic crisis?”. In order to identify some theoretical expectations regarding the answer, it is first important to establish the principal consequences of
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this crisis for European citizens: many lost their jobs or experienced reduced incomes, and some even lost their housing after not being able to pay their loans. In comparison to the later migration crisis, public concern during the economic crisis was principally material rather than identity- related, and public discontent would therefore have centered around the EU’s inability to assure the welfare of its citizens. Thus, negative attitudes towards the outcomes of EU membership increased and the economic crisis would therefore principally have affected policy support.
However, as described in previous sections, a simultaneous lack of output and input oriented legitimacy can lead to a rejection of the political system and not just of its policy output. Judging by Mair’s (2007) argument that a lack of public influence over EU decision making leads to opposition against the political system when people are dissatisfied with EU policy, polity related Euroscepticism will likely have increased as well. Depending on how European citizens perceive their opportunities to influence EU decision making, public opinion in Europe as a whole would hence have developed in accordance with one of the two following hypotheses:
H1: Only policy related Euroscepticism increased during the economic crisis.
H2: Both policy and polity related Euroscepticism increased during the economic crisis.
In the following paragraphs I will present hypotheses regarding differences between member states.
It is important to note that these expectations concerning support and opposition towards the EU regards changes in policy and polity support, not public attitudes towards the EU in general. For example, if polity support is expected to decrease and to be characterized by increasing weak disintegration preferences, this hypothesis does not suggest that a majority of people in these countries generally prefer to reduce EU competences, but that the share of citizens who prefers this has increased during the crisis, regardless of the previous level of support.
The second research question regarded how polity and policy Euroscepticism have changed in different member states during the economic crisis. In previous sections, several country-level factors used to explain differences in Euroscepticism development were presented. Studies in this area suggest that the extent to which states benefit from being members of the EU affect their citizens’ attitudes. To assess the benefits, the public could for example evaluate the economic development of their country, and macroeconomic indicators would therefore be important. Some studies have found support for this idea, showing a correlation between different macroeconomic indicators and attitudes towards the EU (Hobolt and Leblond, 2009; Lubbers and Scheepers, 2010), although public awareness of changes in GDP-growth, unemployment rates and inflation etc. also has been disputed (Jones, 2009). Nevertheless, an economic crisis would logically make a country’s macroeconomic development more relevant and salient to the public and hence also to its support
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for the EU. In times of crisis, it is principally important to assess how badly the country has been affected in terms of macroeconomic development, rather than how it has fared historically. An important reason for joining the EU in the first place is to improve the economic situation, which likely is why support generally has been high in member states with high unemployment (Lubbers and Scheepers, 2010). However, an economic crisis entails an abrupt negative shock which would lead to disappointment and consequently also increasing Eurosceptic opinions in relation to the outputs (policy) of the EU and their outcomes in terms of economic development. The actual macroeconomic change is therefore a more important factor in this case. Regarding indicators to measure this, particularly changes in unemployment would be a salient factor to the public, but GDP growth as well as changes in public debt can also be important.
It was not only the initial macroeconomic shock that entailed public outrage, but the EU- and IMF- imposed austerity measures further deepened the recession and worsened conditions for citizens in countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal. As showed by Clements, Nanou and Verney (2014), the share of respondents who thought that their country had benefited from EU membership declined dramatically in Greece during the crisis. The benefits of membership should be considered political outcomes, that is the results of the EU’s policies and decisions. Public discontent regarding benefits is therefore an expression of policy opposition, and in Greece this opposition was principally directed towards the implementation of austerity measures. Although Greece is perhaps an extreme case, this development can be expected in countries that were in a similar situation during the crisis. Although the public may not oppose all EU policy (the definition of strong policy opposition) the fact that the measures taken during the crisis where extremely important for citizen welfare, and that many had such strong opinions on the matter that they took to the streets in mass protests (The Guardian, 2012), gives them weight when determining the public’s overall position on EU policy.
Although some countries fared comparatively well during the crisis, the whole of EU did experience a recession which likely would have had a negative effect on how the public perceived the benefits of EU membership even in states that were not as severely affected. Furthermore, some of the better off countries (those within the EMU) had to bail out the more affected ones, and EU membership would logically be regarded less beneficial when you must pay another county’s debts. Consequently, the economic crisis would have entailed decreasing policy support in member states (such as Germany, Finland, UK, Sweden, etc.) that were less affected as well.
However, the opposition would be weaker than in the more crisis affected countries, seeing as the austerity measures implemented there had a stronger negative effect on people’s lives than for
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example the bailout contributions had in some of the less affected member states. Thus, policy support can be expected to change in the following way:
H3: The most affected countries display increasing strong policy opposition while the less affected countries display increasing weak policy opposition.
As suggested by Mair (2007), policy opposition in combination with a sense of not being able to influence political decisions can lead to increased opposition against the system as well. The public opposition towards the EU’s austerity policies would therefore also affect attitudes towards the EU as a polity. However, the EMU membership entails deeper integration among some states, which means that the countries that have implemented the euro are more “locked in” and the costs for leaving thus becomes higher, as per the Benchmark theory. Citizens in EMU countries will consequently perceive the alterative state (leaving the EU) as less attractive than the status quo (remaining a member), compared to citizens in non-EMU member states. The worst affected EMU countries would therefore be reluctant to leave the EU, but rather prefer to reduce EU competences. On the other hand, the worst affected non-EMU members do not have this mitigating factor which would allow policy related Euroscepticism to entail a stronger effect on polity support.
H4a: The most affected EMU members display increasing weak disintegration preferences while the most affected non-EMU countries display increasing strong disintegration preferences.
Furthermore, the Benchmark theory suggests that individuals compare the state of the national economy to the rest of the EU when evaluating the alternative state (de Vries, 2018). This would explain why for example poorer regions in the UK voted Remain while richer ones voted Leave.
EMU and non-EMU countries had different stakes in the euro during the crisis, and consequently also in the EU, which translates into higher or lower levels of Euroscepticism. Previous research shows that support for the euro (a form of polity support) remained stable in the EMU countries that were less affected by the crisis (Hobolt and Wratil, 2015). Assuming that this accounts for their preferences regarding European integration in general, polity support will likely neither decrease nor increase but the balance between disintegrative and integrative preference would rather remain the same as before the economic crisis. Strong disintegration preferences are instead most likely to increase in the non-EMU countries that were least affected by the crisis. If your country has done well compared to the rest of Europe, you will be more inclined to think that you would also do better outside the EU. The alternative state of being a non-member is furthermore associated with less risk for the member states with monetary independence than for the ones who have implemented the euro.
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H4b: The less affected EMU members display stable levels of polity support while strong disintegration preferences increase among the less affected non-EMU countries.
Apart from these important factors: (1) a major macroeconomic shock in combination with austerity measures, (2) having a better than average national economy, and (3) the mitigating effect of EMU membership, the potential role of politicization deserves to be mentioned as well.
Unfortunately, previous research on this topic does not offer conclusive and extensive evidence on the effects of politicization (probably due to the fact that this phenomenon is particularly complicated to detect and measure), which makes it difficult to form hypotheses around the subject. Nevertheless, there are some interesting observations regarding particular countries that can be kept in mind: Firstly, while Germany appeared to have experienced politicization concerning the extent of European integration (polity) as well as concreate measures to handle the crisis (policy), political debate in Austria centered primarily on the EU as a polity (Miklin, 2014).
Consequently, changes in public support for EU policy can thus be expected to be more apparent in Germany than in Austria. Secondly, among the southern member states, Greece displayed the highest levels of politicization concerning the EU polity (integration) followed by Portugal (Hutter and Kriesi, 2019). Polity support can therefore be expected to decrease more in these two countries than in Spain, for example. Lastly, Hutter and Kriesi (2019) suggest than Central and Eastern European states tend to display lower levels of politicization compared to other countries. The potential Eurosceptic effects of the crisis in for example Hungary and Poland might thus be dampened if political actors do not make their opposing views on European integration salient to the public.
3. Research design and methods
In the following section, I discuss how to select and compare member states to provide a cross country analysis that can shed light on the accuracy of the previously presented hypotheses. This is followed by a discussion on problems associated with previously used Euroscepticism measurements, as well as how to operationalize polity and policy related opposition and support while mitigating these problems.
3.1. Case selection
Among the EMU countries most affected by the crisis I have chosen Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland partly since they received the highest bailouts. These countries also had particularly high increases in unemployment. When evaluating how badly they were affected, I have considered how GDP growth, unemployment rates and general government debt developed between 2008 and
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2013 (IMF, 2020; World Bank, 2020a, 2020b). Apart from receiving high bailouts: the worst affected countries are characterized by the following:
• GDP growth was negative during several of the crisis years.
• High and dramatically increasing unemployment rates.
• High and dramatically increasing government debt.
• No or very modest signs of recovery during the crisis years.
Although quite severely affected, Italy is excluded seeing as this country had high debt and high unemployment rate even before the crisis and the change was not as dramatic. Changes in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were extremely dramatic the first years of crisis in terms of growth and unemployment, but these countries started recovering already in 2010, and displayed comparatively low debt levels (see Appendix, Figures 13, 14, and 15).
Among the less affected countries, cases are chosen to facilitate comparison. While Germany is an extremely interesting case based on its role as a leader among the eurozone countries. The UK is important seeing as it is the only country that has decided to leave the EU. Although these two countries are different in many ways, they were somewhat similarly affected by the crisis on a macroeconomic level, and they are both large western net-contributors. Some comparison regarding the effect of EMU membership is therefore viable. However, seeing as the UK is extremely Eurosceptic compared to Germany, Austria – the most Eurosceptic of the less affected EMU countries – is also added. Furthermore, the Nordic countries managed quite well during the crisis and seeing as they are generally considered to be quite similar, a comparison between Finland (EMU) and Sweden (non-EMU) is made. Denmark is excluded due to its policy of maintaining a fixed exchange rate to the euro (Danmarks Nationalbank, 2017).
A comparison between Hungary and Poland account for the effect of the economic crisis in non- EMU countries. While Poland was among the least affected countries, Hungary was worse off and received a bailout loan. Lastly, Hungary is also compared to Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland to assess accuracy of the hypothesis concerning mitigating effects of EMU membership among the most affected countries.
Table 2: Cases
EMU Non-EMU
More affected by the crisis Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland Hungary Less affected by the crisis Germany, Austria, Finland UK, Sweden, Poland
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3.2. Measuring Euroscepticism
Apart from defining Euroscepticism, operationalization appears to be one of the biggest difficulties in previous research. Firstly, authors tend to confuse public attitudes towards policy with attitudes towards polity, and vice versa. For example, when de Vires (2018, pp. 46–47) examines differences in public attitudes towards national government policy versus European policy, she operationalizes this with questions from the European Social Survey that regards policy at the national level (how satisfied the respondent is with how the government is doing its job) but clearly concerns polity at the EU level (if the respondent thinks that European unification has gone too far or if it should go further).
A second problem is that frequently used survey questions do not always distinguish between policy and polity support/opposition. The EU membership as “good” or ”bad” is one of these. While Clements, Nanou and Verney (2014) use this question to measure hard Euroscepticism which is related to polity, Lubbers and Scheepers (2005) apply it as an indicator of instrumental Euroscepticism which is closer to policy opposition. Respondents could in theory have the EU as a political system (polity) in mind when answering as well as its policy output. The vague phrasing of this survey question makes it difficult to estimate its validity and, seeing as it leaves great room for interpretation to the respondent, it can also introduce a certain randomness in the answers, entailing reliability problems. The Eurobarometer question regarding whether one’s country has benefited from the EU membership is a better operationalization of policy support/opposition since it more specifically concerns an evaluation of the membership’s outcomes. These outcomes are dependent on political outputs in the form of decisions and measures, that is EU policy.
A third issue regards the fact that it is particularly difficult to capture the whole scale of polity support and opposition from a federal European state to leaving the EU (the most extreme integration preference to the most extreme disintegration preference) in one single survey question.
Most operationalizations cannot even distinguish between integration, disintegration and status quo preferences in the same survey question. For example, the Eurobarometer’s “Speed of building Europe” question (can we even be sure that respondents understand that building Europe means to transfer competences from the member states?), has one answer that corresponds to a status quo preference (1 – Standstill) and six degrees of integration preferences (maximum 7 – As fast as possible) but no answer that corresponds to a disintegration preference.
The difficulties associated with operationalization in this field primarily originate from the surveys from which researchers retrieve their data, the most common one being the Eurobarometer. A great advantage with this survey is that it is conducted biannually and hence contains a large amount
