A blessing and a curse? Examining public preferences for differentiated integration

This study examines public preferences for two forms of differentiated integration (DI): opt-outs and multi-speed EU. Due to the low salience of DI in domestic politics, we suggest that people use ideological benchmarks when forming opinions about DI mostly relating to their general predispositions...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: de Vries, Catherine, De Blok, Lisanne
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:IE
Repositorio:Repositorio IE
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.ie.edu:20.500.14417/3987
Acceso en línea:https://doi.org/10.1177/14651165221133671
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14417/3987
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14651165221133671
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Differentiated integration
EU support
public opinion
59 Ciencia Política
ODS 10 - Reducción de las desigualdades
Descripción
Sumario:This study examines public preferences for two forms of differentiated integration (DI): opt-outs and multi-speed EU. Due to the low salience of DI in domestic politics, we suggest that people use ideological benchmarks when forming opinions about DI mostly relating to their general predispositions towards the EU. While pro-EU citizens are more in favor of DI in the form of multiple speeds as this might pose a solution to overcome gridlock, Euroskeptic citizens display more support for opt-outs as a means to accommodate concerns about national identity and control. These differences are in turn accentuated by people’s left-right ideology. We test our hypotheses using public opinion data from the Eurobarometer between 2004 and 2018 and complete it with novel survey data. Our results suggest that while support for DI has increased in recent years, DI preferences largely coincide with ideological predispositions. Our findings indicate that rather than overcoming preference heterogeneity within the EU, DI might entrench existing fault lines.