European identity in times of crisis

URL:	https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/360831af-7...
Dokumenttyp:	Arbeitspapier
Erscheinungsjahr:	2014
Ort der Veröffentlichung:	Mannheim ; Mainz
Sprache der Veröffentlichung:	Englisch
Einrichtung:	Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften > Politikwissenschaft, Vergleichende Regierungslehre (Debus 2012-)
Fachgebiet:	320 Politik
Abstract:	In this paper, we aim at showing (1) how the Euro crisis has affected citizens' attachment to the European Union and if there are differences between memberstates that are differently affected by the crisis. We expect that identification with European did decrease during the crisis, however, most noticeable in crisis states such as Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain, and Cyprus. Moreover, we turn to the individual level in order to show (2) if the determinants of European identity have changed with the crisis and if utilitarian factors gained in significance compared to institutional factors. We expect that - since politics in Europe and the EU were almost exclusively limited to economic topics and since the EU was seen as part of the problem – utilitarian factors should play a bigger role after than before the crisis in explaining European identity. In a third step, we try to look at the structure of the explanatory factors and aim at showing (3) how utilitarian and institutional factors relate to each other.Before we empirically test our hypotheses, a theoretical framework is presented drawing on David Easton’s theory of the political system (Easton 1965, 1979) and Social Identity Theory (Tajfel 1982, Tajfel and Turner 1986). The empirical analysis is carried out in three steps: We begin with a descriptive analysis in order to show the effects of the crisis and differences between member states on an aggregate level. Secondly, a multivariate regression analysis is conducted aiming to analyzethe determinants of European identity before and after the crisis. In a third step, the structure between the determinants is analyzed using structural equation modelling.