The Myth of Postnatioanl identity

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Social Forces, University of North Carolina Press

The Myth of Postnational Identity: Popular Support for European UnificationAuthor(s): Mathieu Deflem and Fred C. PampelSource: Social Forces, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Sep., 1996), pp. 119-143Published by: University of North Carolina PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2580759 .

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The Myth of Postnational Identity:Popular Support for European Uniflcation*MATHIEUDEFLEMKenyonCollegeFREDC. PANMEL,Universityof Colorado

AbstractThestudyof popular upportor unioiatin of Europeaises ssuesabout he roleofidentficationwith national nterestsversussupport or postnationaldentityindeterminingttitudes cross ountriesndover ime. talsoraisesssuesaboutherolesof traditionalleavagesnclassposition ndpartisandeologicaliewsversus ifferencesin postmaterialistalues in determiningupport or unification.Using dataforindividualsampled ithinmember-statesf theEuropean ommunityn 1982,1986,1989,and 1992, theanalyses howpersistent ifferencesetweenountriesn theirsupportvenafter qualizingor national ifferencesn sociodemographic,deological,andvaluepriorityvariables verthe 10-year imespan of thestudy,which avorstheoreticalrgumentsor thecontinuedmportancefnationaldentity.With the ratificationof the MaastrichtTreaty by the member-statesof theEuropeanCommunity n 1993, the countries of Europehave moved towardreshapingthe design of Europe and, in an era of globalization,worldwidepoliticaland economicaffairs.The effectiverealizationof Europe'sunificationmay create an unprecedentedchallenge,for citizens and scholars of Europealike, to make sense of an expressionthat hitherto referredto a continentcomposedof nation-states hatweregeographically, conomically, ndto someextentpoliticallyconnectedbut nonethelesssovereign.Europe'sunificationbeganwith theTreatyof Rome n 1957,whenBelgium,France,the formerWest Germany,Italy, Luxembourg, nd the Netherlandsformed heEuropeanEconomicCommunity EEC) roviding orcooperationneconomicmatters(see, generally,Milward1993;Pinder1991a;Urwin 1991).GreatBritain, relandand Denmarkoinedthe EEC n 1973, oliowedby Greece

*Analyses in this article employ Eurobarometerurveys18, 25, 31a, and 37 made available bytheInter-UniversityConsortiumforPoliticaland SocialResearch. We thankEveDarian-Smithfor guidance in reviewing literatureon the European Union, and John Bendix,anonymousreviewers,and the editorfor suggestionsonprevious drafts.Directcorrespondenceo MathieuDeflem, Law and Society Program, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH [email protected] TheUniversityof North CarolinaPress Social Forces, September1996,75(1):119-143


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120 / Social Forces 75:1, September 1996in 1981 and Portugaland Spain in 1986. The Single EuropeanAct of 1986arranged or the creationof the EuropeanCommunity EC),a politicalas wellas economicunificationof Europe,by January1993.The frameworkof thisEuropewithout frontiersfor the movement of people, services, goods, andcapitalwas finally stipulated n the Treatyon EuropeanUnion,or the Maast-richt Treaty,signed on 7 February1992 (Ross1992a,1992b).The MaastrichtTreaty,named after the town in the Netherlandswhere the agreementwassigned,was ratifiedby all memberstates of the newlyformedEuropeanUnion(EU) in October1993, when the GermanConstitutionalCourt approveditscountry'sparticipation.1Yet movement toward unification requiresmore than the treaties andpoliciesnegotiatedby the membersof variousECcouncils,administrative nits,and nationalrepresentatives. he successof Europe'sunificationdependsto nosmall extenton the support t receives fromthe citizens of the membersof theEuropeanCommunity.As JiirgenHabermas 1975,1979) rgues, he survivalofdemocraticpoliticalsystems of advancedcapitalistsocieties rests on popularlegitimation n the culturalsphere,regardlessof their level of performancenthe realmofeconomicproduction.2Moreover, apitalistdemocracies xperiencetheproblemof legitimationacutely: heirhigheconomicperformance roduceshigh expectations hat politicalsystems cannotguarantee o maintainduringfiscal crises.Similarprocessesof legitimationwould seemequally mportant orthe survivalcapacitiesof a supranationalntitysuchas theEuropeanCommuni-ty. Despite their importance,attitudes towardEuropeanunificationare lessstudied thantheorganization ndpoliciesof the EC.Correspondingo a lack ofintereston the partof Euro-officialsWallace&Smith1995),only a few studiesdevoted attention o the issue beforeand duringthe 1980s (e.g.,Handley 1981;Hewstone1986;Inglehart1977).Recentresearchdescribesgeneraltrendsandselecteddeterminants f attitudes e.g.,Eichenberg&Dalton1993;Janssen1991;Niedermayer1991;Worcester1990),sometimes on the basis of samplesfromonly one or two countries (e.g., Allington & Jones1994;Baker et al. 1995;Men6ndez-Alarc6n1995; and articles in Fells & Niznik 1992 and Reif &Inglehart1991).And although debate on the MaastrichtTreatyhas spurredscholarlywork on attitudes toward the EC (e.g., Eichenberg& Dalton 1993;Franklin,Marsh&McLaren 994;Gabel&Palmer1995;Worcester&Mortimore1994),manytheoreticalquestionsremain. n thisarticle,we examine he sourcesof individual support for Europeanunificationamong citizens of the ECcountries. The sources relate to both country of citizenship and to socialcharacteristicshat link citizensacross differentcountries.

TheoreticalPerspectivesThe extentto which Europeancitizens favor or disfavorunificationof Europeraises two questions.One, to what extentdo the sentimentsof citizensfollowfrom the advantagesor disadvantages hey perceiveunificationof Europetohave for their own respectivecountries?Some view the nationalidentity ofEurope's itizensas crucial o support or theEC,while othersview thegrowth


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 121of postnational dentityas reducingnationalself-interestn determiningviewsof Europeanunification.Two, to what extent do traditional deological andpolitical cleavagesdifferentiateattitudes towardEuropeanunification?Somemay interpret he debate overunification n terms of the left and right, or theworkingandmiddle classes.Othersmay see the gradualdeclineof class conflictinpostindustrial ocietiesasaccelerated yunification ssues thattranscend ndfragment deologicalcleavagesand class categories.First,one may interpretssues of Europeanunification n terms of nationalidentity.Most mattersof economic and politicalimportancehave historicallybeenframed n the contextof sovereignnation-states.Rooted n the industrial-ization of Western societies during the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies,sociologyhas beennearlysynonymouswith thestudyof thenation-state.Evenpresentconditionsof globalization,broadlydefinedas thegrowing nterdepen-denceof localitiesacrosstheworld, mayfail to substantially lterthisapproach(Cameron 992;A. Smith1990).Whilenation-states aveundoubtedlygivenupsome of theirsovereigntyto form a politicalworld system,this processhas atthe same time witnessed a strengtheningof the internal control of states(Giddens1990)and reaffirnedstatesas the actors in internationalpolitics (S.Smith 1989).In this vein, it has been suggested that the constructionof theEuropeanCommunityinvolved a limited surrenderof national sovereigntyprecisely n order to rescue the nation-state Kahler 987;Milward1993). Thispersistenceof the nation-state oincideswith a persistenceof national dentity.Nationalidentityis conceived here not as an objective ixed entitybut as thesubjective epresentation f allegiance owardone'scountry(Macdonald 993).Inferringan enduranceof nationalidentityon the basis of continuingnation-statestrength s theoretically rounded n thethesis thatpoliticalcitizenshiphasto this day been grantedonly by nation-states de Lange1995;Meehan1993;Tassin1994).To the extent that national dentity persists,then,the citizens ofthe industrializedcountries of Europetoday will favor or disfavorpoliticalregimes,national and supranational, n the basis of the perceivedworth theyhavefor their own countries(Gabel& Palmer1995;Men6ndez-Alarc6n995).4Onthe otherhand,some see theincreasingglobalizationof communicationand economicexchangeas generatinga decreaseof popular nterest n nationalconcernsin favor of an increasing dentificationwith issues beyond nationalborders(Cerutti1992).Theemergenceof a cosmopolitanor collectivepoliticalidentity within the European Community (Delanty 1995; Inglehart1990;Schlesinger1991) would reinforce this general trend toward postnationalidentity.Sucha view would highlightthe growingimportanceof values withrelatively universal appeal, such as human rights, the protection of civilliberties,socialrights,and individualclaimsof self-determination. hus,thoseidentifying most closely with such transnational ssues would most favorunificationregardlessof countryof citizenship,andrepresent he forefrontof agenuine postnationalEuropeandentity.Criticsof thisperspectiveof a postnationaldentityrespond hat,regardlessof whetherpopularlyfavoredor opposedvalues and sentimentsreferto issuesthatarenation-specific r to issues thatare identifiedwith a largercommunity,they have to be framedwithin nation-states o becomeeffective. Evenissuescontendedandendorsedon thebasis ofuniversalvalues haveuntiltodayfound


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122 / Social Forces 75:1,September 996concrete expression only within the legitimate authority of nation-states(Habermas 992b).Second, in a relatedpoint, scholarsdiffer on the relativeimportanceoftraditionalclass cleavagesfor attitudestowardEuropeanunification.A class-orientedview sees conflictbetween labor and capitalas central o supportfortheEC,as it remainscentral ornearlyall otherpolitical ssues. A classanalysissuggests blue-collarand relatively poor citizens will more strongly opposeunificationof Europebecausetheyfearlosingtheir obsand decreasingwagesin an all too freeand competitiveEuropeanmarket.Their obs may migrate othose countries with the lowest wages and highestunemployment.As laborunions have not yet successfully organized and centralizedacross nationalboundaries,a freer movementof capital, goods, and servicescan reduce thebargainingpowerof workers nwage deliberations. hisalsoappliesto citizenswho areself-employedbecausetheyface a less flexibleeconomicpositionthantheircounterparts rganized n largebusinessenterprises.However,giventheirrelatively higher income, the self-employedmay hold weakeranti-Europeanattitudes hanblue-collarworkers.White-collarworkers, n contrast, ncounterless of an economic hreat rom ow-wagecountries handoblue-collar ndself-employedworkers.Largebusinessowners,managers,and professionalswithhigh incomefind moreopportunity han threat n competitionwith most otherEuropean ountries.These crudegeneralizations o not, of course,capture hecomplexityof industrialand occupational nterests,but they do specify onepossibly nfluentialcleavage:higher-income usinessmanagersandprofession-als will support unificationof Europemore thanlower-income elf-employedand blue-collarworkers.Givenworking-class pposition ounification, nemightalsoexpectgreateroppositionto unification rom the left than from theright.Of course, politicalorientationhas a complex relationship o popularsupportfor unificationofEurope.Thoseon the leftmayhave economicconcernsover the impactof freetrade on the power of laborto increasewages and benefits and the power ofgovernments o taxbusiness.At the sametime,leftists,who traditionallyavordemilitarization,may welcome political unificationas the expressionof apeacefulcommunity.Thoseon therightmayalso showambivalence:heyfavorfree tradebut oftenoppose giving politicalandmilitarypowertosupranationalagencies,particularlywhen thesepowersmay expand nterventionsn economicactivity.Still,class and related deologicalpositionsremaincrucial,even if notdominant,determinants f individualattitudestowardEuropeanunification.Incontrast, ome havearguedthatrecenteconomicand socialchangeshavetransformed he importanceof economic class power (Lange1992). Popularprotestover issues ofcapitalist conomicdevelopment ndstatepoliticalpowerhas declined in favor of protestover issues of new styles of life. Thisprocesshas resulted in a new politics that been referred o as a "silentrevolution"ofpostmaterialismInglehart 986,1990),andfoundexpression n theemergenceof new valuesandsocial movementsof resistanceandwithdrawal Gundelach1992;Habermas1987). Thus, value orientationsmay relate more closely tosupport for Europeanunification than the traditionalleft-right cleavage.Postmaterialistsoncernedwithissuesofpeace, heenvironment, nd nequalitymay support Europeanunificationmore than materialists Inglehart& Reif


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 1231991). Thesevalue orientations-at across traditional deologicalloyalties tosome extent,and particularly o in morerecentperiods.HypothesesWe first specify hypothesesin static terms and then consider their dynamicimplications.PERSISIENTNATIONAL DIFFERENCESThosearguing or thepersistenceofnational dentitieswould expectsubstantialdifferences n the amount of support eachcountrygives to Europeanunifica-tion.Moreover, hese nationaldifferenceswould persist even with controls orindividualstatus,class,andideologicalvariables.Thisdoes not claimthatotherindividual factors fail altogether to influence attitudes toward Europeanunification. ociodemographicharacteristicsndideological ommitmentserylikelyalso shape popularsupportfor unificationof Europe.Thepersistenceofnational dentities mplies, however, thatindividualdifferencesdo not explainobserveddifferencesacross countries.Influencesof national dentity, n otherwords,cannotbe attributedo differencesn sociodemographicompositionorideologicalmakeupof the countries.Fromnews reportsand survey data,we might expectcitizensof Norway,Denmark,GreatBritain,and Northern reland o havemorenegativeattitudestowardEurope'sunification han citizens of otherEuropean ountries.BecauseNorwayand Denmarkhavewell-established ndpopular ocialwelfarepolicies,theircitizensmayfearthatEuropean nificationwill imposeabureaucratic ndcapitalistsystemthat erodes the social rightsguaranteedby theirown nation-states(Franklin,Marsh& Wlezien1994;Siune&Svensson1993;Siune,Svensson& Tonsgaard1994).Citizens of GreatBritain,an economicallyand politicallystrong state with a longstandingtraditionof nationalism,may fear that themergerof theircountry nto a unifiedEurope mpliesa loss of sovereignty hatoutweighs any possible gain. Great Britain, moreover, is geographicallyseparatedfrom the Europeancontinent and has a nationalistheritageof amarkediy solationistnature(Hewstone1991;Pinder1991b).Northern reland,characterizedby an important religious divide between ProtestantsandCatholics,will in partreflectattitudestowardEuropeanunification imilar toBritishnationals.Yet,if the Catholiccommunityof Northern reland, ike thecitizens of (Catholic) Ireland, favors Europe's unification, it will balanceProtestantopposition.Incontrast,morepositiveattitudes owardEuropean nificationikelyexistin Belgium,Luxembourg, he Netherlands,Portugal,Greece,Spain,Ireland,NorthernIreland, Italy, France,and former West as well as EastGermany.Belgium,Luxembourg,he Netherlands,Portugal,Greece,Spain,and Irelandlack the geographicand demographicsize and the political and economicweight in Europeanaffairs of their largerneighbors.The citizens of thesecountriesperceive their respectivecountries'membership n the EuropeanCommunity sanimprovementntheireconomicbenefitsandpoliticalposition.CitizensofPortugal,Greece,andSpainmay,in addition,believethat oiningthe


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124 / Social Forces 75:1, September 1996EuropeanCommunitywill improvetherelativelypooreconomicconditions ntheircountries(Sidjanski 991).Citizensof Irelandmaybe morepro-Europeanbecause they wish to affirmtheir identity over and against (anti-European)GreatBritain.BecauseItaly is characterized y a markedeconomic nequalitywithin its borders (between, for instance, the northernand the southernregions),andbecauseof the manyscandals nvolving Italianpoliticians,Italiancitizens may be expectedto expressless nationalistand more pro-Europeansentiments.Franceand former West Germany, wo of the dominantpoliticaland economicforces in Europe, may also have citizens who are more pro-European.Like Great Britain,these countries have sustained traditions ofnationalismand may receive minimal economicgains from joining the EC.However, the nationalist ideologies as well as the economic and politicalpoliciesof FranceandformerWestGermany renot isolationist.Nationalism nFranceand formerWest Germany,therefore,may translate nto favoringastrong position within, not apartfrom,unifiedEurope.Insteadof the Britishquest for affirmationoutside of Europe,citizens of Franceand former WestGermanymay exhibitsentiments orparticipationn Europe.Citizensof formerEast Germany, inally, can be expectedto be more pro-European ecause oftheirdesire,after the fall of the Communist egime,to strengthen ies with thericherand more democraticWesternworld.INDWIDUAL-LEVELDETERMINANISA competingperspectivewould predict,when takento theextreme, hat cross-nationaldifferencesn supportof Europeanunification temfrom the differenc-es in individualcharacteristics f the citizens n eachcountry. fsomecountriesshow morehigher evels of averagesupportthanothers, heseaveragenationaldifferenceswould disappearwith controlsfor individual-level haracteristics.Several individual-levelvariables may influence support for Europeanunificationand may account for differencesacrosscountries.Of most impor-tance, hesociodemographicactorsof occupationand incomeand theideologi-cal factorsof politicalorientation from eft to right)andvaluepriorities frommaterialist o postmaterialist)elateto popularattitudes oward unificationofEuropeas discussed above. Theseindividualvariables,n particular,may varysufficientlyacross countries to explainpatternsof supportfor the EuropeanCommunity.Otherindividual-levelvariables age, sex, and education may proverelevantas well. Becauseyoungerpeoplehavemorecosmopolitanorientations,agecould relatenegatively o attitudes owardunification fEurope.Cosmopol-itanconcernsover environmentalmatters, o whichthe EuropeanCommunityhas devoted muchattention,mightlead younger people to expressmore pro-Europeanviews. Olderpeople may supporta unitedEuropebecauseof theirhigher sense of responsibilityfor mattersinvolving a broad community ofpeople,but theirsocializationduringmorenationalistic istoricalperiodsmightpredispose hemto object o radicalpoliticalchangeand the uncertaintiest willbring, particularlywhen it involves collaborationwith countrieswhom theyonce knew as enemies in war.


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 125Gendermay have some influence albeitnot large - on attitudes owardEuropean nification.Withoutexaggeratinghe gendergap in political deology,

women may tend to oppose militarismand support internationalpeace andcooperationmore thanmen. Such attitudesmay spill over into support for apolitical union among formercombatants.Large differenceswithin genders,however, likely minimizethe impact of gender on attitudesand its ability toexplaincross-nationaldifferences.Education likely relates positively to popular support for Europeanunification.Educationexposes people to a broadrangeof ideas and to peopleof diverse ideological and nationalbackgrounds.Therefore, t increases thelikelihood that individuals will accept the establishmentof a supranationalentity and will view a community wider than their own country with lessprejudice. n addition,the associationof educationmay mediate the effect ofage.Since the democratization f educationhas occurred ecently, he youngergenerationmay develop a more cosmopolitanorientationand more stronglyfavora unitedEuropebecause of their argeropportunities or tertiary chool-ing.In summary,sociodemographicand ideological variables may relate toattitudes toward Europeanunification n the directionwe have specified. Inaddition,however,differencesbetweencountries n theirsupportof unificationmaystem from the socioeconomicandideologicalcharacteristics f individualswithineachcountry.A straightforwardompositionalhypothesiswouldpredictthat socioeconomic and ideological differences would completely explainnationaldifferences:hosecountriesmostsupportiveof unifiedEuropehave themost educatedpopulace,the largestnumber of nonmanualprofessionalsandmanagers, he largest proportionof high-incomehouseholds,and the greatestsupportfor postmaterialist alue priorities.SOURCESOF AT1lUTIJDINALIFFERENCESIndependent of whether most country differences transcend individualsocioeconomicand ideological characteristics,we can consider the relativeimportanceof the individual differences.We need not furtherdiscuss thearguments,but we can summarize heircompetingpredictions. n staticterms,class-based rgumentspredict hattheprimarydeterminants f attitudes owardEuropeanunificationwill stem from occupationor class characteristics ndtraditional leftist/rightist ideology. In contrast, postmaterialistargumentsspecifytheprimacyof differences n valueprioritiesandrelatedcharacteristicsof education,age, and gender.DYNAMIC CONSIDERATIONSAll the theoreticalargumentshave dynamicas well as static mplications.At adescriptive evel, we assumethatEuropeanunificationcangenerallycountonsupport from most citizens in Europe.This support, moreover, may haveincreasedsomewhatfrom 1982 to 1992,confirminga trendset since the secondhalf of the 1970s(Handley1981;Inglehart1977, 1990;Riffault1991;Worcester1990).In addition,however, one can make predictionsabout changesin the


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126 / Social Forces 75:1,September 996effects of the independentvariableson the dependentvariable.Arguments orthe importanceof postnational dentity would claim that nationalcitizenshipwill continue to influenceEuropeanattitudes but will decline over time asforces of globalizationpromotepostnational dentity over national identity.Arguments or national dentitypredict hat f changeoccurs, t will involvetherising mportance f national dentityas therealityof theEuropeanCommunitydraws closer and the potential oreconomicand politicalconflictwithinthe ECincreases.Hence,debatesovernationalism nd postnationalism redictdifferenttrends in the effect of country of citizenship on support for the EuropeanCommunity.Similarly, postmaterialistviewpoints do not discount altogether theimportance ftraditional lass andclass-baseddeologicalpositions,butthey doarguethattheir mportanceas determinants f attitudeswill declinerelative othose for postmaterialism.Thosefavoringthe importanceof class suggestnosuch decline.Inbothcases, then,the theoriespredictnot onlya greater elativerole in determiniingttitudesfor one set of variables han the other,they alsopredictthe continued mportanceovertimeof one set relativeto the other.MethodsDATATo addressthesuggestedhypotheses,we examineEurobarometerurveysheldin 1982, 1986, 1989,and 1992 (Eurobarometers8, 25, 31a, and 37).The foursurveys contain several common questions on attitudes toward Europeanunificationand on standardsociodemographic nd ideologicalvariables.Thefour cover the years leading up to and immediatelyafterthe signing of theMaastrichtTreaty.Thesurveysincludeprobability amplesof persons15yearsold and over for all member-states f the EuropeanCommunity.The surveysamples thus changeas theECgrows.For 1982we have data on Denmark, heUnitedKingdom, reland,Greece, heformerWestGermany,France, taly,theNetherlands,Belgium,and Luxembourg.The surveys furtherseparateU.K.respondentsn NorthemIreland rom those in GreatBritain.Thesurveyssince1986 ncludeSpainandPortugal,andthe 1992survey ncludesunitedGermany,separatelyreported orformerEastand WestGermany, ndNorway,the onlycountry n the surveythat does not belongto the EC.With data on fouryearsand on 11 to 15countries or politicalunits withinthe UnitedKingdomand Germany), ndexcludingcaseswith missingvalues,the sampleincludes5,371respondentsn 1982,6,235 n 1986,6,097 n 1989,and8,034in 1992. Threecountries,Belgium,the Netherlands,and Denmark,usenational,multistageprobabilityampling,whiletheothersuse stratified ationalquota samples. However, the Eurobarometerata documentationnotes that"taking nto accountregionand the size of localities,respondentsare chosenwithin selectedsamplingpoints to providea regionallyrepresentativeamplewith respectto the criteriaof sex, age and occupation."When analyzingall the informationavailable, ncluding that for Spain,Portugal,EastGermany,and Norway added after our first year of 1982,thecountrycompositionof thesamplechanges.Otherwise,keepingthesamesetof


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 127countriesrequiresdeleting cases on Spain and Portugal or three time pointsand Norway and East Germany or one. Therefore,we report results for allcountries, but to account for the influence of the changing composition ofcountries n the sample, we replicateall runs for a common subset and reportany differences.Thedataare analyzedwithoutweights,but we have replicated ll runswithtwo types of weighting schemes.One set of weights adjusts or oversamplingwithin several of the countries, he other for differencesn sample size acrosscountriesandyears. Theformerweightsdo not changethesize of the countrysamplesbut accurately epresent he proportionof sampledgroups within thecountries. The latter weights, by equalizing the number of cases for eachcountry-yearwhile maintaining he same overall N, ensure that no countryoryear gets undue influencebecauseof its large sample size.5Forthe descriptivestatistics,neither weighting scheme changes the results: the reportedfiguresdifferby no more than1%when using weights.Forregression,WinshipandRadbill 1994) ecommendgenerallynotusing weightsbecause heyreducetheefficiencyof the estimates(exceptwhen theweightedand unweightedresultsdiffer ignificantly nd indicatemisspecification).nourcase,thewithin-countryweights do not result in any statistically ignificantchangein the coefficients,and the between-countryweights only serve to increase he effects of dummyvariables orNorthern relandandLuxembourg,he twounitswith thesmallestnumber of unweighted cases. Thus, the tables presentresults based on theunweighteddata.MEASURESThe sociodemographicvariablesage, family income (classifiedin quartileswithin eachcountry),and education(yearsof schoolingsince the age of five)aremeasuredandanalyzedas continuousvariables.Forthevariablegender, hemalerespondents recodedas1. Thevariableoccupationhas thefollowingfourcategories:blue-collar, elf-employed,white-collar, ndnot employed.The lastcategoxyis omitted in the regression equations.The need to use only fouroccupational ategories omesfromchanges nmeasuringhesecategoriesnthedifferentEurobarometers.orexample,new categories uch as middlemanage-ment used after 1986 might belong in either the white-collaror executivecategoriesused in the earlieryears.Our nitial solutionsimply groupsthemallinto the same nonmanualcategory.However,giventhepossible importance foccupationaldistribution o differencesacrossnations,we also discussresultsusing the more detailed measures. The ideological variables of politicalorientationand value prioritiesaremeasured n termsof, respectively,a self-placement-scalewith scoresrangingfrom1 (extreme eft-wing)to 10 (extremeright-wing)and an index with the scores 1 (materialist), (mixed),and 3(postmaterialist).7Thedependentvariable s based on threevariables hat n slightlydifferentways measure attitudes toward Europeanunification. First, the variableEuropeanunificationattitude, measured on the basis of the question "Ingeneral,areyou for oragainsteffortsbeingmade tounifywesternEurope?" asfourcategories verymuchfor, for, against,andverymuchagainst).Second,EC


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128 / Social Forces 75:1, September1996membership attitude is a three-categoryvariable based on the question"Generally peaking,do you think that (your country's)membership n theEuropeanCommunity commonmarket)s a good thing,neithergood norbad,or a bad thing?"Third,ECscrappedattitude s basedon the question"Ifyouweretold tomorrow hat theEuropeanCommunity commonmarket)had beenscrapped,would you be sorry about it, indifferent, rrelieved?"All dependentvariablesare recodedand analyzedin a pro-European irection.Factor analysis revealed that in all four surveys these three variablesmeasureonly one underlying actor(see Appendix).The varianceexplained nall variablesassociatedwith the extracted actor s about70% n eachsurvey.The factor loadings are in all surveys highest for the variablesmeasuringattitudes toward membership n, and scrappingof, the EC.For analysis,thedependentvariable s representedby a scale, with a mean of 0 and a standarddeviation of 1, basedon the scoresof thefactorfor all cases.ResultsBeforewe examinethe variablesthatmay determineattitudestoward unifica-tion of Europe,we brieflydiscuss the levelandevolutionofpopularsupport orEuropeanunification or all respondents n the surveys.As shown in Table1,unificationof Europe generallyreceivesoverwhelmingpopularsupport.Thefrequencydistributionson all three dependentvariablesconsidered indicatethis. In eachsurvey,about80%of respondentsarefor or very much for effortsmade to unify Europe,with only some 8%to 17%of the respondents eelingrelievedif theECwould be scrappedorjudgingtheircountry'smembership nthe EC a bad thing.In termsof the evolutionof supportfor unification rom one surveyto thenext,the results do not indicateany spectacular hanges,althoughthepattemdoes point to increasedsupport in the considered decade. Between 1982 and1986, n particular, n increase n popularsupportfor unificationappears,butafter 1986, levels remained fairly constant. The two variables with threecategorieshave witnesseda shift in theirdistributions rom the middlecategoryto the category indicating pro-Europeanattitudes. For the third variable,Europeanunificationattitude,the pull to extremities s less pronounced: hefrequencyof thepro-Europeanategoryremains n all surveys higherthan thefrequencyof the very pro-European ne. Nonetheless,the latterhas over thedecade increased,whereas the formerhas declined,with slightly decliningfrequencies or the anti-European ategories.Does the changing country composition of the sample influence theevolution in the overall level of support? Anticipatingsome of the resultsdiscussed in more detailbelow, partof the changefrom 1982 to 1986 indeedcomes from adding Spain and Portugalto the sample both countries thatexhibit above-average support for the EC. Yet percentageswithout thesecountries continue to reveal rising support. The addition to the sample ofNorway,which shows lower supportfor integration hanall other countries,affects the results in the opposite direction.With Norway included, Table 1shows little in the way of changebeforeand after Maastricht.With Norway


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130 / Social Forces 75:1, September 1996TABLE2: Unstandardized Coefficients for Regression of Popular Support forEuropeanUnification on Country, Sociodemographics,and Ideology,1992

Model1 Model2 Model3CountriesNorway -.736*** -.783*** -.776Denmark -.485*** -.527*** -.548*GreatBritain -.320*** -.292*** -.290Northern reland -.232* -.182 -.177France -.127* -.111 -.094West Germany -.079 -.044 -.049EastGermany .085 .113* .141Luxembourg .147 .106 .106TheNetherlands .172** .160** .159*Spain .198** .254*** .304***Ireland .202** .246*** .241*Italy .324*** .329*** .372**Greece .344*** .370*** .366***Portugal .377*** .443*** .467**

SociodemographicariablesAge -.000 -.000(-.002) (-.000)Gender (male) .122*** .120**

(.060) (.057)Education .038*** .037***(.105) (.103)Bluecollar -.187*** -.175**

(-.064) (-.060)Self-employed -.093* -.100o(-.027) (-.029)

White collar - -.009 -.003(-.004) (-.001)Family income - .077*** .071W

(.085) (.078)Ideologicalariables

Political orientation - - .040*(.080)Value priorities - - .061***(.039)

Intercept .014 -.380 -.706Variance xplained .101 .131 .137Degreesof freedom 8,019 8,012 8,010a Numbersnparenthesesrestandardizedoefficients.* p


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 131higherscores thanBelgium: he Netherlands,Spain,Ireland, taly,Greece,andPortugal.These resultsareconsistentwith ourhypothesesexcept for the scoreof Spain,which we expectedto lie closer to the scoresof Portugaland Greece.Confirming urhypotheses, he coefficients orGreatBritain,DenmarkandNorwayaresignificantlynegative.The resultsalso indicate hat anti-Europeansentiments emerge most strongly in the two Scandinaviancountries. Thecoefficients or Franceand NorthernIrelandshow less support for unificationthan in the Beneluxcountriesbut more than in GreatBritainand Scandinavia.SOCIODEMOGRAPHICVARIABLESThesecondregression quation,which ncludes hesociodemographic ariables,explains 13.1%of the variance,or 3.0%more than the model with countryvariablesonly. Consideringthe influences of the added sociodemographicvariables, he results ndicate hatagehasno significant elationshipo popularsupportforEuropeanunification.Yet othervariablesprovemoreimportant.Adifferenceof .122 standarddeviationunits existsbetweenthemale and femalerespondents. While small, the difference reaches statistical significance.Unexpectedly,the coefficient indicates that male respondentsare somewhatmorepro-Europeanhan femalerespondents.Consistent with our hypothesis,educationrelates positively to popularsupport.Theresults orthevariablesoccupation ndfamily ncomealsoconfirmour predictions:blue-collarand self-employedworkers oppose Europeanunificationmore than do white-collarworkers.There s no differencebetweenwhite-collarworkersand the unemployed,but both groupsfavor unificationmore than blue-collarand self-employedworkers. Of the sociodemographicvariables,educationandfamilyincome have the strongest mpact.The scores for the different countries net of controls for the socio-demographicvariables fail to exhibit noteworthy changes from the grosscountryscores.Infact,the net coefficientsof the countries n most casesprovemorepronounced n the directionpredictedby the hypothesesthanthe grosscoefficients.Thisconfirms hat he influencesof thesociodemographicactorsdonot accountfor the countrydifferences.Wouldmore detailedoccupational ategories mprove hepredictivepowerof the sociodemographic ariables?Althoughnot comparableo occupationalmeasures for earlieryears, the 1992 survey allows use of 14 occupationalcategories.Whenadded to the equation,dummyvariablesfor each categoryOessone) do little to changethe results.Thevarianceexplainedrisesby .00346or,with10additionalvariables,by .000346pervariable.Also, the moredetailedmeasuresfail to furtherexplain countrydifferencesor add much insightnotavailable from the crudercategories.Thus, to maintaincomparability crossyears,we continue to reportthe simple occupational ategories.IDEOLOGICALVARIABLESThe thirdregressionmodel includesthe ideologicalfactors n additionto thecitizenship and the sociodemographicvariables.A multiple regression ofpopular supportfor Europeanunificationon all these independentvariables


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132 / Social Forces 75:1, September 996reveals a coefficient of determination of 13.7, only a slight increase (butnonetheless statistically significant) compared to the previous equation. Theresults show that, controlling for the other independent variables, politicalorientation relates positively to popular support for European unification. Thisindicates that the favorable attitudes toward free trade of (pro-European)rightists, or the economic concerns of (anti-European) leftists outweighcountering influences of the anti-European right and the pro-European left.Postmaterialist value priorities, as expected, relate positively to attitudes towardEuropean unification but have a weaker effect than political orientation (thestandardized coefficients equal .080 and .039, respectively).9 As before, thecountry differences change little with controls for the ideological variables andreveal persistent and important differences between countries in their supportof the EC.10LONGrTUDINALCOMPARISONS,1982-92To examine the determinants of the evolution of popular support for Europeanunification, we undertake similar analyses for the Eurobarometer surveys of1982, 1986, and 1989 (see Tables 3, 4, and 5). We first discuss the results of thesociodemographic and ideological variables, then we turn to the countrydifferences."1The effects of the sociodemographic variables remain fairly stable over thedecade. Only age, gender, and education change significantly over time.Contradicting our expectation, age relates positively to popular support forEuropean unification before 1992 but falls to zero in the last year. The effect ofeducation remains positive in all years but becomes significantly smallerbeginning in 1986. Relative to 1982, the support of males rises significantly in1986 and 1989.Turning to the ideological variables, the results continue to show thatpolitical orientation contributes more to variation in the dependent variable thando value priorities. We do see, however, that the influence of political orienta-tion diminishes significantly between 1986 and 1989;the effect of value prioritiesincreases, but not significantly. This result, then, offers limited support for athesis of the gradual, but not yet accomplished, formation of a posttraditionalidentity Uanssen 1991).Comparing the relative position of the countries over time shows generalstability in rankings,12 but with movement of nations at the extremes toward themiddle. Several nations relatively less supportive in 1982 - Denmark, GreatBritain, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Greece - become significantly moresupportive by 1992. Several nations relatively more supportive in 1982 - WestGermany,France,and Luxembourg - become significantly less supportive. Thisindicates some evidence of convergence in attitudes during the 1980s butnonetheless leaves a substantial gap between the pro-unity and anti-unitynations.


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 133TABLE 3: Unstandardized Coefficients for Regression of Popular Support for

European Unification on Country, Sociodemographics, and Ideology,1982

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3Countries

Denmark -.778*** -.736*** -.724Northem Ireland -.714*** -.654*** -.691**Great Britain -.665*** -.599*** -.599***Ireland -.210*** -.184** -.212Greece -.146* -.103 -.032West Germany .075 .142* .167*France .176** .190*** .247**Italy .257*** .294*** .384***The Netherlands .257*** .247*** .270***Luxembourg .312*** .335*** .336***

SociodemographicariablesAge Q005*** *004***

(.083) (.063)Gender (male) .043 .057*(.021) (.028)Education - .052*** .051*(.132) (.130)Blue collar - -.154*** -.139(-.059) (-.054)

Self-employed - -.022 -.054(-.007) (-.016)White collar - -.040 -.028(-.017) (-.012)Family income .090*** .079***(.098) (.086)

IdeologicalvariablesPolitical orientation - .070***(.153)Value priorities - - .027(.018)

Intercept .102 -.546 -.930Variance explained .137 .173 .194Degrees of freedom 5,360 5,353 5,351

a Standardizedcoefficientsare in parentheses.* p


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134 / Social Forces 75:1, September 1996TABLE 4: Unstandardized Coefficients for Regression of Popular Support for

European Unification on Country, Sociodemographics, and Ideology,1986a

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3Countries

Denmark -.852*** -.817*** -.815**Great Britain -.757*** -.712*** -.714Northern Ireland -.649*** -.610*** -.627**Greece -.348*** -.319** -.296*Ireland -.297*** -.255** -.288**France .093 .120* .157**Portugal .095 .192** .206***Italy .159** .213*** .294***West Germany .176** .214*** .225The Netherlands .209*** .223*** .245***Spain .266*** .302*** .380**Luxembourg .289*** .299*** .298**

SociodemographicariablesAge - .003*** .003***

(.060) (.045)Gender (male) - .128*** .137**(.063) (.068)Education - .032*** .034***(.084) (.088)Blue collar - -.122*** -.096**

(-.047) (-.037)Self-employed - .048 .040(.014) (.012)

White collar - .015 .022(.006) (.009)Family income - .090*** .072***(.100) (.081)

Ideological ariablesPolitical orientation - .074***(.156)Value priorities - - .024(.015)

Intercept .125 -.466 -.864Variance explained .148 .178 .200Degrees of freedom 6,222 6,215 6,213

a Standardizedcoefficients are in parentheses.*p


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Popular Support for European Unification / 135TABLE 5: Unstandardized Coefficients for Regression of Popular Support forEuropean Unification on Country, Sociodemographics, and Ideology,

1989aModel 1 Model 2 Model 3

CountriesDenmark -.639*** -.625*** -.665**Great Britain -.125* -.110 -.139*Northem Ireland .043 .075 .067West Germany .050 .094 .075Luxembourg .227* .231* .213*France .227* .241*** .242*The Netherlands .249*** .223*** .207**Ireland .364*** .386*** .345***Italy .408* .446*** .480*Portugal .436*** .511*** .524*Spain .442 .499*** .558*Greece .444* .465*** .465

SociodemographicariablesAge - .004*** .004(.071) (.071)Gender(male) - .135** .132*

(.066) (.065)Education - .034*** .031W(.092) (.084)Blue collar - -.205*** -.180*

(-.071) (-.062)Self-employed - -.032 -.050(-.010) (-.015)White collar - -.052 -.045(-.023) (-.020)Familyincome - .068*** .061**(.073) (.065)

IdeologicalariablesPoliticalorientation - - .041(.089)Value priorities - - .082(.053)

Intercept -.147 -.693 -1.03Varianceexplained .087 .114 .122Degreesof freedom 6,084 6,077 6,075

a Standardized coefficients are in parentheses.* p < .05 **p < .01 ***p < .001


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136 / Social Forces 75:1, September 1996

Discussion and ConclusionOur results show that countrydifferences n popularsupport for Europeanunification mergeas more mportanthan ndividual sociodemographic ndideological characteristics.Whilesociodemographic ndideologicalvariablesalso shape attitudes toward unificationof Europe, they do not account forcountry differences.The within-country nfluence of the sociodemographicvariables shows in the stronger supportof more highly educated and richercitizens and the lowersupport of blue-collarworkers orEuropeanunification.Moreunexpectedresultsemergefor the effectsof age and genderon attitudestowardEuropeanunification.Thepositive coefficients orage indicate hatolderpeople's sense of responsibility toward a wider community outweighs thecosmopolitanorientation fyoung people.Moreover, hefindingscould ndicatethatmost oldercitizens,especially hose in countries hatare ongtimemembersof the EC,view Europeanunificationas a given, ratherthan a new, politicalreality. The results of the influenceof genderindicate that male respondentsfavorunificationof Europemore thanfemales.Theinfluencesof theideologicalvariablesof politicalorientation ndvaluepriorities how someambiguity.Postmaterialist aluepriorities elatepositivelyto popular support for European unification,but the influence of politicalorientationproves strongerthan the effectof value priorities.The more pro-Europeanattitudes of postmaterialistand right-wingorientedpeople anunusualcombination reflectthe importance f cross-cutting oncerns n thisarea. The cosmopolitan orientation of postmaterialistscontrasts with thenationalismof materialists,but thepro-free-marketrientation f rightwingerssurpasses the anticapitalist entimentsof leftists. Althoughstill early in theprocess,the potentialgradual ormationof a posttraditionaldentity manifestsitself in the decliningeffectof political orientationand the increasingor stableeffectof value prioritiesover the decade.Thesuddendecreaseof popularsupportforunification n theformerWestGermanyand France n 1992followedthe heatedcontroversyn these countriesat the time of thesigningof the MaastrichtTreaty Menendez-Alarc6n995).InFrance, the left-wing political parties opposed Europeanunification andmobilized forcesagainstthe EC.InGermany, he 1992survey,which followedthe reunificationof Germany,reflectedthe polarizationof attitudes towardEurope n theEastandWest. In formerEastGermany,unification trengthenedthequestfordemocracyand anorientation o theWest,whereas n formerWestGermanyit led to a revival of anti-Europeannationalism. Conditions ofuncertaintyn FranceandGermany husrefurbished ationalist raditions n amore solationist,anti-Europeanmanner. ndeed,bothcountries xperiencedhesuccessof extreme-right oliticalpartiesand outbreaks f xenophobicviolence.We suggested that citizens of Greece would exhibitmore pro-Europeanattitudes but did not predict the anti-Europeanentimentsof Greek citizensbefore1989.Perhaps heprevalenceof anti-WesternentimentsdissipatedafterGreece came to enjoy economic benefits from its EC membershipand thepopularSocialist PanhellicMovement had'reversed ts anti-Europeantance(Dimitras1992).Ifso, it would confirm nglehart ndRabier's1978) hesesthat


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 137increase n a country'seconomicbenefits rom ECmembership eads to greatersupport for unification and that length of membership in the EC relatespositivelyto approvalof a unified Europe.The former hesis could also explainthe slight increase in support in Portugaland the latter thesis the relativedecline in anti-Europeanismn GreatBritainand Denmark rom1982 to 1992.The persistence of country differences under conditions of control ofselected variables ndicatesa continued commitmenton the partof Europe'scitizens toward interestspertaining o their own countries.13t is important onote that persistenceof nationalidentity does not imply that Europe lackspopular legitimation because, as some suggest, structuralpressures bolsterpatriotic pride and the EC'spolitical frameworkentails a democraticdeficit(Dahl 1994;Neunreither1994).To be sure, the issue of democraticdeficit,specifically n the form of the relative impotenceof the EuropeanParliament,will affect the future of unified Europe.Yet an exclusive focus on politicalpower structures ails to ascertain he extent to which conditionsof popularlegitimation nhanceorimpairsuccess ofEuropean nification egardlessof theEC's organizationaldimensions. Results of our analysis show that an over-whelming majority upport Europeanunification,even in thosecountriesthatare less supportive. However, it appearsthat, given the country differences,national dentification xplainspro-Europeanswell asanti-Europeanttitudes.Theoretically,our conclusion relies on the proposition that politicalcitizenshiphas not been guaranteedon any level beyond nation-states. n theEuropeancontext, in particular, t should be noted that while a Europeancitizenship is formally specified in the MaastrichtTreaty ("Citizensof theUnion"),t is primarily legallysanctioned conomiccategory,afree-movement"marketcitizenship,"not a full-fledgedcitizenshipof equal participation deLange1995).Moreover, recent events in Europe indicate an important variety ofcoexistingpush andpull factorswith respectto Europeanizationnd national-ization. Ambivalentcurrentsarise not only at the level of ministerial ummitsandpoliticalprocesses,where nationalandEuropeannitiativesmeettoconflictand/or harmonize,but also in Europe'schangingpublic sphere,conceived asthe institutionalized communicative structures beyond state and market(Habermas 992c).Forexample, n Germanyand France,attempts o establisha strong position within Europe have coincided with spasms of far-rightextremismand concerns over German reunificationand French nationalistculturalpolicies.InBelgium, he celebration f Brusselsas thecapitalof Europeand theresulting"bureaucraticnvasion"have not overruled ensionsovertheaspired pacification of Walloon/Flemish antagonisms with the country'spolitical federalization.Or, in GreatBritain,one of the more anti-Europeancountries, opposition to a common European currencyhas coincided withremaining internal nationalist struggles (Parman 1993) and the country'sresistance o, and factualparticipation n, the EC as it recentlymaterializednthe controversyover the ChannelTunnel(Darian-Smith995).Affectingall ofEurope's countries, though in differentways, the internaleasing of bordercontrolswithin the EC has been accompaniedby continuedethnic dissensionsand a closingof Europe'soutsideborders,amplifyingdebateoverasylumand


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138 / Social Forces 75:1,September 996immigration Habermas 994b;Soysal1994)andpolice andsecurity n"FortressEurope" Bunyan1993;Waeveret al. 1993).Thesetrends ndicate hat conditionsof confusionoversourcesofauthorityand decision-makingmay facilitatea continued dentificationwith individualcountries.In the absenceof a developedEuropeanpublic sphere, particularlywith respectto themedia(Gerhards993),politicallyrelevant dentitiesremainmediated through familiar forms of associationrooted in diverse nationalhistoriesand cultures.Therefore, crucialpolitical paradox n contemporaryEurope s not thesimultaneous esurgenceof nationalismand internationalism(Adam 1990),but the coexistenceof differentexpressionsof multiple forms ofnationalism, issiparousand unificationist Calhoun1993).Theimportanceof countryof citizenshipas a central actor n explainingpopularsupportforEuropeanunificationhas crucialand paradoxical mplica-tions.It suggests that both favorableand unfavorable rientations owardthesupranationalEuropeanCommunityemanate from national concerns.Thus,assessing whether the EuropeanCommunitywill face a legitimation crisisrequires scholars to take into account citizens' perceptions of their owncountries'ikelihood o benefit romthe ECandthemannernwhich conflictingstructural trends affect these perceptions.This perspective goes beyonddescriptiveanalysesof the level of popularsupportthe EuropeanCommunityenjoys.For nstance, herelativelyhighlevel ofanti-Europeanttitudes n GreatBritainand Denmark s well known(Inglehart&Rabier1979;Worcester 990).But ess known s thatpro-Europeanitizens, oo, may supporta unifiedEuropenot forEurope,but for the benefitstheyperceiveunificationwill have for theirown countries.The Europeandilemma, then, lies in the fact that Europeanunification,despite the high level of support it receives,does not rely on postnationalcitizens with a united self-consciousnessor Euro-citizenship Bryant1991;Hodgson 1993),but on a pluralityof nationals with "rival and contrasting'European dentities"'(Shore 1993:791).The legitimationof the EC is notsecured,notonlybecauseanti-Europeanitizensdo notsupportunification, utalsobecausepro-Europeansoso out of concerns elated o theirowncountries.Bothanti-Europeansnd pro-Europeansrenationals,not Europeans.Notes1. Several other Europeancountries have fornally applied for membership n the EC/EU:Turkeyin 1987, Austria in 1989, Cyprusand Malta in 1990, Sweden in 1991, and Finland,Switzerland,and Norway in 1992. Sincethen,referenda ed Sweden, Finland,and Austria tojoin the EU and Norway to decline. Announcementsof the intentionor consideration o applyfor membershiphave been made by other countries,such as Liechtenstein, he Czech andSlovakrepublics,Poland,Hungaxy,Estonia,Latvia,Lithuania,Bulgaria,Romania,and Albania.2. Fromtheperspectiveof the sociologyof democracy,Habermas's pproachcriticizes heoriesthat exclusively emphasize the efficacy of the economic system and the polity (e.g., Upset1994), assertingthat a civil society, permitting popular participationand legitimation, s animportantcodeterminantof democraticsurvival (Habermas1992a, 1994a; see also Calhoun1993;Dahl 1992;Gerhards1993).3. Thiscorresponds o Hailer's (1990) thesis that comparativeresearchon the "macrocontext'of Europeshould not exclude an account of the internaldifferentiationsbetween Europe'scountries (see also the discussion between Hamm 1991 and Hailer 1991).


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PopularSupport or EuropeanUnification 139

World War II, and proximity to other countries n the EuropeanCommunityshow high ratesof support. We attempt to evaluate in more detailthe premise behind their analysis.5. If we desired to generalize to the EuropeanCommunityas a single entity, we could alsoweight each country n the sample so that it corresponds o its representation n the communi-ty. However, given our theoreticalattention o national dentity and concernwith nation-statesas meaningful units, the virtual discountingof the resultsfor smaller countriesrelative to thelargercountriesbrought about by this procedurehas little justification.6. Differences n educationalsystems make it difficultto measure degree completed meaning-fully across countries.7. Fora review of the conceptual ogic, details of construction,and methodological valuationof thepostmaterialist alue prioritiesscale,see Inglehart 1990).The scale comes from answersto questionsof what respondentsthink are the two most importantgoals for their country.Originallyofferinga choice of twelve materialistand postmaterialist oals, Inglehart aterwasable to reduce the choice to four goals with little loss of reliability. Those who choosemaintainingorderand fighting rising pricesare classified as materialist,and those who chooseprotecting freedom of speech and giving people more say in government are classified aspostmaterialist.Those who choose one from eachset are classifiedas mixed.

Tocheck fornonlinearity,we also treatedpostmaterialism s two dummyvariablesratherthanas a singlelinearscale.However, addingthe extravariable o allow fornonlinearity aisesthe proportionof varianceexplained by less than .0003. The single indicatorthus appears toadequately depict the effectsof postmaterialistvalues in our models.8. Because the 1989 election for the EuropeanParliamentmay also have generated nterest inand support for unification,the figures for that year may be somewhat inflated (Gabel&Palmer1995).9. Perhapsthe modest effects of the ideologicalvariables result from theiroverlapwith thesociodemographiccontrols for age, education, occupation, and income. Yet the bivariatecorrelationsof Europeansupportwith politicalorientationand postmaterialismare actuallyslightlysmaller than the partialstandardizedcoefficients.10. Replicating he 1992results for the eleven countriesavailableforall yearsdoes not changethese conclusions. As a means of identifying substantially important changes, we simplycomparedcoefficients or the model for bothsets of countries.None of the coefficients or thesubsample differednontriviallyfrom those reportedin Table2. Although the compositionaffects the overall level of supportin Table1 and theconstant n theregressionequation, t hasno influenceon the variablecoefficients.Thisfindingindicatesthat therelationshipsn the fournew countriesdo not differ from those in the originaleleven. Further ests for differences neffects across theoriginaleleven countriesmightalso be appropriate.However, the formidable

APPENDIX: Results of Factor Analysis for Three Variables Measuring PopularSupport for European Unificationa

1982 1986 1989 1992(1) (2) (1) (2) (1) (2) (1) (2)

Europeanunification .73 .53 .74 .55 .82 .67 .82 .68ECmembership .89 .79 .87 .75 .85 .72 .86 .74ECscrapped .89 .80 .87 .76 .86 .73 .86 .73Varianceexplainedby factor 70.5 68.7 70.9 71.6

a (1) Factor oading(2) Communality


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140 / SocialForces 75:1,September1996problemsof developingtheoretical pecificationsof theexpecteddifferences,adding numerousstatistical tests, and interpreting eparate models by country as well as by year led us to limitsuch effortsin this article.11. In the following discussion,we referto significantchangesin the coefficientson the basisof tests for two groups of countries.One group of all countries,even those added after the 1982survey, makes it difficult to isolate changes in the coefficients from differences due to thechanging country compositionof the sample. The other group of countries with data for allyears allows direct tests for changes in the coefficientswithout concern over the countriesincluded. The same variables emerged as having changed significantlyfor both groups ofcountries, and we can therefore attribute the changes to something more than samplecomposition.To test for changes over time, we include productterms of dummy variables for1986, 1989, and 1992 by each of the other independent variables(leaving the effects of thevariables n 1982 as thebasefrom which the effects for the lateryears vary). For the full sampleof nations,theadditionalsixty-five producttermsraise the varianceexplainedwith an additivemodel by 2% (.160versus .140,significantat the .001 level). Examiningthe significance anddirectionof the productterms forms the basis of our discussion.12. Since the dependentvariablehas been standardizedwithin each of the years,we look forchanges only in the rankingsof the countries over time.Whilethe descriptive resultsin Table1 show increasedsupportfor unificationover time, the coefficients n Tables3-5 show shifts inrelative positions of countries within the more general trend. We can allow the mean of thedependentvariable to vaxyacross years by standardizingwithin the total sample ratherthanwithin years. Except to increase the effects of the dummy variables for time, this form ofscaling does not change significantlyany of the other additive or interactiveeffects.13. Perhapsour measureof popularsupportcannot dentifycitizenswho favora unificationofEuropein idealized terms,but not the unificationas it reallyexists.Factoranalysis, however,does not supportthe view thatrespondentsmake this distinction:despitea differentemphasis,the item on Europeanunification attitude loads similarlyon the underlyingfactor to the twootheritems (see Appendix).ReferencesAdam,Heribert.1990. "ExclusiveNationalismversusInclusivePatriotism: tateIdeologiesforDivided Societies."Innovation :569-87.Allington, Nigel F.B.,andJ.BarryJones.1994."Tomorrow'sBritishElite:Student Attitudes toSomeAspectsof theEuropeanCommunity."nternationalournalfPublicOpinionResearch6:342-57.Baker, David, Imogen Fountain, Andrew Gamble, and Steve Ludlam. 1995. "BackbenchConservativeAttitudes to EuropeanIntegration."PoliticalQuarterly6:221-33.Bryant,ChristopherG.A.1991."Europeand theEuropeanCommunity1992."Sociology5:189-207.Bunyan, Tony (ed.). 1993. Statewatchinghe New Europe:A Handbook n the European tate.Statewatch.Calhoun, Craig. 1993. "Nationalism and Civil Society: Democracy, Diversity and Self-Determination."nternationalociology :387411.Cameron,David R. 1992. "The1992 Initiative:Causes and Consequences."Pp. 23-74in Euro-Politics: nstitutions ndPolicymakingn the "New"European ommunity,dited by AlbertaM. Sbragia.BrookingsLnstitution.Cerutti,Furio. 1992. "CanThereBe a Supranational dentity?"PhiilosophlyndSocialCriticism18:147-62.Dahl, RobertA. 1992. "WhyFreeMarketsAre Not Enough."Journalf Democracy:82-89.


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The Myth of Postnatioanl identity

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