A Crisis of Trust? Popular Support for the European Union During the Great

Recession

Besir CekaMax Weber Fellow

European University Institute

Indiana UniversityNovember 11, 2013

Trust in the EU during the “great recession”

Introduction Theory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Figure 1: Change in trust in the EU between 2007 and 2011

absolute change

Source: Eurobarometer

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KEY QUESTIONS

What explains this drop in support for the EU?

Are the austerity policies of the EU/IMF to be blamed?

Has the ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU increased?

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ARGUMENT

Austerity measures—only partly responsible for the drop

National economy and support for national government more important. Reason?

Most Europeans know little about EU policies and their effects

Crisis increase in the share of detached citizens

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Types of attitudes toward national governments and EU

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Diffuse support vs. specific support

Easton (1965, 1975): “Legitimacy of democracies is affected by the extent to which

citizens trust government to do what is right most of time.”

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Diffuse support

“reservoir of favorable attitudes or good will that helps members to accept or tolerate outputs to which they are opposed or the effects of which they see as damaging to their interests”

Specific support: performance-based, short term

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DATA AND METHOD

133 Eurobarometer national surveys from 27 EU countries (2007-2011)

Cross-classified multilevel logistic regression models

Individual and contextual variables

Key dependent variables:

Trust in the EU EU Membership Good measures of diffuse support for the EU

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Ceteris paribus, being under IMF conditionality has little effect on trust in the EU

Credit: AP Photo

Introduction Theory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Source: Eurobarometer

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Figure 3: Effects of independent variables moving from minimum to maximum values on predicted probability of Trusting EU

Trust national gov. Economic situation

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Sophistication

Figure 4: Moderating effect of sophistication

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Figure 5: The % of respondents who distrust both levels of government, 2007 and 2011

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Figure 6: Trust in the EU and Trust in National Government over time

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CONCLUSION

Evaluations of the national government and economy are crucial for support for the EU

EU is facing a democratic deficit

But, national governments are facing an even bigger legitimacy deficit

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Contact:Besir Ceka

besir.ceka@eui.eu

Title

THANK YOU!