Affects, Perception And European Citizenship. Regards In Political Psychology

This study underlines the relation between political emotions and the citizens’ perception of the European citizenship. This complex and ambivalent model of the EU identity generates a “soft” perspective of EU citizenship. The lack of the legal framework both in EU and in States Members creates premises for a volatile model of the citizenship without duties. This research aims to develop a quantitative design for analyzing the functional relation between political cognition (beliefs and political emotions), dimensions of the political socialisation, political identity and possibilities of explaining the dynamics of the EU citizenship. As research method the article uses the comparative case studies for shaping the differences between political identity and perspectives for EU citizenship in Eastern post-communist countries and Western democracies. Quantitative data are collected from the official statistical reports of the Eurostat. At the empirical level the first quantitative result reflects that economic factors are related to the attachment for EU in post-communist countries. In the same context, political and social values are predictors for the attachment of EU in Western political systems. Another empirical finding presents the human rights as vector for shaping both political attachment and political identity in EU sphere. The third empirical finding stresses the fact that for Eastern citizens a high level of EU attachment is related to a weak level of the rule of law. Several historical patterns specific for this geographical area could explain this negative relation between variables.