IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v23y2022i3p489-508.html

Support for European Union membership comes in various guises: Evidence from a Correlational Class Analysis of novel Dutch survey data

Author

Listed:
  • Elske van den Hoogen

    (Department of Public Administration & Sociology, 6984Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands)

  • Stijn Daenekindt

    (Department of Sociology, 26656Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium)

  • Willem de Koster

    (Department of Public Administration & Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands)

  • Jeroen van der Waal

    (Department of Public Administration & Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands)

Abstract

While ample research has scrutinised the causes and consequences of support for the European Union, a pressing question remains: what do people actually mean when they express support for, or opposition to, their country’s membership of the institution? We use Correlational Class Analysis to assess this. Our analysis of high-quality representative Dutch survey data ( n  = 2053), including novel items informed by in-depth qualitative research, reveals that European Union support comes in three guises: federalist, non-federalist and instrumental-pragmatist Strikingly, many Europhiles are not federalists. In addition, we reveal that the social bases of the three types of support especially differ regarding political competence, political orientation, and media consumption. The implications for ongoing debates on European Union atttidues are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Elske van den Hoogen & Stijn Daenekindt & Willem de Koster & Jeroen van der Waal, 2022. "Support for European Union membership comes in various guises: Evidence from a Correlational Class Analysis of novel Dutch survey data," European Union Politics, , vol. 23(3), pages 489-508, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:23:y:2022:i:3:p:489-508
    DOI: 10.1177/14651165221101505
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14651165221101505
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/14651165221101505?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Goodwin, Matthew & Hix, Simon & Pickup, Mark, 2020. "For and Against Brexit: A Survey Experiment of the Impact of Campaign Effects on Public Attitudes toward EU Membership," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 481-495, April.
    2. Hobolt, Sara B. & Wratil, Christopher, 2015. "Public opinion and the crisis: the dynamics of support for the euro," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60788, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Samira van Bohemen & Willem de Koster & Jeroen van der Waal, 2019. "Euroscepticism among Dutch Leftist and Rightist Populist Constituencies: How can the U‐Curve be Understood?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(2), pages 371-387, March.
    4. Elske van den Hoogen & Willem de Koster & Jeroen van der Waal, 2022. "What Does the EU Actually Mean to Citizens? An in‐Depth Study of Dutch citizens' Understandings and Evaluations of the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(5), pages 1432-1448, September.
    5. Rob Eisinga & Manfred Grotenhuis & Ben Pelzer, 2013. "The reliability of a two-item scale: Pearson, Cronbach, or Spearman-Brown?," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 58(4), pages 637-642, August.
    6. Rachid Azrout & Joost Van Spanje & Claes De Vreese, 2012. "When News Matters: Media Effects on Public Support for European Union Enlargement in 21 Countries," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 691-708, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlos Jalali & Patrícia Silva & Patrício Costa & Filipe Falcão, 2025. "Which cues matter: The effect of content cues on European Union support," European Union Politics, , vol. 26(4), pages 736-758, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elske van den Hoogen & Willem de Koster & Jeroen van der Waal, 2022. "What Does the EU Actually Mean to Citizens? An in‐Depth Study of Dutch citizens' Understandings and Evaluations of the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(5), pages 1432-1448, September.
    2. Marino De Luca, 2022. "Methods for analysing citizens’ attitudes: a hypothetical Italian referendum about the membership of the European Union as a case study," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1681-1699, June.
    3. Francesco La Barbera & Mario Amato & Roberta Riverso & Fabio Verneau, 2022. "Social Emotions and Good Provider Norms in Tackling Household Food Waste: An Extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-12, August.
    4. Kong Juan & Kepili Ema Izati Binti Zull, 2023. "A Survey Analysis: The Current Real Estate Marketing Situation in the China Greater Bay Area in the Context of the COVID-19 Epidemic," Real Estate Management and Valuation, Sciendo, vol. 31(3), pages 1-19, September.
    5. Cengiz Erisen & Elif Erisen, 2014. "Attitudinal Ambivalence towards Turkey's EU Membership," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 217-233, March.
    6. Karen Birna Thorvaldsdottir & Sigridur Halldorsdottir & Denise M. Saint Arnault, 2021. "Understanding and Measuring Help-Seeking Barriers among Intimate Partner Violence Survivors: Mixed-Methods Validation Study of the Icelandic Barriers to Help-Seeking for Trauma (BHS-TR) Scale," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21, December.
    7. Yihuan Yuan & Jamalludin Harun & Boon Yew Wong & Li Li, 2025. "Technology-Driven Framework for College English Courses: If and How Mobile-Assisted Collaborative Language Learning Affects EFL Student Engagement," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(2), pages 21582440251, May.
    8. Stefan Hoffmann & Tom Joerß & Robert Mai & Payam Akbar, 2022. "Augmented reality-delivered product information at the point of sale: when information controllability backfires," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(4), pages 743-776, July.
    9. Simon Fauser & David Agola, 2021. "The influence of regional Italian images on consumer behaviour: a study of consumers in Germany," Italian Journal of Marketing, Springer, vol. 2021(1), pages 129-158, June.
    10. Zatsarnaja, Junianna & Reiter, Katharina & Mohnen, Alwine & Nordfjærn, Trond, 2026. "Nudging grid-friendly electric vehicle charging: Different shades of social framing and the power of individual factors," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    11. Peter Heimerl & Marco Haid & Lea Benedikt & Ursula Scholl-Grissemann, 2020. "Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction in Hospitality Industry," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, December.
    12. Andrea Guazzini & Marina Baroni & Maria Fiorenza & Sofia Sprugnoli & Giulia Valdrighi & Mirko Duradoni, 2025. "Development and Validation of the New Environmental Locus of Control (NE-LOC) Scale: A Novel Measure of Internal, External, and Community Locus of Control for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-23, July.
    13. Andree Ehlert & Jan Seidel & Ursula Weisenfeld, 2020. "Trouble on my mind: the effect of catastrophic events on people’s worries," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 951-975, August.
    14. Felix Roth & Lars Jonung, 2022. "Public Support for the Euro and Trust in the ECB: The First Two Decades of the Common Currency," Contributions to Economics, in: Public Support for the Euro, chapter 0, pages 1-19, Springer.
    15. Roth, Felix, 2026. "Inflation and Public Support for the Euro," Hamburg Discussion Papers in International Economics 21, University of Hamburg, Department of Economics.
    16. Oxana Drapkina & Artemii Molosnov & Denis Tyufilin & Maria Lopatina & Viktor Medvedev & Valeriya Chigrina & Olga Kobyakova & Ivan Deev & Lennert Griese & Doris Schaeffer & Robert Griebler & Polina Tui, 2025. "Measuring Navigational Health Literacy in Russia: Validation of the HLS 19 -NAV-RU," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 22(2), pages 1-12, January.
    17. Jess MacArthur & Rachel P Chase & Diana Gonzalez & Tyler Kozole & Chris Nicoletti & Veasna Toeur & Juliet Willetts & SNV Beyond the Finish Line Team, 2024. "Investigating impacts of gender-transformative interventions in water, sanitation, and hygiene: Structural validity, internal reliability and measurement invariance of the water, sanitation, and hygiene–Gender equality measure (WASH-GEM)," PLOS Water, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(10), pages 1-24, October.
    18. Wang, Saerom & Kirillova, Ksenia & Lehto, Xinran, 2017. "Reconciling unsatisfying tourism experiences: Message type effectiveness and the role of counterfactual thinking," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 233-243.
    19. Cleonaldo Gonçalves Santos & Maurício Almeida & Mauro Lúcio de Oliveira Júnior & Tiffany A. Brown & Pedro Henrique Berbert de Carvalho, 2023. "Psychometric Evaluation of the Drive for Muscularity Scale and the Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory among Brazilian Cisgender Gay and Bisexual Adult Men," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-15, January.
    20. Athina Economou & Christos Kollias, 2024. "The 2015 Refugee Crisis and Institutional Trust in European Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 173(2), pages 377-396, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:23:y:2022:i:3:p:489-508. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.