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Images of Europeans: transnational trust and support for European integration

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Abstract

Prior research on citizen support for European integration does not consider the influence of individuals’ evaluations of European nationalities. The model developed in this article argues that individuals harbour images regarding other European nationalities. These images, which are tied to the economic development of the nationalities’ country, influence transnational trust (the general trust that individuals put in another nationality). Transnational trust explains support for integration, for it facilitates cooperation among diverse groups. As a result, the overall transnational trust is important in explaining support for integration. In addition, trust in nationalities from poorer countries has a stronger impact on support than trust in nationalities from wealthier countries. This is due to the fact that nationalities from poorer countries occupy lower social strata and that these strata evoke specific images. Controlling for various factors, regression analysis of the European Election Study (2004 and 2009) and the Eurobarometer 64.2 (2005) data supports these claims.

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Notes

  1. The data utilised in this publication were originally collected by the 2004 and 2009 European Election Study research group. This study has been made possible by various grants. Neither the original collectors of the data nor their sponsors bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations published here. The data are available from the homepage of the European Election Study (www.europeanelectionstudies.net) and from the Archive Department of GESIS (the former Central Archive for Empirical Social Research (ZA) at the University of Cologne — www.gesis.org), Germany.

  2. Individuals from Malta were not included in the 2004 survey. Bulgarian and Romanian respondents were also not included because these countries where not yet the EU members.

  3. All of these variables will be described fully in the subsequent section.

  4. Every attempt was made to include controls for alternative explanations. The survey did not ask questions associated with operationalising post-materialist values and cognitive mobilisation (Inglehart 1977, 1990), so these variables were not included.

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  1. Department of Political Science, The University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W. University Ave, El Paso, 79968-0547, TX, USA

    Gaspare M Genna

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Genna, G. Images of Europeans: transnational trust and support for European integration. J Int Relat Dev 20, 358–380 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2015.9

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