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European Elite Attitudes Revisited: The Future of the European Community and European-American Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Robert J. Lieber
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Extract

‘I don’t give a s— about the lira.‘These, as well as comparable sentiments about the pound sterling expressed by a recent U.S. President and preserved on tape for posterity, may symbolize a growing American lack of interest in Western Europe. In turn, European views of the United States may now be less exalted than at any time in the past three decades. In a period when misunderstandings, apocalyptic visions and contradictory judgements abound regarding the future of European unity and European-American relations, it is worth examining some evidence of recent European elite attitudes in order to facilitate more reliable judgementsor at least less impressionistic ones.

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Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , July 1975 , pp. 323 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Deutsch, Karl W., Arms Control and the Atlantic Alliance (New York: John Wiley, 1967).Google Scholar The equations replicated are numbers 25, 48, 50, 52, 53, 55, 59, 62, 75, 78, 82. See Deutsch's Appendix C, pp. 101–43, for the original items and a summary of replies. Also see Deutsch, , Edinger, Lewis J., Macridis, Roy C. and Merritt, Richard L., France, Germany and the Western Alliance: A Study of Elite Attitudes on European Integration and World Politics (New York: Scribners, 1967)Google Scholar and Lieber, Robert J., ‘Expanded Europe and the Atlantic Relationship’, in Geusan, Frans A. M. Alting Von, ed., The External Relations of the European Communities (Farnborough, Hants.: D. C. Heath Ltd., 1974), pp. 33–67.Google Scholar

2 Putnam, Robert D., The Beliefs of Politicians: Ideology, Conflict and Democracy in Britain and Italy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 18 and 20.Google Scholar

3 Hahn, Walter F., ‘West Germany's Ostpolitik: The Grand Design of Egon Bahr’, Orbis, XVI (1973), 859–80.Google Scholar

5 Deutsch, , Edinger, et al. , France, Germany and the Western Alliance, p. 7.Google Scholar E.g., ‘talking wit representative officials at the Quai D'Orsay … would tell us much about the framework of a particular policy even if we are unable to talk with the people who actually formulated it’, p. 6.

4 Note, for example, the emphasis on the qualitative rather than quantitative aspects of elite interviewing by Dexter, Lewis A., Elite and Specialized Interviewing (Evanston, Ill.: Northwes University Press, 1970), pp. 3–22.Google Scholar Deutsch and Edinger ‘deliberately sacrifice randomness’ in hopes of compiling a sample of knowledgeable and influential leaders. Deutsch, , Edinger, et al. , France, Germany and the Western Alliance, p. 11.Google Scholar Their French and German interviews drawn from six occupational categories: political, military, opinion leaders, civil servants, business, and other professional groups, p. 14. Respondents for the present study are drawn from roughly comparable categories.

6 Their survey did not include British elites.

7 Response rates:

8 The terms are those of Putnam, , Beliefs ofPoliticians, p. 27Google Scholar, although I have sought to draw the line a little closer to the latter end of the scale than is the case in the Putnam work.

9 This represents a notable shift compared to Deutsch’s finding of an ‘overwhelming French elite consensus on not trusting Germany’. Deutsch, , Arms Control, p. 22.Google Scholar

10 ‘Express great confidence or rather great confidence towards the following peoples’: the Swiss 78 per cent, Americans 69 per cent, British 61 per cent, French 52 per cent, Germans 45 per cent, Italians 31 per cent, Russians 23 per cent, Chinese 9 per cent. Based on a 1970 public opinion poll in the original EEC Six. See Rabier, Jacques-rene, ‘Europeans and the Unification of Europe,’ in Ionescu, Ghita, ed., The New Politics of European Integration (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. 157.Google Scholar

11 These particular figures are based on a low n and should be treated with some caution.

12 Deutsch, 1963–1964: ‘What is the greatest threat to French/German security at the present time?’ Seventy-six per cent of French elites and 70 per cent of Germans named a Communist country. Deutsch, , Arms Control, p. 125Google Scholar, question 62. In the present survey, 74 per cent of French, 75 per cent of German and 81 per cent of British elites identified a Communist country as the main threat to their country's security (question EU 27).

13 Deutsch, 1963–1964: French 77 per cent, Germans 98 per cent. Deutsch, , Arms Control, p. 132Google Scholar, question 75. In the present survey, virtually all French, German and British respondents viewed their military security as completely or largely dependent upon the U.S. deterrent (question ATL 45).

14 Deutsch, 1963–64: French 63 per cent and Germans 65 per cent expressed unconditional confidence in the reliability of NATO to protect them; 33 per cent of French and 30 per cent of Germans saw NATO conditionally reliable. Deutsch, , Arms Control, p. 121Google Scholar, question 44. In the present survey, comparable figures for France (using the term Atlantic Alliance in place of NATO) were 87 per cent and 13 per cent, for Germany 70 per cent and 20 per cent, for Britain 100 per cent (question ATL 44). Note, however, the low n on this question (France 15, Germany 10, Britain 27).

15 Numbers ranging from II (most favorable) to I (most unfavorable) were assigned to the response categories for each of these questions. The index figures for individual respondents were then computed by taking the sum of the responses to questions actually answered, divided by the number of these questions, minus 6, to give an index figure ranging between plus 5 (most favorable) and minus 5 (most unfavorable).

16 The respective Atlantic index figures are: civil servants 1.57, politicians 0.37, members of national parliaments 1.10, Eurocrats 2.15. The Atlantic index figure for the entire sample is 0.89.

17 Lerner, Daniel and Gorden, Morton, Euratlantica: Changing Perspectives of the Europea Elites (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969).Google Scholar Based on their elite study, undertaken between 1955 and 1965, the authors proclaim that European elites are deeply committed to ‘The Euramerican system of relations and its eventual institutionalization in some Euratlantic pattern’ and that this is ‘beyond the point of no return’, pp. 308–10. They also came to the conclusion that European socialism and nationalism were now obsolescent and that the nations of Europe ‘looked to America for the image of their own future’, pp. 6 and 295.

18 See Tufte, Edward R., ‘Improving Data Analysis in Political Science’, World Politics, XXI (1969), 640–54.Google Scholar

19 Kitzinger, Uwe, Diplomacy and Persuasion (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), p. 26.Google Scholar

20 Although France has, as of this writing, refused to join the American-led International Energy Agency, the French government has refrained from placing obstacles in the path of the IEA, especially in the case of arrangements which establish it within the framework of the OECD.

21 French public opinion has long tended to support both European unity and a degree of third-force orientation for France and for Europe. Thus, on the one hand the French are nearly as pro-European as the mass publics of the other six original EEC states, strongly favoring such accomplishments as the political formation of the United States of Europe (63 per cent vs. 13 per cent), direct election of a European Parliament (59 per cent vs. 16 per cent) and creation of a European Army (65 per cent vs. 22 per cent). Rabier, , ‘Europeans and the Unification of Europe’, p. 160Google Scholar, and Le Point (Paris), 29 January 1973. The third force theme has been prevalent for more than two decades, and French public opinion favors, by a margin of two to one, a Europe independent of both the United States and USSR. See Sondages: Revue franfaise d’Opinion publique, No. 1–2 (1972), ‘L’Opinion francaise et l’Union de l’Europe, 1947–1972’, p. 115. Despite this, French public opinion Continues to place far greater confidence in the Americans (59 per cent) than in the Russians (29 per cent). Rabier, ‘Europeans and the Unification of Europe’, p. 157.