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Postmaterialism, Cognitive Mobilization and Public Support for European Integration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Joseph I. H. Janssen
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Extract

This article reviews the trends in public support for European integration in West Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain. The first conclusion is that the picture one gets depends heavily on the indicator one uses to measure support. This finding is probably a consequence of the fact that many people are only dimly aware of the issue. Furthermore, it appears that there are striking cross-national differences in support and in the development of support through time. To explain these differences, as well as the formation of individual attitudes towards integration, Inglehart's theory of the Silent Revolution is used. The theory and its central concepts – postmaterialism and cognitive mobilization – are put on trial at three levels of aggregation. The results are poor. Postmaterialism appears to be unrelated to attitudes towards European integration, while the concept of cognitive mobilization makes sense only at the individual level. The conclusion is therefore that Inglehart's theory is of almost no use in explaining attitudes towards integration and cross-national differences in support.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 1991 , pp. 443 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Smith, D. L. and Ray, J. L., ‘European Integration: Gloomy Theory and Rosy Reality’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, 1989).Google Scholar See, for information on the history of European integration, Jansen, Max and de Vree, Johan K., The Ordeal of Unity: The Politics of European Integration 1945–1985 (Bilthoven: Prime Press, 1985).Google Scholar

2 See, for an overview on, and a discussion of, the theory: Inglehart, Ronald, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; van Deth, Jan W., Politieke waarden: Een onderzoek naar politieke waarde-oriëntaties in Nederland in de periode 1970 tot en met 1982 (Amsterdam: CT-press, 1984)Google Scholar; Thome, H., ‘Wandel zu postmaterialistischen Werten? Theoretische und empirische Einwaende gegen Ingleharts Theorie-Versuch’, Soziale Welt, 36 (1985), 27–59.Google Scholar

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5 Inglehart, , The Silent Revolution, pp. 57–60 and pp. 330–41.Google Scholar

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7 Inglehart, , ‘Changing Value Priorities and European Integration’, pp. 1–4Google Scholar; The Silent Revolution; and Culture Shift.

8 Inglehart, , ‘An End to European Integration’, p. 97.Google Scholar

9 See Van Deth, , Politieke waarden, pp. 78–82.Google Scholar ‘Value climate’ at the aggregate level is the equivalent of value orientation at the individual level as defined by Van Deth in his scheme designed to describe changes and differences in values at the individual level. As such ‘value climate’ can be defined as: ‘the differences in importance a group attaches to different values’.

10 Inglehart, , The Silent Revolution, p. 338.Google Scholar Similar statements can be found in Inglehart, , ‘Cognitive Mobilization and European Identity’, pp. 47–8Google Scholar; Inglehart, , ‘Long Term Trends in Mass Support’, p. 160Google Scholar; Inglehart, and Rabier, , ‘Economic Uncertainty and European Solidarity’, pp. 86–7.Google Scholar

11 The idea has been suggested in: Inglehart, , The Silent Revolution, pp. 343–4Google Scholar; Inglehart, Ronald et al. , ‘The Evolution of Public Attitudes Toward European Integration: 1970–1986’, Journal of European Integration, 10 (1987), 135–55, p. 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shepherd, Robert J., Public Opinion and European Integration (Lexington, Mass.: Saxon House, 1975), pp. 222–3Google Scholar; Wildgen, J. K. and Feld, W. J., ‘Evaluative and Cognitive Factors in the Prediction of European Unification’, Comparative Political Studies, 9 (1976), 309–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lafferty, W. M., ‘Basic Needs and Political Values: Some Perspectives from Norway on Europe's “Silent Revolution”’, Acta Sociologica, 19 (1976), 117–36, p. 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Inglehart, , ‘Changing Value Priorities and European Integration’, p. 28Google Scholar; ‘Long Term Trends in Mass Support’, p. 155Google Scholar; Inglehart, and Rabier, , ‘Economic Uncertainty and European Solidarity’, pp. 86–92.Google Scholar

13 Lafferty, , ‘Basic Needs and Political Values’, pp. 133–4Google Scholar; de Graaf, Nan Dirk and de Graaf, Paul M., ‘Family Background, Postmaterialism and Life Style’, Netherlands' Journal of Sociology, 14 (1988), 50–64.Google Scholar

14 Wildgen, and Feld, , ‘Evaluative and Cognitive Factors’, pp. 321–5.Google Scholar

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16 Surveys held on behalf of the United States Information Agency (USIA) and Eurobarometers (including European Community studies in 1970, 1971 and 1973) are used. See, for more information on the USIA data, Merritt, R. J. and Puchala, D. J., eds, Western European Perspectives on International Affairs: Public Opinion Studies and Evaluations (New York: Praeger, 1968).Google Scholar For more information on the Eurobarometers refer to ICPSR, Eurobarometer 28: Relations with Third World Countries and Energy Problems, November 1987 (Michigan: ICPSR, 1989).Google Scholar

17 The most often used question wording is: ‘Are you in general for or against efforts being made to unify Western Europe? If for/against, are you only to some extent for/against or very much for/against?’ In the USIA studies (before 1970) the wording was slightly different, referring to ‘efforts towards uniting Western Europe’. A more serious deviation is encountered in the studies of 1970, 1973 and 1975. Respondents were asked whether they were in favour, not in favour or indifferent towards European unification. Therefore the latter years are not included in Table 1. But in the rest of the article the data of 1973 and 1975 are used alongside the data gathered in the period between 1978 and 1988, especially because mean scores and measures of net support are less dependent on this change of wording. It appeared that the results reached without the data from 1973 and 1975 do not differ. Data are not available for the years 1976 and 1977.

18 Inglehart, , The Silent Revolution, pp. 344–62.Google Scholar

19 The exact question wording is: ‘If you were told tomorrow that the European Community (Common Market) had been scrapped, would you be very sorry about it, indifferent or relieved?’

20 See Weidenfeld, Werner and Piepenschneider, Melanie, Jugend und Europa (Bonn: Europa Union, 1987), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

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22 See van Deth, Jan W., ‘Fighting a Trojan Horse: The Persistence and Change of Political Orientations’, in Ganzeboom, H. B. G. and Flap, H., eds, New Social Movements and Value Change (Amsterdam: SISWO, 1990), pp. 89–112.Google Scholar

23 Respondents from Northern Ireland are excluded from the British samples used in this article.

24 Moreover the number of interested is probably still ‘too’ high, because the question format elicits socially desirable answers.

25 To measure value orientations respondents are asked to consider four possible goals for society in the near future and to choose the two most important. Individuals are then classified into one of the three value orientations on the basis of their choices. Besides, a more extended set of twelve items is applied in ECS'73 and Eurobarometer 29 (held in 1988). The latter is only used in Table 7. For more information, see Deth, Van, Politiche waarden, pp. 91–112Google Scholar; and Inglehart, The Silent Revolution, pp. 27–53.Google Scholar

The score on the variable ‘political skills’ is constructed with the variables ‘age left full-time education’ and ‘frequency of political discussion’. The following scheme is used to construct the level-of-skills score: left full-time education at 16 or less – discuss politics never, 1; sometimes, 2; often, 3; left full-time education 17–20 – discuss politics never, 2; sometimes, 3; often, 4; left full-time education at 21 years or older – discuss politics never, 3; sometimes, 4; often, 5. The education variable is used to measure the potential of skills in general, while the discussion variable is used to measure to what extent this potential is applied to politics.

26 See fn. 17. People who gave the answer ‘Don't know’ are treated as though they gave a neutral answer and scored between those respondents that are ‘to some extent for’ and those that are ‘to some extent against’.

27 The exact question wording is: ‘Generally speaking, do you think [your country's] membership of the European Community (Common Market) is a good thing, a bad thing or neither good, nor bad?’ Again ‘Don't know’ is understood as a neutral answer. Therefore, it is treated as equivalent to the ‘Neither good, nor bad’ answer.

28 Available research provides no conclusive answer on the question of the validity of these hypotheses. Next to values and skills, age, social class, education, party identification or loyalty, knowledge of the EC, nationality, income, experience of travel, activism, occupation and number of international contacts appear as explanatory factors: Brouwer, M., ‘International Contacts and Integration-Mindedness: A Secondary Analysis of a Study in Western Europe’, Polls, 1 (1965), 1–11Google Scholar; Deutsch, K. W. et al. , ‘Integration and Arms Control in the European Political Environment: A Summary Report’, American Political Science Review, 60 (1966), 354–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Puchala, D. J., ‘National Distinctiveness and Transnationality in West European Public Opinion, 1954–1962’, Integration, Vierteljahreshefte zur Europaforschung (1970), 273–78Google Scholar; Handley, David H., Regional Variations and Supportive Attitudes Toward European Integration, ECPR Paper, Strasbourg (Geneva: University of Geneva, 1974)Google Scholar; Handley, David H., ‘Public Opinion and European Integration: The Crisis of the 1970s’, European Journal of Political Research, 9 (1981), 335–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wildgen, and Feld, , ‘Evaluative and Cognitive Factors’Google Scholar; Inglehart, , ‘An End to European Integration’Google Scholar; ‘Public Opinion and European Integration’; ‘Cognitive Mobilization and European Identity’; ‘Changing Value Priorities and European Integration’; The Silent RevolutionGoogle Scholar; ‘Long Term Trends in Mass Support’; and Culture Shift; Inglehart, and Rabier, , ‘Economic Uncertainty and European Solidarity’Google Scholar; Inglehart, et al. , ‘The Evolution of Public Attitudes’.Google Scholar

29 See, for more information, Inglehart, , The Sileni Revolution, pp. 52–3.Google Scholar

30 This can also be seen from the gammas, a measure of association for two ordinal variables, and partial gammas. The gammas supplied in this article are often not based on the dichotomies or levels of net support employed in the accompanying tables, but are instead based on the original, unrecoded scores.

31 Comparable results are obtained when one draws the line between those born before and after 1940.

32 In most cases two Eurobarometers are merged to compute scores for the year.

33 A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (for each year) is conducted on the distributions underlying the mean scores for both groups in Figures 1 to 4. In this way one can determine whether the two groups differ significantly with regard to their attitudes towards European integration at each point in time (Blalock, H. M., Social Statistics, 2nd edn (Tokyo: McGraw-Hill, 1972)).Google Scholar

34 An analysis at this level of aggregation is also conducted by Dalton and Eichenberg. They try to explain variations in support with a model that incorporates systemic factors, such as economic conditions and international trade, as well as political events: Dalton, Russell J. and Eichenberg, Richard, ‘Europeans and the European Community; The Dynamics of Public Support for European Integration’ (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 1990).Google Scholar

35 Böltken, and Jagodzinski, , ‘In an Environment of Insecurity’Google Scholar; Inglehart, , ‘New Perspectives on Value Change’Google Scholar; and Inglehart, Ronald, ‘Aggregate Stability and Individual-Level Flux in Mass Belief Systems: The Level of Analysis Paradox’, American Political Science Review, 79 (1985), 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 The value climate is here again characterized, in contrast to Table 7, on the basis of the four-item instrument. See fn. 25.

37 From the hypotheses deduced from the theory in Section I only one (2) stands the empirical tests without problems, while the hypothesis on cohort differences (3) is only partially confirmed.