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Long Term Trends in Mass Support for European Unification*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Ronald Inglehart
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Extract

BENEATH THE ACTIVISM OF THE 1960s AND THE SEEMING QUIESCENCE of the 1970s a silent revolution has been occurring which is changing the infrastructure of Western politics in two ways: first, the values of Western publics have been shifting from an almost exclusive emphasis on material and physical security toward greater concern with intangible aspects of life; and secondly, there has been an increase in the political skills of Western publics that enables them to play a more active role in making important political decisions. Both processes tend to broaden the political horizons of these people and have important implications for supranational political integration.

Type
Original Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1977 , pp. 150 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1977

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References

1 For a detailed description of how the respective value types have been measured and validated, see The Silent Revolution, op. cit., Chapter 2

2 See Hass, Ernst, The Uniting of Europe, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1958 p. 17 Google Scholar for a statement of this view point.

3 For details concerning the fieldwork of these surveys as well as additional findings, see Rabier, Jacques-René, L’Europe vue par les Européens, European Community, Brussels, 1974 Google Scholar and Rabier, , Euro-Barometer 3, Commission of the European Community, Brussels, 1975 Google ScholarPubMed and subsequent Euro-Barometer reports.

4 See Deutsch, Karl W., ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development’, American Political Science Review, 55, 2, 06, 1961, pp. 502–502 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. and Nationalism and Social Communication, Cambridge, Mass., 1966. One might view social mobilization as a vertical dimension of political integration: the incorporation of formerly submerged strata into the political community. This can greatly increase the resources of the olity, giving it a more profound reservoir of support. It can also multiply the demands on the political system to an extent which exceeds its responsive capacity, under given conditions threatening horizontal (or geographic) disintegration. Deutsch’s book presents an analysis of cases in which the existing system was either swamped or split, as a result of the mobilization of formerly passive populations who were linguistically heterogeneous.

5 See my article, ‘Cognitive Mobilization and European Identity’, Comparative Politics, 3, 1, 10, 1970, pp. 45–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See Katz, Elihu and Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Personal Influence, The Free Press, New York, 1955 Google Scholar; cf. Bernard Berelson et al., Voting, University of Chicago Press.

7 This index was constructed by summing one’s scores on the following three items: I. An individual was scored + 2 if he persuaded friends, relarives. etc. ‘often’; he received + 1 if he did so ‘from time to time’ or ‘rarely’; and zero if he did so ‘never’; 2. One was scored + 2 if he ‘usually tried to convince others that he was right’; + 1 if he merely ‘took an equal part in the conversation’ or expressed opinions ‘once in a while’; and zero if he just listened or never discussed politics’; 3. One was scored + 2 if he could correctly name Seven to nine members of the European Common Market; + 1 if he could name four to six of the members; and zero if he could name three or less. The respondent’s education was not included in this index because of its relatively strong correlations with income and occupational status: we wished to focus on skills, keeping the new variable distinct from social class insofar as possible.

8 Our European integration support index was constructed by summing responses to three of the highest-loading items on a European integration support factor. Factor analysis of responses to a series of thirty questions concerning European integration demonstrated that these items were particularly sensitive indicators of overall support or opposition to European integration, in each of our nine nations. (To minimize the effects of response set. we did not use any two items which were adjacent to each other in the interview schedule). The items used were:) ‘If you were to be told tomorrow that the Common Market had been abandoned, would you be very sorry about it, indifferent or relieved?’; 2) ‘Would you, or would you not, be willing to make some personal sacrifice—for example, pay a little more in taxes - to help bring about the unification of Europe?’; 3) ‘All things considered, are you in favour of the unification of Europe, against it, or are you indifferent?’ (If In favour or ‘Against’); ‘Very much or only somewhat?’.

9 For an interesting and far more detailed analysis of the interplay between values, partisan cues and attitudes toward European integration in Denmark, see Petersen, Nikolaj, ‘Federalist and anti-Integrationist Attitudes in the Danish Common Market Referendum’, paper presented to the European Consortium for Political Research, London, 04 7–12, 1975 Google Scholar.

10 For detailed information on the United States Information Agency Surveys, see Merritt, Richard L. and Puchala, Donald C., West European Attitudes Toward International Affairs, Praeger, New York 1968 Google Scholar. For the period 1952–1962, Figure 12–2 is based on data in Merritt and Puchala, pp. 283–284. For a detailed report on the European Community findings, see Jacques-René Rabier, L’Europe vue par les Européens op. cit. and succeeding reports by Rabier on the European Community surveys. Figures for 1964 were calculated from USIA data; and the 1970 figure for Britain is estimated from responses to related items (this precise question not having been asked in 1970) In the analysis that follows, the two positive options from the European Community surveys have been combined, for comparison with the single positive option from the USIA surveys.

11 Results from the four larger nations only are shown: the U. S. Information Agency did not, as a rule, carry out surveys in the smaller countries.

12 Figures for 1950–1967 are from IFOP surveys cited in Sondages, No. 1 and 2, 1972, p. 16; Figures for subsequent years are from the European Community surveys.

13 See Petersen, Nikolaj and Eklit, Jorgen, ‘Denmark Enters the European Communities’, Scandinavian Political Studies, 8, (1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar This article traces fluctuations among the Danish public, from a solid majority for entry in 1970, through a sharp decline in 1971 to a 63 per cent majority at the referendum on 2 October, 1972. Cf. Danish Gallup Institute, Gallup’s Weekly, No. 30 (November 11, 1973).