Is the Member States' Curse the EU's Blessing? Inequality and EU Regime Evaluation
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Date
2020-09
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
How does inequality shape regime evaluations in Europe's multi‐level governance system? I argue that rising inequality improves citizens' evaluation of the EU's political system. This effect is driven by two mechanisms. First, adverse social and political consequences of inequality within national democracies strongly erode national regime evaluations. This leads to an improvement of EU regime evaluations in relative terms. Second, citizens compensate negative national conditions by redirecting hopes to the supranational level. This compensation mechanisms further tilts regime evaluates in favour of the EU. An empirical analysis of change in national and European parliament trust across 27 member states and 14 years provides empirical support for this argument. It also shows that the two mechanisms coexist and that their relevance is conditioned by previous levels of regime support. (© 2020 University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd)
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
58 (5)
Pages / Article No.
1215 - 1234
Publisher
Wiley
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Edition / version
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Software
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Subject
regime evaluation; inequality; trust; European Union
Organisational unit
03714 - Schimmelfennig, Frank / Schimmelfennig, Frank