Nationality and the Preferences of the European Public toward EU Policy-Making

Abstract

Analyses of covariance for Eurobarometer data from 1990 to 1994 demonstrate a significant effect of individuals' nationalities on their preferences toward the scope and content of European Union policy-making, while controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. The observed national differences are more pronounced for the scope than for the content dimension. An investigation of the causal mechanisms underpinning these effects concludes that it can be either national identities or nation-specific constellations of political conflict that mediate the effect of nationality for a particular nation. These novel findings qualify the expectations of the European political space approach concerning the existence of an integrated and somewhat autonomous space of political contestation toward the EU, but the observed decline of cross-national differences over time indicates that at least a trend in this direction exists.