Differentiation has become a durable feature of European integration but we know little about its effects on citizens. Does differentiated integration improve the democratic quality of the European Union and strengthen citizens’ support – or does it promote political divides and foster citizens’ alienation from European integration? This article develops a theoretical argument on the positive attitudinal effects of differentiated integration, contending that differentiation accommodates heterogeneous preferences in a diverse EU and strengthens citizens’ ownership of European integration. A quasi-experimental analysis of public opinion of the 2015 Danish Justice and Home Affairs opt-out referendum demonstrates that the public vote increased citizens’ EU efficacy, indeed. Eurosceptic voters in particular strengthen their belief that their individual voice counts in EU politics, suggesting that differentiation can have a positive effect on the perceived democratic quality of the EU.
Adler-NissenR (2009)
Behind the scenes of differentiated integration. Circumventing national opt-outs in justice and home affairs. Journal of European Public Policy16(1): 62–80.
2.
Adler-NissenR (2014) Opting Out of the European Union. Diplomacy, Sovereignty and European Integration.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
3.
AndersonCBlaisABowlerS, et al. (2005) Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
4.
AndersonCLoTempioA (2002)
Winning, losing and political trust in America. British Journal of Political Science32(2): 335–351.
5.
ArnesenS (2017)
Legitimacy from decision-making influence and outcome favourability: Results from general population survey experiments. Political Studies65(1_suppl): 146–161.
6.
ArnesenSBroderstadTJohannessonM, et al. (2019)
Conditional legitimacy: How turnout, majority size, and outcome affect perceptions of legitimacy in European Union membership referendums. European Union Politics20(2): 176–197.
7.
BellamyRKrögerS (2017)
A demoi-cratic justification of differentiated integration in a heterogeneous EU. Journal of European Integration39(5): 625–639.
8.
BlaisAGélineauF (2007)
Winning, losing and satisfaction with democracy. Political Studies55(2): 425–441.
BrummelL (2020) ‘
You can't always get what you want’: The effects of winning and losing in a referendum on citizens' referendum support. Electoral Studies65: 102155.
11.
BuchRHansenK (2002)
The Danes and Europe: From EC 1972 to euro 2000 – Elections, referendums and attitudes. Scandinavian Political Studies25(1): 1–26.
12.
BullockJ (2009)
Partisan bias and the Bayesian ideal in the study of public opinion. The Journal of Politics71(3): 1109–1124.
13.
BurkMLeuffenD (2019)
On the methodology of studying differentiated (dis)integration: Or how the potential outcome framework can contribute to evaluating the costs and benefits of opting in or out. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies57(6): 1395–1406.
14.
CattaneoMDFrandsenBRTitiunikR (2015)
Randomization inference in the regression discontinuity design: An application to party advantages in the U.S. Senate. Journal of Causal Inference3(1): 1–24.
15.
Cattaneo M, Idrobo N and Titiunik R (2020) A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Foundations (Elements in Quantitative and Computational Methods for the Social Sciences). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16.
ChenevalFSchimmelfennigF (2013)
The case for demoicracy in the European Union. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies51(2): 334–350.
17.
DahlR (1989) Democracy and Its Critics.
New Haven:
Yale University Press.
18.
DahlbergSLindeJ (2016)
Losing happily? The mitigating effect of democracy and quality of government on the winner-loser gap in political support. International Journal of Public Administration39(9): 652–664.
19.
DaltonRJMcAllisterI (2015)
Random walk or planned excursion? Continuity and change in the Left-Right positions of political parties. Comparative Political Studies48(6): 759–787.
20.
de la CuestaBImaiK (2016)
Misunderstandings about the regression discontinuity design in the study of close elections. Annual Review of Political Science19(1): 375–396.
21.
DysonKMarcussenM (2010)
Transverse integration in European economic integration. Journal of European Integration32(1): 17–39.
22.
EmmeneggerPMarxPSchraffD (2017)
Off to a bad start : Unemployment and political interest during early adulthood. The Journal of Politics79(1): 315–328.
23.
EsaiassonP (2011)
Electoral losers revisited – How citizens react to defeat at the ballot box. Electoral Studies30(1): 102–113.
24.
EsaiassonPPerssonMGilljamM, et al. (2019)
Reconsidering the role of procedures for decision acceptance. British Journal of Political Science49(1): 291–314.
25.
HarteveldEvan der MeerTde VriesC (2013)
In Europe we trust? Exploring three logics of trust on the European Union. European Union Politics14(4): 542–565.
26.
Hobolt S, Leeper T and Tilley J (2020) Divided by the Vote: Affective Polarization in the Wake of the Brexit Referendum. British Journal of Political Science. Epub ahead of print 7 July 2020. DOI:10.1017/S0007123420000125
27.
HoogheLMarksGWilsonC (2002)
Does left/right structure party positions on European integration?Comparative Political Studies35(8): 965–989.
28.
JensenCSlapinJ (2012)
Institutional hokey-pokey: The politics of multispeed integration in the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy19(6): 779–795.
29.
KöllikerA (2001)
Bringing together or driving apart the union? Towards a theory of differentiated integration. West European Politics24(4): 125–151.
30.
KöllikerA (2006) Flexibility and European Unification: The Logic of Differentiated Integration.
Lanham:
Rowman and Littlefield.
31.
LeuffenDRittbergerBSchimmelfennigF (2013) Differentiated Integration. Explaining Variation in the European Union.
Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
32.
LordC (2015)
Utopia or dystopia? Towards a normative analysis of differentiated integration. Journal of European Public Policy22(6): 783–798.
33.
MarienSKernA (2018)
The winner takes it all: Revisiting the effect of direct democracy on citizens’ political support. Political Behavior40(4): 857–882.
34.
MartiniSQuarantaM (2019)
Political support among winners and losers: Within- and between-country effects of structure, process and performance in Europe. European Journal of Political Research58(1): 341–361.
35.
MartinsenDWesselA (2014)
On the path to differentiation: Upward transfer, logic of variation and sub-optimality in EU social policy. Journal of European Public Policy21(9): 1255–1272.
36.
MunozJFalcó-GimenoFHernándezE (2020)
Unexpected event during survey design: Promise and pitfalls for causal inference. Political Analysis28(2): 186–206.
37.
NaurinDLindahlR (2010)
Out in the old? Flexible integration and the political status of euro opt-outs. European Union Politics11(4): 485–509.
38.
Nicolaïdis K (2013) European demoicracy and Its crisis. Journal of Common Market Studies 51(2): 351–369.
39.
PolkJRovnyJBakkerR, et al. (2017)
Explaining the salience of anti-elitism and reducing political corruption for political parties in Europe with the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey. Research & Politics4(1): 205316801668691–205316801668699.
40.
PriorM (2010)
You’ve either got it or you don’t? The stability of political interest over the life cycle. The Journal of Politics72(3): 747–766.
41.
PrzeworskiA (1991) Democracy and the Market. Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
42.
SchimmelfennigF (2016)
A differentiated leap forward: Spillover, path-dependency, and graded membership in European banking regulation. West European Politics39(3): 483–502.
43.
SchimmelfennigFWinzenT (2020) Ever Looser Union? Differentiated European Integration.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
44.
ScottoTXenaC (2015) Efficacy, political. In: WrightJ (eds) International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. 2nd ed.
Amsterdam:
Elsevier, 301–307.
45.
SiuneKSvenssonPTonsgaardO (1994)
The European Union: The Danes said ‘no’ in 1992 but ‘yes’ in 1995: How and why?Electoral Studies13(2): 107–116.
46.
SvenssonP (2002)
Five Danish referendums on the European community and European Union: A critical assessment of the Franklin thesis. European Journal of Political Research41(6): 733–750.
47.
TylerT (2011) Why People Cooperate: The Role of Social Motivation.
Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
