A Comparative Case Study on Variations in Citizens' Relationship to the European Union.: To what extent are there variations in the citizens’ relationship to the European Union between federations and unitary Member States?

Abstract

This thesis explores and assesses whether there are variations in the European citizens' relationship to the European Union (EU) in federations and unitary states. The underlying hypothesis stems from argumentation that exposure to, or rather socialization in a multi-level governance system, supposedly makes citizens socialized in federations more apt to engage in the politics surrounding the EU, given that this is conceptualized as another layer of governance. The problem formulation which guides this thesis is: To what extent are there variations in the citizens’ relationship to the EU between federations and unitary Member States? The thesis takes the form of a mixed-methods longitudinal comparative case study. The chosen Member States are all three federations in the EU, Austria, Belgium, Germany, and three unitary states. Each federation was partnered with a unitary member state based on requirements pertaining to the age of EU membership and population. The three unitary states being France, the Netherlands and Sweden, meaning that Austria and Sweden were matched, Belgium and the Netherlands were matched, and Germany and France were matched together. The thesis’s literature review introduces and discusses a selection of the plethora of academic literature on the topic of legitimacy, regional integration, identity and identity creation, as well as state structure. But the literature review importantly also doubles as the theoretical point of entrance for the analysis. It is from the literature review and the conceptual framework that the three essential elements of analysis of citizen’s relationship to the EU are uncovered, introduced and operationalized. Those three elements are voter turnout, attachment and identification, and support towards the EU.STATE STRUCTURE & CITIZENS’ RELATIONSHIP TO THE EU 3 A mixed methodology and mixed-methods approach is applied in order to answer the stipulated research question adequately. The data subjected to analysis stems from three main sources. Voter turnouts were retrieved from IDEA and data on public opinion from Eurobarometer. These two secondary data sources are, additionally, complimented by an expert interview. Throughout the analysis, it is uncovered that there to a great but not exclusive extent tend to be a higher turnout for the EP elections in the analysed federations than their partnered unitary states, the discrepancy between voter turnout at the EP election and the national parliament election are also often, but not consistently smaller in the federations, France, for instance, is undoubtedly the analysed Member State with the smallest discrepancy between EP and national elections. However, the federations do not top overall voter turnout statistics. Finally, the results are discussed, and reasoning as to why we see some of the given results are offered. The second and third element of the analysis, pertaining to attachment and identification as well as support for the EU. It is concluded that in the questions which were touching upon a civic form of identification there was, at least for the founding MS, a higher level in the federations than the unitary states. But for most analysed elements, there are no tangible variations between the federations and the unitary states. Alternative explanations are accordingly taken into consideration throughout the thesis. In the thesis conclusion, it is suggested that more research needs to be conducted on the nature of decentralization in the EU’s Member States, what additional cases might tell us, but also that additional aspects such as trust in the EU’s institutions, can be of interest in the analysis of citizens’ relationship to the EU. Keywords: Longitudinal Comparative Case Study, European Union, Federations, Unitary States, European Citizens, Voter Turnout, Public Opinion.

A master thesis from Aalborg University

A Comparative Case Study on Variations in Citizens' Relationship to the European Union.: To what extent are there variations in the citizens’ relationship to the European Union between federations and unitary Member States?

[A Comparative Case Study on Variations in Citizens' Relationship to the European Union.]