A Crisis of Trust? Popular Support for the European Union During the Great Recession Besir Ceka Max Weber Fellow European University Institute Indiana University November 11, 2013

Trust in the EU during the “great recession” IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Figure 1: Change in trust in the EU between 2007 and 2011 absolute change Source: Eurobarometer IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

KEY QUESTIONS  What explains this drop in support for the EU?  Are the austerity policies of the EU/IMF to be blamed?  Has the ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU increased? IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

ARGUMENT  Austerity measures—only partly responsible for the drop  National economy and support for national government more important. Reason?  Most Europeans know little about EU policies and their effects  Crisis  increase in the share of detached citizens IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Types of attitudes toward national governments and EU IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Diffuse support vs. specific support  Easton (1965, 1975): “Legitimacy of democracies is affected by the extent to which citizens trust government to do what is right most of time.” IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion  Diffuse support “reservoir of favorable attitudes or good will that helps members to accept or tolerate outputs to which they are opposed or the effects of which they see as damaging to their interests”  Specific support: performance-based, short term IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

DATA AND METHOD  133 Eurobarometer national surveys from 27 EU countries ( )  Cross-classified multilevel logistic regression models  Individual and contextual variables  Key dependent variables:  Trust in the EU  EU Membership Good measures of diffuse support for the EU IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Ceteris paribus, being under IMF conditionality has little effect on trust in the EU Credit: AP Photo IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Source: Eurobarometer IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Figure 3: Effects of independent variables moving from minimum to maximum values on predicted probability of Trusting EU Trust national gov.Economic situation IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Sophistication Figure 4: Moderating effect of sophistication IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Figure 5: The % of respondents who distrust both levels of government, 2007 and 2011 IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

Figure 6: Trust in the EU and Trust in National Government over time IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

CONCLUSION  Evaluations of the national government and economy are crucial for support for the EU  EU is facing a democratic deficit  But, national governments are facing an even bigger legitimacy deficit IntroductionTheory Research Design Findings Conclusion

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