Integrating Indifference: A Comparative, Qualitative and Quantitative Approach to the Legitimacy of European Integration

ISBN-13: 9781907301483 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 250 str.

Virginie Van

Opis

Have European citizens become increasingly Eurosceptic over the lasttwo decades, turning their backs on European integration? Thoughmany journalists, politicians and academics argue that they have,this book suggests that reactions to European integration cannot bereduced uniquely to a rise in Euroscepticism, but that indifference andambivalence need also to be brought into the picture when studying EUlegitimacy and its politicisation. Drawing on new evidence from surveydata from eight founding member states, and focus groups conducted infrancophone Belgium, France and Great Britain, Integrating Indifferenceexplores the various faces of citizens indifference, from fatalism, todetachment, via sheer indecision. The author adopts a pioneeringmixed-methods approach to analysing the middle-of-the-road attitudesof ordinary citizens who consider themselves neither Europhiles norEurosceptics. Complementing existing quantitative and qualitativeliterature in the fi eld, this book opens up new perspectives on attitudestowards European integration.This is a book that should be read by everyone concerned about howEuropes citizens are responding to what EU institutions are doing inresponse to the eurozone crisis. Anyone concerned with methodologywill be interested in the books demonstration... of how public opinioncan be misread by jumping to conclusions from precoded data.Richard RoseProfessor of Politics, University of StrathclydeVisiting Professor, European University Institute, FlorenceThrough a masterful combination of survey and qualitative dataanalysis, Van Ingelgom demonstrates that growing confusion andpolitical alienation, more than rampant Euroscepticism,reigns among EU citizens.Juan Diez Medrano, Department of Economic History and Institutions,Universidad Carlos III de MadridThis excellent and provocative book sheds a new light on the issueof European integration - now more topical than ever. The carefulreexamination of Eurobarometer trends over 40 years, and the contentanalysis of 24 focus groups from three countries, go against thedominant frames of interpretation in terms of rising euroscepticismand democratic defi cit... One-third of citizens have neither a good nora bad image of the EU; its simply outside the world they live in.In the long run, this indifference could prove even more damagingthan open dissent.Nonna Mayer, president of the French Political Science Association