Cross-border friendships and collective European identity: A longitudinal study
| Author | Gabriele Prati,Elvira Cicognani,Davide Mazzoni |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116519857158 |
| Published date | 01 December 2019 |
| Date | 01 December 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Cross-border friendships
and collective
European identity:
A longitudinal study
Gabriele Prati
Department of Psychology, University of Bologna,
Bologna, Italy
Elvira Cicognani
Department of Psychology, University of Bologna,
Bologna, Italy
Davide Mazzoni
Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca,
Milano, Italy
Abstract
Cross-border mobility has long been seen as a mechanism to promote a collective
political identity; however, the results of empirical studies on young people have been
inconsistent. The present work extends previous research on the effect of cross-
border mobility by considering the effect of cross-border friendships drawing on the
intergroup contact theory of Allport as well as the common ingroup identity model of
Gaertner and Dovidio. This longitudinal study examines the role of cross-border
friendships in the development of a sense of transnational political community that
transcends national boundaries, i.e. the European Union. The results rely on a two-
wave sample of 1294 Italian adolescents and young adults. Cross-border friendships
significantly predicted identification as European, attitudes toward the European Union,
political beliefs about the European Union, trust in the European Union, (negatively)
political alienation, and political participation at the European level and intention to
vote at the next European Parliament elections, even after including baseline levels of
Corresponding author:
Gabriele Prati,Department of Psychology,University of Bologna,Piazza Aldo Moro, 90, 47521 CesenaFC, Italy.
Email: gabriele.prati@unibo.it
European Union Politics
2019, Vol. 20(4) 649–669
!The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116519857158
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outcomes as well as relevant socio-demographic factors (i.e. gender, age, majority/
minority status, educational qualification, parents’ education level, family income, and
socioeconomic status) in the model.
Keywords
Contact, cross-border friendships, European identity, participation, trust
Introduction
Policy makers and social scientists are concerned about the apparent withdrawal of
European citizens from democratic participation (Pontes et al., 2019). Their atten-
tion has often been focused on young people, whose levels of engagement in ‘con-
ventional’ forms of political participation (like voting and volunteering for
political parties) tend to be lower than previous youth generations (Henn and
Foard, 2012; Sloam, 2014). However, studies have also revealed that young
Europeans who are often attracted by informal/alternative modes of participation
in political life (Barrett and Zani, 2015; Sloam, 2014) are also increasingly more
inter-connected both through the use of information and communication technol-
ogies (ICTs) (Eurostat, 2015) and different forms of cross-border mobility
(European Commission, 2015).
The next section presents the findings of existing theory and research on the
impact of cross-border mobility on the development of a superordinate political
identity. We show that the impact of cross-border mobility on the development of
a European political identity is not consistent across studies because cross-border
mobility per se does not necessarily guarantee meaningful interaction between
people living in different countries. Drawing on the intergroup contact theory of
Allport (1954) as well as the common ingroup identity model (Gaertner and
Dovidio, 2000), we introduce the role of cross-border friendships in the develop-
ment of a sense of transnational political community that transcends national
boundaries, i.e. the European Union (EU). Friendships meet many of the optimal
conditions of the contact theory of Allport (1954).
We argue that these models have been too rarely applied to the European identity
and that they have been even more rarely tested through longitudinal designs. In this
study, we examine the role of cross-border friendships using a longitudinal study with
controls for baseline levels of outcomes (i.e. measures of outcome variables at Time 1)
as well as relevant socio-demographic factors (i.e. gender, age, majority/minority
status, educational qualification, parents’ education level, family income, and socio-
economic status). Our findings provide evidence that cross-border friendships predict a
sense of transnational political community that transcends national boundaries. Based
on these results, we finally argue that the development of a European political identity
involves the experience of meaningful interaction between people living in differ-
ent countries.
650 European Union Politics 20(4)
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