Mapping public support for the varieties of differentiated integration
| Author | Julian Schuessler,Max Heermann,Dirk Leuffen,Lisanne De Blok,Catherine E De Vries |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165221127633 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Mapping public support
for the varieties of
differentiated integration
Julian Schuessler
Department of Political Science, Aarhus Universitet, Aarhus,
Denmark
Max Heermann
Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of
Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Dirk Leuffen
Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of
Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
Lisanne De Blok
Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht University,
Utrecht, the Netherlands
Catherine E De Vries
Political and Social Sciences, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy
Abstract
This article maps and investigates public support for different types of differentiated inte-
gration (DI) in the European Union. We examine citizens’preferences for DI using novel
survey data from eight EU member states. The data reveals substantive differences in
support for different types of DI. Factor analyses reveal two dimensions that seem to
structure citizens’evaluations of DI. The first dimension relates to the effect of DI on
the European integration project, the second concerns the safeguarding of national
autonomy. Citizens’attitudes on this second dimension vary substantively across countries.
Corresponding author:
Julian Schuessler, CEPDISC - Centrefor the Experimental-PhilosophicalStudy of Discrimination, Department
of Political Science, Aarhus University, Bartholins Allé 7, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Email: julians@ps.au.dk
Article
European Union Politics
2023, Vol. 24(1) 164–183
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14651165221127633
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
General EU support is the most important correlate of DI support, correlating positively
with the first and negatively with the second dimension. Our results underline that while
citizens generally care about the fairness of DI, balancing out their different concerns can
be a challenging political task.
Keywords
Core Europe, differentiated integration, factor analysis, public opinion, two-speed Europe
Introduction
In debates on the future of the European Union (EU), differentiated integration (DI) is
regularly considered one possible option to overcome heterogeneity-induced gridlock.
The introduction to this special issue summarizes the risks and opportunities that the aca-
demic literature attributes to DI (Schimmelfennig et al., 2023); however, we still know
surprisingly little about public opinion on DI. Even though the literature discusses a
variety of DI models and procedures, current knowledge about citizens’support for DI
remains largely limited to analyses of a single Eurobarometer item, inquiring about the
support of a ‘two-speed’Europe model of DI (De Blok and De Vries, 2022; Leuffen
et al., 2022b). In this article, we, therefore, address a series of foundational questions
about public support for DI. First, how supportive is the public when it comes to different
types of DI? Second, can we identify underlying dimensions along which citizens form
their preferences regarding DI? Third, how do different citizens–at the individual and
national levels–diverge in their assessments of different types of DI? By shedding light
on these questions, the article seeks to clarify whether we can investigate public
support for DI beyond the deceptively simple question about a ‘two-speed’Europe,
yet without the need to analyze each of the various forms of DI completely separately.
We present newly collected survey data from eight EU member states representing
close to two-thirds of the EU’s population and report substantive variation concerning
the support of different types of DI at the level of individual respondents as well as
between member states. Furthermore, our novel “Comparative Opinions on
Differentiated Integration”(CODI) dataset allows us to explore which aspects citizens
take into account when evaluating DI. We do so in a series of preregistered empirical ana-
lyses. To dissect which latent dimensions underlie citizens’evaluations of DI, we employ
exploratory factor analysis. This reveals two latent dimensions of preference formation
regarding DI. We interpret these two dimensions as relating to: (a) EU integration, and
(b) national autonomy. In other words, when asked to evaluate different types of DI, citi-
zens seem to consider how such instruments could affect both EU integration and national
autonomy. Across the eight member states in our sample, we find a clear majority for DI
models and procedures that can be related to the first dimension (a “core”Europe as well
as a requirement for consent for member state opt-outs). In contrast, there is much
more cross-national heterogeneity when it comes to models of DI associated with the
second, national autonomy dimension, in particular the “àlacarte”model. Furthermore,
Schuessler et al. 165
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