Undivided Loyalties
| Author | Sean Carey |
| Published date | 01 December 2002 |
| Date | 01 December 2002 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1465116502003004001 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Undivided Loyalties
Is National Identity an Obstacle to
European Integration?
Sean Carey
University of Oxford, UK
ABSTRACT
This article posits that national identity is an important
element in explaining attitudes towards the European Union.
A model of support for European integration is developed
that suggests that feelings of national identity are highly
important in an individual’s choice to support the EU. The
impacts of three alternative conceptualizations of national
identity are tested. These relate to national identity as an
intensity of feelings towards one’s country, the level of
attachment to the nation and other territorial entities, and
the fear of other identities and cultures encroaching on the
dominant national culture. The results of ordered logit analy-
ses confirm that stronger feelings of national identity lead
to lower levels of support for the EU.
387
European Union Politics
[1465-1165(200212)3:4]
Volume 3 (4): 387–413: 028515
Copyright© 2002
SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA,
New Delhi
KEY WORDS
European identity
integration
national identity
public opinion
01 carey (jk/d) 25/10/02 2:59 pm Page 387
Introduction
The citizens of the European Union’s member countries have rarely had any
direct involvement in the major political decisions made in their name. Nego-
tiations leading up to the six major treaties saw public opinion play only a
marginal role at best (McCormick, 1999). The institutions of the European
Union (EU) are frequently accused of a lack of accountability. However,
according to the Maastricht Treaty signed in 1992, one of the goals of
European integration is to create ‘an ever closer union among the peoples of
Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen’. The
treaty goes on to establish the framework of European citizenship: ‘Every
person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the
Union.’ In 2001 the European Commission issued a white paper on European
Governance, which stressed the reinforcement of ‘European identity and the
importance of shared values within the Union’. Thus the signatories of the
Maastricht Treaty and subsequent institutional actions have established the
basis for future integration around reducing the ‘democratic deficit’ within
the Union and extending the notion of a European citizenship.
Surveys of European public opinion reveal very little evidence of any
European identity or sense of European citizenship. Europeans still appear
attached to their national identity. This article posits that national identity is
one of the important elements in explaining attitudes towards the EU. This
research develops a model of support for European integration that suggests
that feelings of national identity are highly important in an individual’s choice
to support the European Union. It is expected that higher feelings of national
identity decrease support for the European project because of the conflicts
over sovereignty that have developed in this era, such as the creation of a
single European currency, the European Central Bank and the increased
primacy of European law. The impacts of three alternative conceptualizations
of national identity are tested on individual-level support for the EU. These
relate to national identity as an intensity of feelings towards one’s country,
the level of attachment to the nation in relation to other territorial entities,
and the fear of other identities and cultures encroaching on the dominant
culture of the nation. An ordered logit model of support for the EU is devel-
oped, including the imputation of missing data frequently omitted from
similar public opinion research. The results generally support the thesis that
identity has an important impact on attitudes towards the EU.
This article is structured as follows. First, I review some of the prominent
theories of public support for European integration, concentrating on
economic and cost–benefit approaches. I then discuss three types of national
identity. The first conceptualizes the type and intensity of feelings towards
European Union Politics 3(4)
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