Determinants of public support for EU membership: Data from the Baltic countries

Focusing on individual–level determinants of public support for EU membership, this paper brings the literature on Western European integration to bear on the Eastern and Central European accession. Existing theories have focused on utilitarian expectations, political values, and domestic politics as determinants of public attitudes toward European integration. The paper discusses the applicability of the proposed theories and measures in the Eastern European context and develops a model that identifies micro–level economic expectations, support for democratic norms, trust in the national government, and perceptions of ethnic tension as possible determinants of public support for EU membership. These propositions are tested with survey data from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, using logistic regression. The results lend strong support to the expected gains and domestic politics hypotheses but suggest that individual competitiveness, a frequently used proxy for economic expectations, may be a poor predictor of attitudes toward the EU in the CEE context. Perceptions of increased ethnic tensions were found to decrease minority support for EU membership in Latvia, the Baltic country that has pursued particularly stringent citizenship and minority policies. Identification with democratic norms did not influence opinions in Latvia and Estonia, while having an unexpected negative effect on the attitudes of the Lithuanian public.     

More Choice,Higher Turnout? The Impact of Consideration Set Size and Homogeneity on Political Participation

Central to the emerging scholarship on how political supply influences electoral behavior is the claim that more choice leads to higher turnout. However, empirical tests of this proposition have been limited to the aggregate level. This article examines the relationship between the properties of electoral choice sets, as perceived by the voters, and electoral participation. Following recent advances in choice research, the article distinguishes between an awareness set, consisting of all choice options known to the voter, and a consideration set which includes only those alternatives that are seriously considered by the voter. We hypothesize that the cardinality, ideological homogeneity and distinctiveness of individual consideration sets are positively associated with electoral participation. The expectation is tested with individual-level data from three waves of the European Elections Study. Our results suggest that the relationship between the structure of political supply and participation is complex: while the number of choice alternatives in the consideration set is positively associated with turnout, the ideological diversity of choice options suppresses electoral participation.     

Determinants of public support for EU membership: Data from the Baltic countries

Abstract. Focusing on individual–level determinants of public support for EU membership, this paper brings the literature on Western European integration to bear on the Eastern and Central European accession. Existing theories have focused on utilitarian expectations, political values, and domestic politics as determinants of public attitudes toward European integration. The paper discusses the applicability of the proposed theories and measures in the Eastern European context and develops a model that identifies micro–level economic expectations, support for democratic norms, trust in the national government, and perceptions of ethnic tension as possible determinants of public support for EU membership. These propositions are tested with survey data from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, using logistic regression. The results lend strong support to the expected gains and domestic politics hypotheses but suggest that individual competitiveness, a frequently used proxy for economic expectations, may be a poor predictor of attitudes toward the EU in the CEE context. Perceptions of increased ethnic tensions were found to decrease minority support for EU membership in Latvia, the Baltic country that has pursued particularly stringent citizenship and minority policies. Identification with democratic norms did not influence opinions in Latvia and Estonia, while having an unexpected negative effect on the attitudes of the Lithuanian public.