Individual Research Proposal
Research Project Political Science
Name Roan Buma
Date 20 November 2019, Amsterdam
Lecturer MSc (Res) Nina Onopriychuk
Words 1602
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, Research Puzzle
The nature of public opinion towards European integration has been researched for as long as
it has been happing (Anderson & Kaltenthaler, 1996), starting with the ‘permissive consensus’
during early European integration (Inglehart, 1970). Initially, scholars focused on explaining
support for European integration, but the last decade has seen a growing trend towards
explaining opposition to European integration, also called Euroscepticism. While both are
arguably the same, often only reversing the coding of the variables, the choice of words used
here does seem to imply an increase in skepticism towards further European integration among
the public (De Vries, 2018).
Many scholars hold the view that explanatory strength of Euroscepticism has moved
from ‘hard’ factors such as economic and utilitarian factors, to ‘soft’ factors such as social,
cultural and identity-related factors (Serricchio, Tsakatika & Quaglia, 2013; De Vreese,
Boomgaarden & Semetko 2008; Van Klingeren, Boomgaarden & De Vreese 2013; McLaren
2007). This follows a pattern that Huntington (1993) hypothesized in his work The Clash of
Civilizations?, where he argued that the fundamental sources of political conflict in the future
will not be ideological or economical, but rather cultural.
One criticism on much of this literature, is that it has limited most authors recently to
only research the soft factors (an exception here would be Serricchio, Tsakatika & Quaglia,
2013). Another point of criticism is that the present studies have neglected the possibility that
the predictive value of hard factors might be different in net-payer states and net-receiver states.
Also, assuming hard factors to now be irrelevant contradicts common arguments by Dutch
populists, who frequently mention the flow of money from the Netherlands ‘to Brussels’
(Forum voor Democratie, 2019; Partij voor de Vrijheid, n.d.). This seems like an evident
argument for the Netherlands, who is the largest net contributor this century, but brings the
question why Euroscepticism also appears strongly in member states such as Poland and
Hungary, which contrary to the Netherlands or Germany, are amongst the largest net receivers
from the EU.
The research question is therefore as follows: How does net-contribution of EU member
states influence Euroscepticism among individuals? This research will take form of an
empirical experiment, where individuals from each member state will be subject to a
manipulation consisting of changing what information they receive on net-contribution of their
state in comparison to other states. Then, the predictive value of hard factors on Euroscepticism
will be compared between states.
The goal of this research is to give attention to the explanatory power of hard factors,
as most research has neglected this recently. The theoretical relevance lies therefore in the
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