Government preferences on European integration: An empirical test of five theories

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 37, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 89-114

  Aspinwall, Mark ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33846107892     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: 14692112     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123407000051     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. For reviews of this debate, see Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane and Stephen Krasner, 'International Organization and the Study of World Politics', International Organization, 52 (1998), 645-85.
2. See also the other contributors to the special issue of International Organization in the autumn of 1998.
3. Also see Thomas Risse, 'Let's Argue! Communicative Action in World Politics', International Organization, 54 (2000), 1-39;
4. James Fearon and Alexander Wendt, 'Rationalism v. Constructivism: A Skeptical View', in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth Simmons, eds, Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 52-72.
5. Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996).
6. Both quotes are from Finnemore, National Interests, p. 2.
7. There are exceptions whereby states can have both domestic autonomy and international rules. One is cheating; another is when no pre-existing national rule is curtailed by supranational rules. In general, however, the trade-off is real and significant.
8. See, for example, Andrew Moravcsik, 'Negotiating the Single European Act: National Interests and Conventional Statecraft in the European Community', International Organization, 45 (1991), 19-56.
9. These data are available online at http://ue.eu.int/cms3_applications/ showPage.ASP?id=551&lang= en&mode=g. Last accessed on 4 September 2005.
10. See European Parliament, Positions Résumées des Etats Membres et du Parlement Européen sur la Conference intergouvenmentale de 1996, JF/bo/290/97, Luxembourg, 12 May 1997.
11. This data source was also used by Simon Hug and Thomas König 'In View of Ratification: Governmental Preferences and Domestic Constraints at the Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference', International Organization, 56 (2002), 447-76. To my knowledge similar reports are not available for other intergovernmental conferences. The only version of this report I have been able to locate is published in French.
12. Mattila tests the influence of political ideology, financial transfers to member states, the government's support for integration, member-state voting power, and the presidency on member-state support for Council measures. See Mikko Mattila, 'Contested Decisions: Empirical Analysis of Voting in the EU Council of Ministers', European Journal of Political Research, 43 (2004), 29-50.
13. My earlier research found a correlation between government ideology and integration preferences in the 1997 Amsterdam IGC. See Mark Aspinwall, 'Preferring Europe: Ideology and National Preferences on European Integration', European Union Politics, 3 (2001), 81-111.
14. Alec Stone Sweet and Wayne Sandholtz, 'European Integration and Supranational Governance', Journal of European Public Policy, 4 (1997), 297-317.
15. Neil Fligstein and Alec Stone Sweet, 'Institutionalizing the Treaty of Rome', in Alec Stone Sweet, Wayne Sandholtz and Neil Fligstein, eds, The Institutionalization of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 29-55.
16. Jeffry Frieden, 'Real Sources of European Currency Policy: Sectoral Interests and European Monetary Integration', International Organization, 56 (2002), 831-60.
17. For a related argument, see Jeffry Frieden and Ronald Rogowski, 'The Impact of the International Economy on National Policies: An Analytical Overview', in Robert Keohane and Helen Milner, eds, Internationalization and Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 25-47.
18. Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990);
19. Matthew Gabel, Interests and Integration: Market Liberalization, Public Opinion, and European Union (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998);
20. Matthew Gabel and Guy Whitten, 'Economic Conditions, Economic Perceptions, and Public Support for European Integration', Political Behavior, 19 (1997), 81-96;
21. Richard Eichenberg and Russell Dalton, 'Europeans and the European Community: The Dynamics of Public Support for European Integration', International Organization, 47 (1993), 507-34;
22. Simon Hix, The Political System of the European Union (London: Macmillan, 1999);
23. Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, 'Calculation, Community, and Cues: Public Opinion on European Integration' (unpublished manuscript, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, 2004).
24. Matthew Gabel and Harvey Palmer, 'Understanding Variation in Public Support for European Integration', European Journal of Political Research, 27 (1995), 3-19.
25. Matthew Gabel, 'Public Support for the European Parliament,' Journal of Common Market Studies, 41 (2003), 289-308.
26. For reviews, see Miles Hewstone, Understanding Attitudes to the European Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 18-20;
27. also Bernhard Wessels, 'Support for Integration: Elite or Mass Driven?' in Oskar Niedermayer and Richard Sinnott, eds, Public Opinion and Internationalized Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 137-62.
28. Clifford Carrubba, 'The Electoral Connection in European Union Polities', Journal of Politics, 63 (2001), 141-58.
29. Neill Nugent, 'British Public Opinion and the European Community', in Stephen George, ed., Britain and the European Community: The Politics of Semi-Detachment (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), pp. 172-201, at p. 191.
30. Matthew Gabel, 'European Integration, Voters, and National Politics', West European Politics, 23 (2000), 52-72.
31. Clifford Carrubba, 'Net Financial Transfers in the EU: Who Gets What and Why', Journal of Politics, 59 (1997), 469-96.
32. Mattila, 'Contested Decisions', p. 34.
33. Moravcsik, 'Negotiating the Single European Act'; Carrubba, 'Net Financial Transfers'.
34. For a detailed examination of the role of social cognitive structure, discursive formation and identity in Russian foreign policy, see Ted Hopf, Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002).
35. Thomas Risse, 'The Euro between National and European Identity', Journal of European Public Policy, 10 (2003), 487-505;
36. Gary Marks and Liesbet Hooghe, 'National Identity and European Integration: A Multilevel Analysis of Public Opinion' (unpublished paper, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2003).
37. See Hix, The Political System, p. 144. Obviously there are many different contributing factors in historical experience. However, focusing on experience in the Second World War has the advantage of being operationalizable, a task I undertake shortly.
38. Martin Marcussen et al. 'Constructing Europe: The Evolution of French, British and German Nation State Identities', Journal of European Public Policy, 6 (1999), 614-33.
39. Matthew Gabel and John Huber, 'Putting Parties in Their Place: Inferring Party Left-Right Ideological Positions from Party Manifestos Data', American Journal of Political Science, 44 (2000), 94-103.
40. Michael Laver and Ben Hunt, Policy and Party Competition (London: Routledge, 1992).
41. Oddbjorn Knutsen, 'Expert Judgements of the Left-Right Location of Political Parties: A Comparative Longitudinal Study', West European Politics, 21 (1998) 63-94, p. 63.
42. See also Hans-Dieter Klingemann, 'Party Positions and Voter Orientations', in Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs, eds, Citizens and the State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995);
43. Laver and Hunt, Policy and Party Competition, chap. 3.
44. See, for example, Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks and Carole Wilson, 'Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration?' Comparative Political Studies, 35 (2002), 965-89;
45. Aspinwall, 'Preferring Europe' ; Simon Hix, 'Dimensions and Alignments in European Union Politics: Cognitive Constraints and Partisan Responses', European Journal of Political Research, 35 (1999), 69-106;
46. Leonard Ray, 'Measuring Party Orientations towards European Integration: Results from an Expert Survey', European Journal of Political Research, 36 (1999), 283-306;
47. Gary Marks and Carole Wilson, 'The Past in the Present: A Cleavage Theory of Party Response to European Integration', British Journal of Political Science, 30 (2000), 433-59.
48. Hooghe et al., 'Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions?' This glosses over some nuances. Hix, 'Dimensions and Alignments', argues that the situation depends on the member state. Anti-integrationism may be found either on the left or the right. Marks and Wilson, 'The Past in the Present', also examine the variation in party support for integration within party families. They find national-specific factors accounting for this variation: for example, social democratic parties differ according to the level of social democracy in place at the national level, and conservative parties differ according to the tension between neoliberalism and nationalism.
49. Matthew Gabel and Simon Hix, 'Defining the EU Political Space: An Empirical Study of the European Elections Manifestos, 1979-1999', Comparative Political Studies, 35 (2002), 934-64.
50. Aspinwall, 'Preferring Europe'; Marks and Wilson, 'The Past in the Present'; Ray, 'Measuring Party Orientations'.
51. See Mikko Mattila and Jan-Erik Lane, 'Why Unanimity in the Council? A Roll Call Analysis of Council Voting', European Union Politics, 2 (2001), 31-52. I am indebted to the authors for making their data available.
52. I do not pretend that this is a foolproof way of approximating a policy that contravenes the national interest, but, in the absence of full information on the content of the proposal, it seems a valid way to proceed. It makes sense to concentrate on contentious decisions. No votes and abstentions are indicators of contention, and one of the most important sources of contention are policies that are believed to contravene the national interest.
53. It could be argued that abstentions should also be given a value of zero, since abstaining governments refuse to support a measure. However, the intent is to create categorical distinctions based on real behavioural differences, and it is assumed that abstaining does not represent as strong an objection as voting against.
54. This yields an annual index of support for European integration in the Council of Ministers. Mattila's approach, by contrast, is to count the number of no votes and abstentions in six-month periods.
55. Commission of the European Communities, Allocation of 2000 EU Operating Expenditure by Member State, Budget Directorate General, Brussels, 2001. See also http://europa.eu.int/comm/budget/agenda2000/reports_en.htm (last accessed on 4 September 2005).
56. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 351.
57. Most of this information was obtained from I.C.B. Dear, ed., Oxford Companion to the Second World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
58. Population information was obtained from the UN Population Division. Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Harper Collins Atlas of the Second World War were used for Denmark and Spain respectively. These latter two figures were obtained from the following website: http://users.erols.com/ mwhite28/warstat2.htm (last accessed on 4 September 2005).
59. Michael Laver and Norman Schofield, Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 245.
60. For critiques, see Ian Budge, 'Theory and Measurement of Party Positions', in Ian Budge, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara and Eric Tanenbaum, eds, Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments, 1945-1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 75-90, at p. 75;
61. Michael McDonald and Silvia Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity', in Budge et al., eds, Mapping Policy Preferences, pp. 127-41;
62. Laver and Schofield, Multiparty Government;
63. Ian Budge, 'Expert Judgements of Party Policy Positions: Uses and Limitations in Political Research', European Journal of Political Research, 37 (2000), 103-13.
64. On the other hand, Powell uses expert surveys of party ideology in his landmark study. See G. Bingham Powell, Elections as Instruments of Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000). Moreover, in a highly regarded examination of the use of manifesto data for determining left-right party positions, Gabel and Huber, 'Putting Parties in their Place', use expert surveys as the critical standard; they cite the close correlation between the various expert surveys and refer to the widespread use of them as reasons to accept their underlying validity.
65. Francis Castles and Peter Mair, 'Left-Right Political Scales: Some "Expert Judgements",' European Journal of Political Research, 12 (1984), 73-88;
66. John Huber and Ronald Inglehart, 'Expert Interpretations of Party Space and Party Location in 42 Societies', Party Politics, 1 (1995), 73-111.
67. Hooghe et al., 'Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions?'; Gary Marks and Marco Steenbergen, eds, European Integration and Political Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
68. Budge et al., eds, Mapping Policy Preferences.
69. Most scholars either adopt a specific and clear view about what the policy content of left-right space is (i.e., economic intervention v. free enterprise) or they assume that ideology constrains parties' positioning such that there are logical connections between a party's position on various different policy issues. See Gabel and Huber, 'Putting Parties in Their Place'.
70. The R value is 0.399 (N = 234, significant at the 0.01 level). A further test is to examine the relationship between the manifesto variable on European Community support and the expert survey results from Ray, 'Measuring Party Orientations', on the level of support for integration for each party. The results show some relationship between the two variables (R = 0.442). The nearest election data were used to compare party integration preferences from the expert survey, and the percentage of statements in favour of European integration derived from the Budge dataset. Where the Ray expert survey data fell exactly between two elections, the previous manifesto data were used. Though statistically significant at the 0.01 level, it would seem that experts were not thinking of party manifesto statements alone when they made their judgements as to a party's position on European integration.
71. Interestingly, a simple bivariate correlation between the expert survey measure of non-centrism and an expert survey measure of party support for integration yields a correlation of -0.772, significant at the 0.01 level (N = 671). The relationship is negative, as expected: the more non-centrist a party, the less it supports European integration. Using the same left-right data as the independent variable without converting it to distance from centre yields a correlation of only 0.156. In other words, as far as the expert survey measure of parties is concerned, what seems to matter is not whether a party is left or right but how far it is from the political centre.
72. Hooghe et al., 'Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions?'; Ray, 'Measuring Party Orientations';Aspinwall, 'Preferring Europe'.
73. It is also important to note that there are some differences between the datasets in terms of parties covered. The Marks/Steenbergen expert survey is more comprehensive in terms of contemporary parties, including smaller regional, extremist, single-issue and movement parties that are absent from the Budge dataset. In practice this should not affect outcomes since these parties were not present in governing coalitions.
74. Jaap Woldendorp, Hans Keman and Ian Budge, 'Party Government in 20 Democracies', European Journal of Political Research, special issue, 24 (1993), 1-119;
75. Jaap Woldendorp, Hans Keman and Ian Budge, 'Party Government in 20 Democracies - An Update (1990-1995)', European Journal of Political Research, 33 (1998), 125-64.
76. Bivariate correlation between manifesto-derived government left-right ideology and support for Council measures was the highest of all the independent variables (R = - 0.515, sig. 0.001).
77. Trade and public opinion were correlated to Council decisions at 0.263 and 0.217 respectively, both significant at 0.05, N = 92. Lagging the trade data by a year reduces its correlation to Council decisions. The bivariate trade-public opinion correlation is 0.396, significant at 0.01, N =89.
78. Mattila 'Contested Decisions'.
79. See Andrew Moravcsik, 'Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach', Journal of Common Market Studies, 31 (1993), 473-524;
80. Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998);
81. Sandholtz and Stone Sweet, 'European Integration and Supranational Governance'.
82. Aspinwall, 'Preferring Europe'.
83. For a more detailed discussion of these two dimensions, see Gary Marks, 'European Integration and Political Conflict', in Gary Marks and Marco Steenbergen, eds, European Integration and Political Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 235-59.
84. Hooghe et al., 'Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions'.
85. For application of these ideological approaches to party views on Europe, see Hooghe et al., 'Does Left/Right Structure Party Position?'. For application to British MPs' views on Europe, see Mark Aspinwall, 'Commons Sense: British MP Attitudes to European Integration' (unpublished, Edinburgh University, 2005).
86. 2 = 0.018, sig. p < 0.01 (N=435).
87. Welfare state levels are simply calculated from data on taxation as a percentage of GDP, available on the OECD website.
88. Hix, The Political System.
89. Marks, 'European Integration and Political Conflict'.
90. Marks, 'European Integration and Political Conflict'.