Thank you @QOE_IJES, and why 'understanding public Euroscepticism'? A thread on public Euroscepticism and why this research project #Euroscepticism 1/ https://twitter.com/QOE_IJES/status/1354640345158410240

Early studies showed that the EU was conceptualised in terms of cosmopolitanism, the more ‘cognitively mobilized’, the higher levels of support (Inglehart 1970). 2/

Citizens can also rely on domestic proxies, ie. evaluations of the domestic situation (Anderson 1998) Proxies are a ‘neutral term’, distinguishing it from the socio-psychological use of the term ‘heuristics’. 3/

The latter, in fact, is used when ‘people lack the capacity or motivation’, whereas the former simply refers to ‘lack of relevant information’ (Anderson 1998: 574-575, in Guerra 2013) 4/

Mass-elite linkages take two forms, political elites can cue mass’ attitudes, in a top-down approach; and mass publics can cue elites, in a bottom-up approach. Context matters, different national and political contexts determine variations. 5/

Elites matter; consensus across political parties, ideological closeness and leadership influence explain the top-down approach, that is likely to increase elites’ cues in the run-up to referenda and salient political events, as elections. 6/

Divided elites decrease political parties’ influence; and intra-party dissent favours a bottom-up approach, while mainstream parties with a poor leadership and distrust towards political parties can disconnect mass publics from elites. (Guerra and Trenz 2018) 7/

In the mid-1980s, political science was becoming heavily influenced by rational, utilitarian approaches to the study of politics (models of political behaviour were being developed around the assumption that individuals rationally pursue their self-interest). 8/

Egocentric utilitarianism explains support for the European Union in terms of the economic costs and benefits of the European project to the individual. Those with higher levels of education, better job skills, and higher incomes are argued to be amongst the most supportive 9/

of European integration because their skills and incomes put them in a superior competitive position in a free market. Sociotropic utilitarianism explains support for the EU in terms of the benefits that the EU has brought to the country, 10/

specifically budgetary outlays and increased trade, though it is unclear whether this type of benefit has much impact on attitudes to the European Union in the modern day. (Guerra and Trenz 2018) 11/

EU integration can also represent a threat to one of citizens’ key identities. Protectiveness of ‘in-groups’ (social groups an individual belongs to and identifies with) - even when individuals expect no material gain for themselves by maintaining such identity (Tajfel 1970).12/

Exclusively national identifiers and those who fear the loss of national identity are openly hostile to the EU. Further, support can correlate with trust/distrust towards national institutions (Sanchez-Cuenca 2000) 13/

Europeans can oppose EU integration because they do not trust European institutions; ie. it is argued that this is because national institutions work relatively well, and a shift to supranational governance is unnecessary. 14/

It may also be argued that some EU citizens trust the EU’s institutions because their own national institutions function poorly. In my first book (2013) I argued that support for the EU in the post-communist region 15/

can be explained by both an affective unconditional mobilization and a ratio between costs and benefits mainly based on subjective evaluations (see also Jasiewicz for the case of Poland). So, after explaining accession to the EU, how to explain the British departure? 16/

The 2016 UK referendum shows that, theoretically, identity, rational utilitarian frameworks of analysis, political parties’ cues or other quantitative analyses cannot fully explain its outcome. Narratives, and embedded national discourses, are missing from the overall picture.17/

Yet, narratives engage through psychological realism, such as the red bus used in the British Leave campaign, and mobilize emotions. The role of narratives is critical to examine how people relate to the EU and what Euroscepticism is about. 18/

Recent EU crises reclaim the urgency of understanding how the EU is represented and articulated to accept the challenge of the persistent distance between the EU and citizens. In this study I focus on the narratives that mobilize public Euroscepticism 19/

that emerged after the British EU referendum, examining what the narratives are and what they tell us about public Euroscepticism. Thanks to a survey carried out with the support of YouGov, I asked almost 2000 citizens what the UK EU membership meant for them 20/

While analysis on attitudes tend to focus on generalizable explanations, listening to people’s voices enables us to understand how a few logics are embedded in their perception of the EU. 21/

In opposition, the EU is mainly seen as a cost, an open door for uncontrolled immigration, and limiting the scope to govern for Britain, losing out due to EU membership. The EU is perceived through the main debates filtered by the press, political debates, and Euromyths. 22/

More objective views generally show a more sophisticated understanding or a rather inclusive view of the other, as cooperation, and the advantages of membership. Definitely, EU membership seems to require the experience of citizenship (see Guerra and Serricchio 2014; Kuhn 2015)23

or a sophisticated understand of what membership means, in a country, Britain, where levels of knowledge about the EU are abysmal, and the older, ‘the least knowledgeable, most incorrect, and most unable to answer simple questions on the EU’ (in Manners, 2018: 1215). 24/

The strength of these narratives that regularly return in the news, or we have seen in the referendum campaign, gains salience by being continuously repeated. (Krzyżanowski 2020) Studies show that Euroscepticism has generally low salience in the public debate 25/

(Szczerbiak and Taggart 2008), but it rises when the EU discourse becomes controversial at the domestic level. ‘Bananas’, ‘Brussels’, ‘dictating’, and ‘costs’ returned in Boris Johnson’s referendum campaign, in a speech in Cornwall in May 2016 (Henley 2016), 26/

and could succeed by linking the theme to traditional embedded narratives. According to Johnson, it was ‘absolutely crazy that the EU [was] telling us how powerful our vacuum cleaners have got to be, what shape our bananas [had] got to be, and all that kind of thing’ 27/

it was ‘costing UK businesses about £600m a week in unnecessary regulation’; [he was] ‘delirious’ with Vote Leave’s claim, repeated on the side of the battlebus, that Britain ‘sends the EU £350m a week.’ (Henley 2016). 28/

This British Euroscepticism that resurfaced and took strength with the EU referendum in 2016 is nothing new. As noted by Daddow 'Euroscepticism is more than myopic nationalism or the ‘wrong’ historical stories being told. It is both deeper than that. 29/

It is wider because Euroscepticism makes commercial intellectual sense.' (2006: 328) Deconstructing Euromyths could be a first small step forward. END