Treaties, collective responses and the determinants of aggregate support for European integration

Abstract:

Scholarly research investigating the determinants of support for European integration at the individual level is abundant, but the analysis of aggregate-level indicators is relatively less developed. This study examines the collective responses of the Europeans to different environments of integration by using a multiple interrupted time series design with panel data. The results suggest that the context of integration after important treaties changes the aggregate support for integration significantly. More importantly, the analysis provides evidence challenging some findings of earlier studies with regard to the impact of aggregate-level indicators of support for integration.