The role of supranational identity in promoting democratic values

This study sets forth a social identity explanation of the link between supranational identity and democratic values, and, thus, for cross-border value diffusion. This explanation is tested with data from 19 regions in Europe from the latest wave of the World Values Survey using multilevel ordered logit models. The results reveal a little-studied relationship between the supranational identification of respondents within the European framework and stronger support for the postmaterialist values that have been previously linked to successful democratization. Conversely, stronger national and local identification is associated with weaker support for these values. The use of multilevel methods also reveals several interesting patterns in more traditional explanations of the adoption of democratic values.