Survey methods for studying the impact of multiple crises on attitudes towards the EU: findings and methodological challenges |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Simona Guglielmi (University of Milan) |
| Coordinator 2 | Mr Gonzalo Franetovic (University of Milan) |
EU seems to be trapped in a state of permanent crisis. Starting from the European Sovereign Debt Crisis in 2009, the EU has been faced with the Refugee crisis, Brexit, the Covid-19 Crisis and, more recently, the armed conflict in Ukraine and Energy Crisis. As a common feature of the different crises, European solidarity was called into question by numerous actors in respective domestic arenas. Divergent visions of what European integration is or should be aroused.
This session aims to collect papers focusing on the potential of survey research to investigate the impact of the protracted and complex crises on public attitudes toward the EU.
Survey research has been largely used to study changes in public support for the EU since the Beliefs in Government series in the 1990s. There have also been numerous studies using survey data to investigate the impact of the economic crisis, the Refugee crisis, and Brexit on political attitudes toward the EU. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was massive use of survey research.
Public opinion studies based on survey data have had the merit of pointing out that public support for EU and EU solidarity in turbulent times depend on many factors, both individual and crisis-related (e. g. nature of the crisis, kind of aid,...). Furthermore, through survey experiments, it was possible to investigate specific mechanisms underlying the formation of socio-political attitudes. However, little is known about the impact of multiple and protracted crises over time.
This session aims to collect papers that illustrate the potential of survey data for studying the impact of crises on public attitudes towards the EU, with particular reference to EU membership and EU member state solidarity. Especially welcome are papers based on survey experiments or panel data, focusing on single countries or comparative approaches.