Public Perceptions of the European Power Hierarchy and Support for a Common Foreign and Security Policy

Prior research on citizen support for European integration has primarily focused on individuals’ evaluations of the process of integration or its institutions, with emphasis on the importance of direct benefits and costs integration can confer. Explanations focus on overall support for integration and little work has been done on explaining public opinion on specific policy areas, such as the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This paper will fill this gap in the research by synthesizing systems theory with social identity theory to produce a core claim that the probability of supporting the CFSP increases with greater levels of political trust in the European Union member-states, most notably France and Germany. This variable is critical since integration’s development is influenced strongly by, and dependent on, the resources of the relatively more powerful European member-states. The results hold even when controlling for other factors. Binary logistic regression analysis using pooled repeated cross-sectional data from the Eurobarometer surveys conducted in 1992 through 1997 among individuals of 11 member-states largely support these claims