Carole J. Wilson

Does left/right structure party positions on European integration?

How is contestation on European integration structured among national political parties? Are issues arising from European integration assimilated into existing dimensions of domestic contestation? We show that there is a strong relationship between the conventional left/right dimension and party positioning on European integration. However, the most powerful source of variation in party support is the new politics dimension, ranging from Green/alternative/libertarian to Traditional/authoritarian/nationalist.

The Past in the Present: A Cleavage Theory of Party Response to European Integration

This article explains the positions taken by national political parties on the issue of European integration over the period 1984–96. Based on the theory of party systems developed by Lipset and Rokkan, we develop a cleavage account of party response to new political issues. We hypothesize that European integration is assimilated into pre-existing ideologies of party leaders, activists and constituencies that reflect long-standing commitments on fundamental domestic issues.

Why Do Corrupt Governments Maintain Public Support

This article addresses an issue often neglected by the current literature on political corruption: Why do citizens support corrupt governments? The authors argue that people in countries where government institutions are weak and patron-client relationships strong are more likely to support a corrupt leader from whom they expect to receive tangible benefits. Using a cross-national analysis of citizens in 14 countries, the authors find statistical evidence consistent with the hypothesis, which also complements some of the recent works on clientelism and institutional development. This has important implications for scholars and practitioners working on accountability and good governance issues because its shows that as long as corrupt leaders can satisfy their clientelistic networks by manipulating government resources, they are likely to retain political support. This, in turn, questions the assumption that a few administrative reforms can weed out corruption in countries where formal and informal institutions provide opportunities for this phenomenon to thrive.

A rising generation of Europeans? Life-cycle and cohort effects on support for ‘Europe’

Despite much research on age and attitudes, it remains unclear whether age reflects accumulated life experience or conditions prevailing during an individuals formative years – that is, a life-cycle effect or a cohort effect. In respect to attitudes towards the European Union (EU), the issue is particularly important. Although many analyses indicate a correlation between age and support, the relationship has not been adequately theorised and extant analyses have generated contradictory results. In this article, theoretical expectations for both life-cycle and cohort effects on support for the EU are developed and tested using a cross random effects model. This not only identifies the nature of an age-support relationship, but also highlights substantial generational differences in attitudes towards European integration and explains the inconsistencies in extant empirical analyses.

Opinion Polarization and Inter-Party Competition on Europe

Rising Euroscepticism, increasing levels of public disagreement and growing divisions on Europe both within and between political parties are all indicators of the emergent potential for contestation on Europe. This article seeks to identify whether two important elements of contestation on Europe, namely inter-party competition and divisions in public opinion, are causally related, the direction of any such relationship and in which countries the relationship might exist. In doing so, we apply a recently developed method for analysing cross-sectional time-series data: panel Granger testing. We do, indeed, find a causal relationship between public opinion and inter-party competition, but only in some countries, not all, and we discuss the implications for political competition on Europe.

A rising generation of Europeans? Revisited

The EJPR article ‘A rising generation of Europeans?’ provided systematic evidence for the existence of generational differences in attitudes towards the European Union (EU). In this research note, it is argued that identifying generational differences in specifically affective orientations is the crucial issue for the future of the EU. Drawing on and extending the earlier work expectations in respect to generational and life-cycle differences in affective orientations are developed and tested, highlighting the existence of the former, their consistency across a range of indicators, and the absence of the latter. The results are an important counterpoint to the growth in ambivalence in attitudes towards the EU.