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Show the money first! Recent public attitudes towards the EU in Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2015

Nicolò Conti  and
Vincenzo Memoli
Nicolò Conti*
Affiliation:
Department of Law and Economics, Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Vincenzo Memoli
Affiliation:
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Catania, Italy
*
*E-mail: nicolo.conti@unitelma.it
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Abstract

In the recent past, attitudes towards the EU have become problematic in many member states. Even those countries that traditionally were more optimistic have actually experienced important declines in their popular backing of the European integration process. We examine the public attitudes towards the EU that have recently emerged in Italy, a country where support for EU membership has declined substantially. Making use of recent data and novel research techniques, the article sheds light on the explanatory power of different theoretical perspectives to explain these attitudes. Utilitarianism has emerged as the key explanatory factor, whereas other theories appear much less relevant in the Italian context.

Keywords

citizensattitudesEUItalyutilitarianismeuroscepticism
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 203 - 222
Copyright
© Societá Italiana di Scienza Politica 2015 

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Conti and Memoli Dataset

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http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/3CIIM0
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