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Overcoming History Through Exit or Integration: Deep-Rooted Sources of Support for the European Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2020

KAI GEHRING Open the ORCID record for KAI GEHRING [Opens in a new window]
KAI GEHRING*
Affiliation:
University of Zurich and CESifo
*
Kai Gehring, Senior Researcher, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, and CESifo, mail@kai-gehring.net.
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Abstract

The origins of voter preferences about the vertical distribution of political power in federal systems are not well understood. I argue that negative historical experiences with higher-level governments can raise demands for both exit strategies and a decentralization of power, but also for upward integration. I specify conditions when delegating power upwards, for example, from the nation-state to a supranational level or international organization, can better serve the purpose of constraining nation-state actions to overcome history. Empirically, the quasi-random division of the French regions Alsace and Lorraine allows estimating differences in support for integration with a spatial regression discontinuity design. More negative exposure to nation-state actions causes persistently higher support for European integration in three referenda and less Euroscepticism in EU elections. Survey evidence supports exit and integration as two complementary alternatives. Both options can serve the purpose of moving power away from the government level associated with negative historical experiences.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 115 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 199 - 217
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

I thank the editors and four anonymous referees, as well as Victor Araujo, Christian Bjornskov, Allison Carnegie, Axel Dreher, James Fearon, Florian Foos, Vicky Fouka, Andreas Fuchs, Judith Goldstein, Pauline Grosjean, David Laitin, Gary Marks, Katharina Michaelowa, Jonathan Rodden, Christina Schneider, Kenneth Schultz, Marco Steenbergen, Yuki Takagi, and Stefanie Walter for helpful comments, as well as seminar participants at Central European University, the University of Zurich, Stanford University, and at the EPCS Meeting in Jerusalem, the Beyond Basic Questions Workshop in Kiel, and the 2019 CESifo Summer Institute: Future of Europe in Venice. I thank Ulrich Doraszelski, Raphael Franck, Franz Zobl, Noel Johnson, Eunhye Kim, and the département archives in Alsace and Lorraine for sharing data and verifying historical sources, as well as Lukas Willi, Bahar Zafer, Nelson Mesker, Jan Gromadzki, and Dante Povinelli for excellent research assistance. I acknowledge financial support from a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Ambizione grant PZ00P1_174049. Replication materials are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NNFDNB.

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