CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Elliott, Claire Susan |
|---|---|
| Title | Is Consensus Democracy Better for the EU? A Multilevel Analysis of Euroscepticism |
| Summary | What can explain different rates of Euroscepticism? In addition to many individual-level determinants, such as age, gender and the use of proxies, there are also political-institutional factors which shape the context in which attitude formation occurs. The main hypothesis of the study is that institutions moderate and condition the relationship between individual characteristics and Euroscepticism. Using Vatter and Bernauer’s (2009) institutional framework, the thesis examines to what extent attitudes towards the EU can be explained at different levels of analysis. Providing an adequate response to this complex question requires novel research methods. Multilevel models are increasingly popular in political science as they recognize the nested nature of most data and allow for more accurate inferences. This thesis finds strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis that attitude formation is contextual yet mixed evidence for the specific hypothesis that more consensual countries are less likely to be Eurosceptic. The empirical findings show that while the parties-interest group dimension, a composite of variables such as a greater number of parties and a proportional electoral system, leads to greater Euroscepticism, systems with more consensual direct democracy and coalition governments lead to less Euroscepticism. Furthermore, the results show that consensual systems have strong, indirect effects on Euroscepticism with individual attitudes and attributes varying depending upon political-institutional context. |
| Supervisor | Bogaards, Matthijs |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/elliott_claire.pdf |
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