Opting for Opt‐outs? National Identities and Support for a Differentiated EU

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• Author: Martin Moland
• Date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13478

Opting for Opt-outs? National Identities and Support for a

Differentiated EU

MARTIN MOLAND

ARENA, Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Oslo

Abstract

An extensive literature investigates individual support for European integration. However, support

for differentiated integration has only recently become an important topic of study for public opin-

ion scholars. Previous literature on this issue has not probed how differentiated integration is

shaped by exclusively national identities and whether the effect varies by how differentiation

has been framed. Using survey data from 2020 to 2021, I show that exclusively national citizens

are most likely to support differentiated integration that allows for greater national autonomy

and may oppose differentiation whose primary goal is to facilitate further integration. However,

If‌ind no clear link between elite framing of differentiated integration and popular support for it.

This raises important questions both about what kind of differentiated integration will enjoy public

legitimacy and how cues shape support for European Union (EU) differentiation.

Keywords: differentiated integration; identity; postfunctionalism; public opinion

Introduction

Brexit has given rise to a debate about what shape future European integration must

take to be most compatible with citizens’preferences. One possible path is for the

European Union (EU) to allow for increasingly differentiated integration. Differentiated

integration, which has become more common as the EU has integrated into particularly

salient policy areas (Schimmelfennig and Winzen, 2020), generally takes one of two

forms: instrumental differentiated integration lets member states converge towards the

same level of integration at different speeds and is used to facilitate integration

where some member states are not yet ready for full integration. Constitutional

differentiated integration, on the other hand, lets member states permanently opt out

of policy integration that they perceive as an undue imposition on national sovereignty

(European Commission, 2017; Leuffen et al., 2013; Schimmelfennig and

Winzen, 2014). Depending on its stated goal, differentiated integration can thus

facilitate both greater autonomy and further integration. Although a broad literature

investigates individual attitudes to European integration, we know little about who

supports differentiated integration and why.

Existing literature into this question (de Blok and De Vries, 2023; Leuffen et al., 2022;

Schuessler et al., 2023) has largely focused on the effect of liberal economic values and

Euroscepticism. This article, however, asks how exclusively national identity, identifying

solely with your nation-state, shapes support for a differentiated EU. Identif‌ication solely

with the nation-state has typically been found to predict critical attitudes towards EU

integration (Hooghe and Marks, 2005,2009; Karstens, 2020; Schoen, 2008). However,

JCMS 2024 Volume 62. Number 1. pp. 55–73DOI: 10.1111/jcms.13478

© 2023 University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

whether identity, increasingly important also to the broader political behaviour literature

(Bornschier et al., 2021; Sobolewska and Ford, 2020), impacts attitudes also towards dif-

ferentiated integration is still under-studied.

A frequent argument for differentiated integration is that it better protects national

autonomy than the EU’s current goal of uniform integration by accommodating a greater

range of heterogeneous preferences (Schimmelfennig and Winzen, 2020; Schraff and

Schimmelfennig, 2020; Thym, 2017). This could also explain why those identifying only

with their nation-states might f‌ind it more attractive than uniform integration, as they are

likely to be concerned with the EU’s threat to national sovereignty (Hooghe and

Marks, 2005), even if they do not favour exiting the EU. Previous contributions have

brief‌ly touched upon the link between differentiation and identity (Leuffen et al., 2022;

Schuessler et al., 2023). This article goes a step further by investigating how a potential

direct link between national identity and support for differentiated integration, even

amongst supporters of EU membership, varies according to the mode of differentiation

used and how it is framed by elites.

Using survey data collected in 13 EU member states in 2020-2021, I perform one

of the f‌irst analyses of the correlation between national identity and support for both

constitutional and instrumental differentiated integration. I then test how the interaction

between exclusively national identities and both Nordic and Central and Eastern

European citizenship impacts support for constitutional differentiation. This lets me

test whether the correlation between exclusively national identity and support for

differentiation varies by whether citizens have primarily been exposed to frames painting

differentiated integration as a net positive for their country, as in the Nordics

(Leruth, 2015), or as a potential challenge to its power, as in Central and Eastern

Europe (Cianciara, 2014).

If‌ind that exclusively national citizens, even when controlling for Euroscepticism, are

more likely to support constitutional differentiation than those with mixed national/Euro-

pean identities, with the opposite being the case for instrumental differentiation. I f‌ind,

however, no clear link between elite framing of differentiated integration in the two re-

gions and popular attitudes towards it.

My results have clear implications for our understanding of how identity shapes

attitudes towards the EU and for current debates about the future of the EU: f‌irst, they

suggest that postfunctionalist explanations rooted in identity explain not only

Euroscepticism but also why some who support EU membership may still want a less

uniform EU. This duality, in which exclusively national citizens express support both

for EU membership and for alternative ways of structuring it, calls for a more nuanced

theorization of the link between exclusively national identity and support for EU

integration than what is found in much public opinion literature, which often assumes

such identities to be merely drivers of calls for exit from the union. The results also have

policy implications: as those identifying solely with their nation-states are likely to see the

EU as a threat to national sovereignty (Hooghe and Marks, 2009), exclusively national

citizens may be amongst those most susceptible to Eurosceptic calls for ‘less Europe’.

Accommodating the preferences for differentiation found in this group may thus be one

way of avoiding increasing demands for exit from the EU.

Martin Moland56

© 2023 University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.