Abstract
Our goal is to explore the determinants of aggregate public opinion support for a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), operationalized as the European public's mood towards this policy area. To answer this question, we look at four sets of determinants and their workings both over time and cross-nationally. First, we examine the Left-Right ideological dimension. For many years, in several countries, this has been the main source of contention on how foreign policy should be coordinated between European countries and with the US. Second, there is the European dimension. The CFSP mood, and its evolution over time, could be seen as a manifestation of the wider politicization of the European integration process, started with Maastricht in the 1990s and since then a persistent, and increasingly, relevant, cleavage in the European political space. While both factors look at what could be defined as ideological orientations – being them on the Left-Right space or on the more or less EU integration – the third set of determinants simply ignore the role of ideology and look at the national dimension and countries' international posture as sources of explanation for the ebbs and flows of the CFSP mood. In this perspective, the different level of coordination the public supports has to be traced back to the economic, historical and geo-political characteristics of each single state, irrespective of the ideological landscape. Fourth, we examine the impact of Anti-Americanism on support for a common European foreign and defence policy.
Panel: Democratization and Politicization of Military Issues in Europe
Cite this presentation
@inproceedings{eiss-2018-policy-mood-and-policy-responsiveness-on-the-eu-s-common-foreign-and-security-po,
author = {Pierangelo Isernia and Francesco Olmastroni},
title = {Policy Mood and Policy Responsiveness on the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy},
booktitle = {European Security Studies Conference 2018},
year = {2018},
url = {https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-policy-mood-and-policy-responsiveness-on-the-eu-s-common-foreign-and-security-po.html}
}