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This article investigates empirically the sway of ideology and social class on public opinion on some of today's major economic and social issues in European countries. Using European Election Survey data, our results demonstrate that there is a popular convergence on these issues which tends to cut across class and ideological divides and the socio-economic traditions of each nation. The effect of ideology on public opinion on these matters also tends to be largely independent of educational differences. In the light of these findings implications are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article empirically investigates the impact of national socio-economic contextual factors on public opinion on globalisation. It also examines the mediating impact ... of these factors on the relationship between citizens' education, occupation and public opinion on globalisation. Using Eurobarometer data, this article demonstrates that national levels of unemployment, FDI and trade balances, as well as the proportion of the national population with tertiary education attainment, influence citizens' opinions on globalisation. They also show that national levels of unemployment, trade and FDI balances, net migration and the proportion of the national population with tertiary education arbitrate the relationship between individuals' education, occupation and public attitudes towards globalisation. The article then discusses the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from the holistic, cross-national approach of much of the previous research into public opinion on European integration and with a view to taking detailed account of the specificities of each member state which can be essential to explaining public views, this article empirically investigates the significant rise in public euroscepticism in Italy in the post-Maastricht period. This decline in European Union (EU) support is all the more surprising and significant as Italian public opinion has traditionally strongly supported the EU, and as the large majority of Italian political parties and media still remain today strongly in favour of European integration. Using Eurobarometer data, our results demonstrate that the perceived negative EU role in socio-economic and societal issues explains this decline in EU support. The effects of socio-economic and societal issues on EU support are also found to interact with one another. These results are compared to those of two similar large EU member states, namely the United Kingdom and France, and implications are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the pattern of interactions between education, occupation, personal economic expectations and feelings of national identity and how these interactions affect public support for the EU. Using Eurobarometer data from 1993 to 2006, the results in this paper demonstrate that occupation mediates the relationship between EU support and education. It is also found that the sway of citizens' personal financial expectations on EU support is not conditioned by education and occupation. Finally citizens' personal economic expectations are not found to condition the relationship between EU support and feelings of national identity. In the light of these findings the paper draws implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has found that the socialisation process accounts for cross-national and cross-temporal variation in the level of public support for European integration-an effect explained as the socialisation theory. However, the theory has been tested only for the period up to the early 1990s, which coincided with the alleged permissive consensus. With the constraining dissensus, the related theory has been de facto assumed to be missing in action. In this paper, using Eurobarometer data from 1992 to 2001, we argue that the socialisation process as an explanation of public levels of support for the EU has indeed lost substance following the deep changes undergone by the EU during that period but still retains a role. The socialisation theory becomes less persuasive than explanations in terms of people's economic and social assessments of how the EU is affecting nation states and individuals, and national publics' different preferences for particular models of the EU. The article concludes with the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]