The Utility of Identity: Explaining Support for the EU after the Crash.

The sweeping victories of Euroskeptic and far right parties in the 2014 European Parliament elections reflect public discontent with the European Union that has been growing since the beginning of the great recession. Using data from Eurobarometer 71.3 (Summer 2009), which were collected soon after the onset of the economic crisis, we test a conditional hypothesis derived from a combination of utilitarian theories of political support and social-identity theory. Specifically, we examine the extent to which the effects of individuals' economic perceptions on their support for the EU are conditioned by the way they conceive of their national and EU identities. The analysis reveals that sociotropic rather than egocentric economic evaluations tend to drive EU support among people with stronger attachments to the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]