Repeated Crisis Exposure, Euroskepticism & Political Behavior: An Econometric Analysis for European Countries (BestMasters)

In Europe, the last decade has been shaped by euro crisis, migration crisis and corona crisis. Studies have analyzed how citizens react to crises in their voting behavior. This political economy analysis examines the research gap to what extent repeated crisis exposure within a short period of time can deepen existing Euroskepticism. It is defined as an index consisting of the individual identification as European, the view on the EU and on own country’s benefits of EU membership. Survey results of the Eurobarometer of all 28 EU member states, including the United Kingdom, in combination with macroeconomic data are analyzed using modern econometric methods. Bootstrapping and entropy balancing ensure conservative estimates. We find that a single crisis exposure increases existing Euroskepticism, but that the temporal distance between the crises matters. The impact of a crisis on the current situation marginalizes with its temporal distance. Furthermore, a hysteresis-like effect occurs:After the crisis ends, the Euroskepticism level does not go back to its pre-crisis level. Especially today, when (Western) democracy is under attack from many sides, this work extends the understanding of the influence of crises on political behavior aiming to derive recommendations how to act in the future. Acknowledgments 6 Contents 7 Abbreviations 9 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 12 1 Introduction 13 2 Theoretical Foundation & Hypotheses 15 2.1 Conceptual Framework 15 2.2 Crises & Countermeasures 17 2.3 Hypotheses 19 3 Data & Variables 21 3.1 Dependent Variable: Euroskepticism 21 3.2 Explanatory Variables 24 3.2.1 Eurocrisis: Austerity 25 3.2.2 Migration Crisis: Net Migration 26 3.2.3 Corona Crisis: Infections & Casualties 28 3.3 Control Variables 29 4 Econometric Methods 32 4.1 Identification Strategy 32 4.2 Composition of the Regressions 34 5 Regression Results 38 5.1 Single Crisis Exposure Regressions 38 5.1.1 Baseline Regressions (Single Crisis) 39 5.1.2 Placebo Tests (Single Crisis) 44 5.1.3 Robustness Checks & Driver Tests (Single Crisis) 48 5.2 Repeated Crisis Exposure Regressions 57 5.2.1 Baseline & Placebo Regressions (Repeated Exposure) 58 5.2.2 Driver Tests (Repeated Exposure) 62 6 Discussion 65 6.1 Fulfillment of the Hypotheses 65 6.2 Potential Limitations 67 7 Conclusion 73 References 75