A supranational solidaristic space? Comparative appraisal of determinants of individual support for European solidarity in the COVID-19 era

Comparative European Politics https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-023-00345-5 ORIGINAL ARTICLE A supranational solidaristic space? Comparative appraisal of determinants of individual support for European solidarity in the COVID‑19 era Luís Russo1 Accepted: 7 March 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract COVID-19 created profound shockwaves across the Union, pushing supranational crisis policymaking to the forefront of European politics and fostering an unprecedented expansion in fiscal solidarity with which to support the economic recovery ahead. This development lends pertinence to a contemporary reappraisal of the main determinants underlying individual support for European solidarity and its implications to the consolidation of a political basis for a supranational solidaristic space. Using an original large-N survey dataset and employing a fixed-effects linear regression analysis, this paper empirically reviews ideal-type theoretical predictions for individual support for European solidarity by conducting a comparative assessment of their correlates’ explanatory power in the new pandemic context. First, I contend individuals reason in supranational terms as key political attitudes driving individual support for cross-border solidarity are informed directly at the supranational level, consubstantiating the claim that European redistribution operates as a distinct legitimate space for solidarity in its own right. Second, I argue that utilitarian motivations linked to expectations of material amelioration are better predictors of support for solidarity than cultural explanations emphasising national identity or attitudes towards immigration. Third, I suggest that preferences concerning European solidarity are better captured by political divides over economic redistribution rather than over cultural concerns, but only among more cosmopolitan-oriented individuals. In any event, cultural factors are still relevant predictors of support for solidarity, particularly among nationalists. The final section interprets these findings by discussing how the correspondence between public expectations and institutional supply of supranational redistributive instruments to respond to the pandemic may contribute to strenghten political support for European solidarity and the EU polity itself. Article included in the special issue "EU Resilience in times of COVID? Polity maintenance, public support, and solidarity" in the journal Comparative European Politics Extended author information available on the last page of the article Vol.:(0123456789) L. Russo Keywords European Union · European solidarity · COVID-19 · Public opinion · Survey research Introduction As highlighted in this issue, COVID-19 did not menace the foundations of public support for the EU polity; previous empirical studies suggest that support for EU membership and supranational solidarity remained remarkably stable despite costly and experimental cross-national redistribution instruments (Genschel et al 2021). What lessons can we draw for the bonding dimension of the EU polity (Ferrera 2005)? As European economies grinded to a halt, the economic expression of the pandemic crisis gained widespread salience; indeed, this article finds expectations of economic amelioration to be the main motivation for supporting EU solidarity in this period. In turn, the EU championed crisis policymaking addressing economic recovery and resilience, particularly with Next Generation EU. At a time when EU solidarity was exceptionally salient and well received, the match between public demand for and institutional supply of material solidarity might explain why such a ‘fragile experimental polity’ (Oana et al 2023) weathered the crisis much better than expected; instead of unleashing disintegration and populist contestation, the delivery of strong EU-level emergency policies that suited public expectations may have rather contributed to the consolidation a political basis for a supranational solidaric space—itself an expression of public bonding to a supranational political community. The pandemic context in 2020 and 2021 is relevant for several reasons: first, its epidemiologic and economic shock generated deep-seated social, health and economic consequences, pushing the salience of supranational solidarity and the EU’s crisis managing role to forefront of European politics. Second, the exogenous nature of the shock may have contributed to the mustering of political capital for supranational solidarity among European publics, drawing from Genschel and Hemerijck’s (2018) expectation that exogenous crises elicit stronger support for solidarity than endogenous imbalances, perceived to be less deserving of transnational relief. Third, this reserve of goodwill for EU solidarity was contemporary to a period of EU policy experimentalism, whereby the EU adopted unprecedented solidaristic instruments to mitigate the fallout of COVID-19, particularly in the (beforehand unfathomable) realm of fiscal solidarity. This positive context for solidarity contrasts with an ex ante state of affairs where solidarity has been in high demand but low supply (Ibid.). On the one hand, the increasing interdependence between EU member states and the scope of recent crises have generated significant cross-border pressures and spill overs, clearly outlining the case for a EU-wide solidaristic net with which to mitigate these effects. On the other hand, European solidarity is costly, requires intertemporal trade-offs, may face risks of moral hazard and is politically far from unchallenged in a Union characterised by an ambiguous polity (Mair 2007), the absence of a demarcated demos (De Wilde and Trenz 2012) and where polity attachment is considered ‘inherently fragile’ (Hobolt and de Vries 2016). In short, the A supranational solidaristic space? Comparative appraisal… relatively cautious, discrepant and conditional nature of support for cross-border redistribution has generated a tension that may have hindered more ambitious plans for European solidarity in the past (particularly during the Great Recession); with the pandemic, the EU ably seized the public’s exceptional willingness towards cross-national solidarity as an enabler of a more ambitious redistributive policymaking. Public opinion plays a fundamental role in the design of European solidarity and in the sustainability of the EU polity itself. Taking into consideration the increasing politicisation of the EU in domestic political arenas (Hooghe and Marks 2009), intergovernmental negotiations concerning the extent and configuration of solidarity are chiefly informed by domestic electoral pressures, giving national voters a non-negligeable role in conditioning the outcome of solidarity supply in the EU. As such, appraisals of public opinion underlying EU solidarity are key to predict its shape, nature and durability, and the political compromises that are required for it to materialise. I argue this research e (...truncated)