[Eurobarometer] Eurobarometers 54.1 and 56.3: territorialattachment

[Marco Antonsich]

Hi JOhn,
Thanks for your message. Well, I looked into the structure of the
questionnaire. Difficult to say...
Looking at Eb 56.3 (2002), I do notice that, in contrast to previous surveys,
right before the question about territorial attachment at the four scales,
questions about the pros and cons of European enlargement were asked. If I take
Q.41 (“Do you personally think that the process of new countries joining the
European Union should be sped up, slowed down or stay as it is?”) as a way to
measure the level of satisfaction of respondents about the enlargement, I do
see that, on average, 50% of respondents are in favor of ‘stay as it is’. Yet
whether these questions might have affected the answers to Q. 47 (territorial
attachment at four scales) is difficult to say. I have some doubts though. In
fact, while in 1991 (Eb 36) and 1995 (Eb 43.1 bis) questions about smoking and
environment were respectively asked just before the question about territorial
attachment, in 1999 (Eb 51.0) and in 2000 (Eb 54.1) questions about the pros
and cons of the EU membership and questions about feeling of European pride
were respectively asked. It is reasonable to expect that these two types of
questions would have created the same ‘intellectual context’ than Q.41 and the
subsequent questions of Eb 56.3 (2002). But no major decline was associated
with those two previous surveys.

September 11th might come to my mind, but it is just a suggestion...

marco

Quoting John MacInnes <john.macinnes at ed.ac.uk>:

> Dear Marco
> I haven´t looked at the questionnaires for these EuroB's but it might be
> worth checking out the order of the questions adn substantive nature of
> preceding questions. Often in cases such as this where the queston can
> be interpreted in very diverse ways the previous questions point
> respondents in particular directions. it certinaly has v large effects
> in the UK when asking people about 'national identity'.
>
> If you do find an explanation, I'd be very interseted to see it.
>
> Best wishes
>
> John MacInnes
>
> Marco Antonsich wrote:
>
> >Hi all,
> >
> >I would like to know whether any of the users of Standard Eurobarometers
> have
> >come up with an explanation for the major decrease in European attachment
> >experienced by all EU-15 countries in the passage from year 2000
> (Eurobarometer
> >54.1 - question 8) to year 2002 (Eurobarometer 56.3 - question 47).
> >
> >Running some descriptive statistics on the other forms of territorial
> >attachment (local, regional and national - same Eurobarometers/questions as
> >above), only Spain experienced a similar drop in the same year. I thought
> that
> >there could have been some issues related to the data collection process for
> >Spain. But when looking at the major drop in European attachment for all
> EU-15
> >countries in the same year, I guess I should also reconsider this
> >interpretation for Spain's drop.
> >
> >Glad to receive your comments.
> >
> >Regards
> >
> >Marco Antonsich
> >
> >*******************************************
> >Marco Antonsich
> >Institute of Behavioral Science
> >Campus Box 487
> >University of Colorado at Boulder
> >Boulder, Colorado 80309-0487
> >USA
> >
> >Phone: (303) 492 6404
> >Fax: (303) 492 3609
> >E-mail: Marco.Antonsich at Colorado.edu
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> >
>


*******************************************
Marco Antonsich
Institute of Behavioral Science
Campus Box 487
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, Colorado 80309-0487
USA

Phone: (303) 492 6404
Fax: (303) 492 3609
E-mail: Marco.Antonsich at Colorado.edu
https://webfiles.colorado.edu/antonsic/www/
*******************************************