| Summary: | This work studies the relationship between individual national identity and the EU's image over time. By turning to cross-sectional Eurobarometer data from 2005 to 2019, two hypotheses are tested at the individual-level. First, building on evidence that the link between identity and EU support may be strengthening over time, this work asks whether the post-crisis period has seen an increased linkage between citizens' identity and their image of the EU. Second, theorizing that perceived threats to the nation are the source of identity's tightening link, this work examines how this relationship has evolved in citizens who consider immigration to be an important problem. The results show that: 1) while identity may have been more important in some years, its interaction with the EU's image has not changed appreciably over this period; and 2) citizens with high immigration salience do not rely on national identity more heavily when evaluating the EU. These findings imply that the conflicts of the post-crisis period, and in particular, the migrant crisis, have not driven citizens to increasingly value national identity when making judgments about the image of the EU. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
|
|---|
