What Matters More, Contents or Intensity, in Connecting National and European Identity?

Several scholars argued that it seems necessary to grasp deeper the study of dual identities, in order: 1) to better conceptualize how national and European identity can be connected in citizens’ minds 2) to refine instruments of measurement.This paper aims to contribute to this line of research, focusing on dimensions involved in connecting nation with Europe: an arousal of national attachment or a priming of particular meanings? Our hypotheses are: - among the different meanings attributed to the nation and to Europe, prototypes based on national language, cultural traditions and subjective feelings have negative effects on identification with Europe; - the national attachment has a positive effect on identification with Europe. Structural equation modeling will be used for testing and estimating causal relations and assessing cross-national measurement equivalence of the national and European meanings. Data come from two cross-national surveys (2007, 2009) conducted in 17 European countries (Intune Project).