Changing Attitudes Towards European Integration at Times of Crisis: The Case of Greece

What are the main drivers of attitudes towards European integration, and how does crisis affect attitudes to it? This paper engages with this set of questions by examining the Greek case study. It operationalizes a series of variables based on representative survey data and analyzes those findings by use of proxies such as attitudes towards immigration, globalization and the Euro. Our study is novel in two important respects: first, we use Europeanization theory to assess integration attitudes, bringing together two literature strands that are usually kept apart. Secondly, our study entails primary data collected throughout the Greek crisis period (2010-15), allowing for a unique insight to the transformation of public attitudes towards integration and thus facilitating the application of hypotheses on the effect of crisis conditions on views regarding the EU. The analysis demonstrates that public evaluations on the causes, severity, responsibility, and responses to the Greek debt crisis are key factors of support for the EU project, alongside trust and other political values associated with authoritarianism, multiculturalism and globalisation.