The Role of Social Identities for Decision-Making in the European Parliament

Scholars have identified several explanations for policy actors’ behaviour at the European Union level to explain corresponding policy outcomes (Willumsen, 2018). Thereby, the majority of explanations focuses on preferences, interests, or beliefs that actors try to realize in the policy process (Hix, 2008) and neglects the subjective and context-dependent salience of social group membership additionally guiding individual behaviour. Applying the Social Identities in the Policy Process (SIPP) perspective, we argue that identification with a social group provides a fertile micro-level psychological explanation for policy actors’ behaviour in the policy process that – in contrast to existing explanations – captures subjective group belonging, evaluation, and emotional attachment (Hornung, Bandelow, & Vogeler, 2019). SIPP hypotheses derive from the renown and widely empirically tested Social Identity Approach in social psychology (Hogg, Abrams, & Brewer, 2017). SIPP proceeds from the assumption that actors act in accordance with their respectively salient social identity and hypothesises that salience is triggered by – among other factors – the policy issue at hand. A generalized structural equation model performed with respect to MEP’s group memberships and related voting behaviour across policy issues reveals that actors are behaviourally governed by their social identities. As a result, the study contributes to the research pillar of behavioural governance in the European Union by showing that “governing through social identities” is possible when providing social group memberships and triggering their salience in certain contexts. Furthermore, the results suppose that there is an added value of SIPP as a lens of behavioural governance in diverse and at different stages of the policy process. We show that why policies are put on the agenda, how they are prepared and adopted, up to their later implementation and compliance is strongly influenced by the social identities coined by the group memberships of the respectively involved actors. Hix, Simon. (2008). Towards a Partisan Theory of EU Politics. Journal of European Public Policy, 15(8), 1254-1265. doi:10.1080/13501760802407821 Hogg, Michael A., Abrams, Dominic, & Brewer, Marilynn B. (2017). Social Identity: The Role of Self in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 20(5), 570-581. doi:10.1177/1368430217690909 Hornung, Johanna, Bandelow, Nils C., & Vogeler, Colette S. (2019). Social Identities in the Policy Process. Policy Sciences, 52(2), 211-231. doi:10.1007/s11077-018-9340-6 Willumsen, David M. (2018). The Council’s REACH? National Governments’ Influence in the European Parliament. European Union Politics, 19(4), 663-683. doi:10.1177/1465116518783305