Integrating Indifference

This is a book that should be read by everyone concerned about how Europe's citizens are responding to what EU institutions are doing in response to the eurozone crisis. The author shows the theoretical and empirical importance of the large bloc of indifferent and uncertain citizens who are neither committed to further integration, nor eurosceptic. Anyone concerned with methodology will be interested in the book's demonstration, through careful analysis of trend quantitative data and qualitative group discussion, of how public opinion can be misread by jumping to conclusions from precoded data. -- Richard Rose, University of Strathclyde and European University Institute

This excellent and provocative book sheds a new light on the issue of European integration – now more topical than ever. The careful reexamination of Eurobarometer trends over 40 years, and the content analysis of 24 focus groups from three countries, go against the dominant frames of interpretation in terms of rising euroscepticism and democratic deficit… One-third of citizens have neither a good nor a bad image of the EU; it’s simply outside the world they live in. In the long run, this indifference could prove even more damaging than open dissent. -- Nonna Mayer, President of the French Political Science Association

In the midst of growing pessimism, Integrating Indifference invites us to re-calibrate our interpretation of trends in popular support of European integration. Through a masterful combination of survey and qualitative data analysis, Van Ingelgom demonstrates that growing confusion and political alienation more than rampant Euroscepticism reigns among the European Union's citizens. Instead of jumping off the boat, what policy-makers, scholars and pundits who favour integration should thus be doing is explaining to disoriented citizens why past institutional reforms were needed and why Europe needs more, not less, integration. -- Juan Diez Medrano, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Virginie Van Ingelgom is a Research Associate Professor at UCLouvain. Her research deals with the issue of legitimacy at national and the European levels, with the link between public policies and citizens’ attitudes and behaviours, and with methodological issues concerning the use of qualitative comparative analysis.