1st Edition
How Europeans Understand Solidarity, Reciprocity and Fairness in the EU Insights from Conversations Among Citizens
This edited book sheds new light on the understanding of solidarity, reciprocity and fairness from the perspective of European Union (EU) citizens and with this, how cohesion in the EU can be achieved.
Drawing on extensive focus group research across nine countries, the book presents the results of this large project to assess what citizens think they owe their fellow Europeans in other parts of the EU. It brings together participants from different social milieus - highly qualified professionals, low paid and unemployed persons, and young adults – and reveals much about how average citizens think and talk about the issues and crises facing the EU, such as the reasons behind their beliefs and the statements they develop when discussing such issues, and therefore provides a deeper insight into how exactly EU citizens understand solidarity, reciprocity, and fairness when it comes to transborder relations and their attitudes towards EU cohesion.
This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in European studies/politics, and more broadly to comparative politics, international relations, civil society organisations, and the wider social sciences.
1. Introduction
Björn Egner, Hubert Heinelt and Jens Steffek
2. Cohesion, solidarity, fairness and reciprocity: Clarifying the concepts in the EU context
Jared Sonnicksen
3. Exploring how Europeans understand solidarity in the EU: A focus group approach
Inga Gaižauskaitė, Björn Egner, Hubert Heinelt, Jan Kotýnek Krotký and Jared Sonnicksen
4. Finland: “We should not get help either if we’re in a shitty situation and we’ve put ourselves there”
Jonas Schauman
5. Germany: “We profit if the EU, if other countries are doing well”
Jared Sonnicksen and Melina Lehning
6. The Netherlands: A “small frog country”, but also the “best boy in class”?
Jildou Teerenstra
7. Greece: “What it should be? It should be everybody giving and everybody helping”
Petros Karpathiou
8. Portugal: “We are living at the expense of European funds but these funds have been misused”
João Moniz
9. Spain: A second class country lagging behind Europe: “The better Europe does, the better Spain will do”
Ricardo Dacosta
10. Latvia: “We should stand strongly together and support each other as much as we can”
Inese Abolina
11. Lithuania: Consistently pro-European but still “a bit of a scrooge”
Inga Gaižauskaitė
12. Slovakia: “Why should we save their ass, when it’s their own fault?”
Jan Kotýnek Krotký
13. Solidarity in the European Union: Results of comparative analysis of the focus group discussions
Inga Gaižauskaitė, Björn Egner, Hubert Heinelt and Jens Steffek
14. National storylines and topoi found in the focus group discussions
Hubert Heinelt and Jens Steffek
15. Conclusion
Jens Steffek, Hubert Heinelt and Björn Egner
Biography
Björn Egner is Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Political Science, TU Darmstadt, Germany.
Hubert Heinelt is Professor at the Institute of Political Science, TU Darmstadt, Germany (formally retired since April 2018).
Jens Steffek is Professor at the Institute of Political Science, TU Darmstadt, Germany.
