How Europeans Understand Solidarity, Reciprocity and Fairness in the EU

Insights from Conversations Among Citizens
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-69085-8
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 252 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 470 g

Reihe: Routledge/UACES Contemporary European Studies

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.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Egner, Bjorn

Egner, Björn

Heinelt, Hubert

Steffek, Jens

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Studien zu einzelnen Ländern und Gebieten

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction  2. Cohesion, solidarity, fairness and reciprocity: Clarifying the concepts in the EU context  3. Exploring how Europeans understand solidarity in the EU: A focus group approach  4. Finland: “We should not get help either if we’re in a shitty situation and we’ve put ourselves there”  5. Germany: “We profit if the EU, if other countries are doing well”  6. The Netherlands: A “small frog country”, but also the “best boy in class”?  7. Greece: “What it should be? It should be everybody giving and everybody helping”  8. Portugal: “We are living at the expense of European funds but these funds have been misused”  9. Spain: A second class country lagging behind Europe: “The better Europe does, the better Spain will do”  10. Latvia: “We should stand strongly together and support each other as much as we can”  11. Lithuania: Consistently pro-European but still “a bit of a scrooge”  12. Slovakia: “Why should we save their ass, when it’s their own fault?”  13. Solidarity in the European Union: Results of comparative analysis of the focus group discussions  14. National storylines and topoi found in the focus group discussions  15. Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

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.