Using public opinion surveys conducted in the member states of the European Union, this paper seeks to provide a systematic understanding of public support for the EMU project and European-level monetary policy authority. We develop models of support for EU monetary policy that incorporate a utilitarian component and elements of multilevel governance that is emerging within the EU. These models are tested at the aggregate level of survey respondents. The results show that variations in attitudes about the common currency are driven by collectively-based considerations of the costs and benefits associated with the common currency project as well as the interaction of European-level politics and the domestic politics of the member states.
Acknowledgements
Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at annual meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association, 23-25 April, 1998, Chicago, IL and the American Political Science Association, 3-6 September, 1998, Boston, MA. We are grateful to Roger Scully and the anonymous referees for their extensive comments on earlier versions, and we would like to thank Richard Eichenberg, Matt Gabel, Robert Rohrschneider, David Scott, Andreas Sobisch, and Marco Steenbergen for helpful hints and suggestions. Many thanks also to Len Ray and Pat Regan for their help with obtaining some of the data used in the study.
Address all correspondence to : Center on Democratic Performance (CDP), Department of Political Science, Binghamton University, SUNY, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, USA. E-mail: cdp@binghamton.edu