Feeling European in a Politicized EU: a Postfunctional Theory of Identity

According to post-functionalism the further transfer of policy competences from the national to the EU level politicizes European integration, which is countered by the desire for self-rule on the part of those who conceive their national identity in conflict. However, the further transfer of policy competences may also establish a European identify, which can legitimize the functional benefits of European integration. In this study, we introduce a new approach to study European identity empirically by combining a conjoint experiment with dictator and trust games from behavioral economics. By utilizing survey experiments in 25 European countries, we find the dominance of partisan identity, but also surprising importance of European identity. We also assess our main findings along with evaluations of nationality and attributes of other traditional cleavages (social class and religion).