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Dennison, James 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3090-7124
(2024)
Europhoria! Explaining Britain’s pro-European moment, 1988–1992.
Political Studies.
ISSN 0032-3217
Abstract
British attitudes to ‘Europe’ have been long characterised as ‘reluctant’. This article uses a range of qualitative and quantitative sources to describe and explain an anomalous period in which Britons were highly ‘enthusiastic Europeans’. This ‘Europhoria’ is interpreted using an expanded ‘calculation, cues, and community’ theoretical framework, including: (1) calculations driven mainly by anticipation of the ‘1992’ single market launch and ‘social chapter’ and trust engendered by unrealised negative predictions raised during the 1975 referendum; (2) proactive domestic European policy leading to harmonious, influential, insider status; (3) benchmarking of comparable, better performing European economies and (4) newfound belief that Europe was Britain’s most important international community. ‘Europhoria’ interplayed with a sense of European community and geopolitical possibilities stimulated by the fall of the Berlin Wall and unusually ‘European’ cultural trends in media, sports and arts. The reversal of these factors – in some cases at pan-European level – explains the British return to Euroscepticism thereafter. These findings have profound theoretical implications for public attitudes to Europe and historical understandings of Britain and Europe.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Funding Information: This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust (grant number ECF-2021-342). |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | attitudes to european integration,britain and europe,process tracing,public opinion,single market,thatcher,sociology and political science ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3312 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies (former - to 2024) |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Aug 2024 14:30 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Oct 2024 09:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/96186 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/00323217241266032 |
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