Europeanisation and Social Movements: Before and after the Great Recession

Abstract

Trust in the European Union (EU) is falling among its citizens. Before the European elections of 2014, the first since the Great Recession took full hold, distrust had spread. Opinion polls — including the ones promoted by the European Commission itself through its Eurobarometer — clearly indicate the effects of the financial crisis on support for European institutions by European citizens. In short, they indicate a dramatic drop in citizens’ trust in the EU, going from 57 per cent in the Spring of 2007 to 31 per cent in the Autumn of 2013 (Eurobarometer 2013). While social movement studies, as other areas of the social sciences, seemed to assume an increasing Europeanisation, recent developments have challenged this view. European institutions not only could not mitigate the extent of the financial crisis, which hit some Member States with greater force than others, but were considered responsible for the suffering of large sectors of the population. Among social movement activists, increasing mistrust for the EU institutions was reflected in more and more critical visions of the existing Europe and somewhat less confidence in the possibility to build ‘another Europe’.