Theoretical framework

Stjerno (Reference Stjerno2009: 2) defines solidarity as ‘the preparedness to share resources with others by personal contribution to those in struggle or in need and through taxation and redistribution organized by the state’. This definition underlines that solidarity stretches beyond mere empathy; it instead implies the readiness to give up part of one’s own resources for the sake of others. The definition also emphasizes two aspects that are of prime interest here. First, the question is to what extent are people willing to support institutionalized economic transfers from their own member-state to other member-states in dire economic times. Second, it is relevant to know the extent to which individuals would be prepared to personally share resources with other Europeans. While earlier research has addressed the first dimension (Hooghe and Verhaegen, Reference Hooghe, Verhaegen, Vandenbroucke, Barnard and De2017; Gerhards et al., Reference Gerhards, Lengfeld, Ignacz, Kley and Priem2018), we focus on the second aspect of solidarity, by analysing to what extent citizens are willing to personally contribute to support unemployed people in their own country versus citizens of other member-states. Burelli (Reference Burelli2016) distinguishes solidarity from two closely related concepts: charity and fraternity. Charity has a universal scope which separates it from the notion of solidarity, which is an important distinction as this paper reflects on the territorial scope of solidarity. On the other hand, solidarity differs from fraternity, which implies a certain level of sameness, but comes without the obligation to share resources.

To what extent do Europeans show solidarity towards unemployed people in other European countries? This question has to two dimensions. The first relates to people’s general readiness to share resources, while the second concerns the territorial scope of solidarity. With respect to the first dimension, ample research exists on redistribution preferences.Footnote ¹ On the one hand, support for redistribution is a question of self-interest, which can operate through a variety of mechanisms (Iversen and Soskice, Reference Iversen and Soskice2001; Busemeyer and Neimanns, Reference Busemeyer and Neimanns2017). Yet on the other, political ideology, group identity (Shayo, Reference Shayo2009; Harell et al., Reference Harell, Soroka and Iyengar2016), and other-regarding preferences (Feldman and Steenbergen, Reference Feldman and Steenbergen2001; Dimmick et al., Reference Dimmick, Rueda and Stegmueller2018) play an important role. Concerning the second aspect, scholars have investigated the extent to which solidarity exists beyond the borders of the nation-state (Beckert et al., Reference Beckert, Eckert, Kohli and Streeck2004; Ellison, Reference Ellison2012; Fenger and Van Paridon, Reference Fenger, Van Paridon and Ellison2012). While recent research suggests that Europeans are generally open towards a Europeanized welfare state (Gerhards et al., Reference Gerhards, Lengfeld and Häuberer2016), there are good reasons to believe that the borders of the nation-state are also important boundaries of social solidarity. As Beckert et al., (Reference Beckert, Eckert, Kohli and Streeck2004) note, transnational solidarity is much more difficult to establish than transnational politics and economy. The national community is still the predominant reference frame for social inequality and serves as a yardstick for comparison. When assessing their own fate and economic situation, people tend to compare themselves with other co-nationals rather than with other Europeans (Whelan and Maître, Reference Whelan and Maître2009). Also, the media and social statistics frame issues of inequality in national terms. There are several reasons for this. First, the historical weight of national welfare institutions shapes our understanding of the ‘insiders’ eligible for redistribution (Jæger, Reference Jæger2006; Börner and Eigmüller, Reference Börner and Eigmüller2018). Second, it is easier to establish solidarity in more homogeneous societies (Miller and Ali, Reference Miller and Ali2014; Kymlicka, Reference Kymlicka2015). As the concept of ‘parochial altruism’ highlights, prosocial behaviour is often accompanied by in-group preferences (Bernhard et al., Reference Bernhard, Fischbacher and Fehr2006). In the context of large-scale immigration, research on welfare state chauvinism (Van der Waal et al., Reference Van der Waal, De Koster and Van Oorschot2013) has shown that certain members of Western societies hold egalitarian values, yet nonetheless continue to think that welfare state services should not be granted to immigrants. Such an opposition to welfare service provision to immigrants is often rooted in a feeling that migrants are not deserving as they have not (yet) contributed enough to the welfare state themselves, and it is hard to predict whether they will remain long enough to ‘pay it back’. While in most EU member-states, political, ethnic, and social boundaries largely coincide (Ferrera, Reference Ferrera2003), the EU, which brings together 28 member-states, 24 official languages, and a plethora of welfare regimes, is far from being homogeneous. During the economic crisis, these differences were further highlighted and European member-states witnessed a revival of nationalism. According to an analysis by Polyakova and Fligstein (Reference Polyakova and Fligstein2015), feelings of national identity have soared since, and European identification has decreased in those countries hit strongly by the economic downturn. The crisis has also contributed to the social construction of in- and outgroups and to the affirmation of national stereotypes (Chalaniova, Reference Chalaniova2013). In line with this argument, Lahusen and Grasso (Reference Lahusen and Grasso2018) find that acts of solidarity, such as donations or signing a petition, are much more pervasive at the national rather than European level.

We therefore formulate the following hypothesis:

Traditionally, questions of redistribution within a country are a contentious issue between the economic left and economic right. Those who place themselves towards the left are generally more in favour of welfare state spending and redistribution than those on the right (Jacoby, Reference Jacoby1994). In a vignette study on support for targeted unemployment benefits, Buss (Reference Buss2018) shows that right-leaning individuals are significantly less supportive of unemployment benefits, and that this is motivated by the wish to exclude non-nationals from receiving these benefits. Ferrera and Pellegata (Reference Ferrera and Pellegata2018) report strong cross-country evidence that a more right-leaning ideology is associated with labour market chauvinism. Analysing data from the European Election Survey 2014, Kleider and Stoeckel (Reference Kleider and Stoeckel2018) find that more leftist political views are significantly associated with international bailout support, but that this relationship is contingent on socio-economic status. It is therefore plausible that people who lean more to the left of the political spectrum would also be more likely to share resources with other Europeans.

Although economic left-right orientations have traditionally structured Western European politics, several scholars have identified a new cleavage regarding the question of whether national economic, cultural, and political boundaries should be open or closed. This new cleavage, labelled ‘integration-demarcation’ Kriesi et al., (Reference Kriesi, Grande, Lachat, Dolezal, Bornschier and Frey2008) or ‘transnational’ cleavage (Hooghe and Marks, Reference Hooghe and Marks2018), cuts across the left-right dimension and has become increasingly salient in European politics. At its heart are two central issues: European integration and immigration (Van der Brug and Van Spanje, Reference Van der Brug and Van Spanje2009). There is good reason to expect that attitudes towards immigration and European identity would influence solidarity towards the unemployed of other European member-states. Questions of solidarity are intrinsically related to collective identity (Miller and Ali, Reference Miller and Ali2014; Breidahl et al., Reference Breidahl, Holtug and Kongshøj2018), and some have claimed that where group identity is strong, one’s perception of self-interest will extend to the entire group. With the exception of Hooghe and Verhaegen (Reference Hooghe, Verhaegen, Vandenbroucke, Barnard and De2017), who found no significant correlation between European identity and endorsement of European social policy, recent studies have provided empirical support for the expectation that international solidarity in the EU is a question of collective identity. Verhaegen (Reference Verhaegen2018) as well as Lahusen and Grasso (Reference Lahusen and Grasso2018) find that people with European identity are more supportive of fiscal solidarity towards member-states experiencing economic difficulties. Ciornei and Recchi (Reference Ciornei and Recchi2017) show that Europeans who are transnationally active will more likely endorse international solidarity in the EU. Analysing survey data collected in Poland, Germany, and Spain in 2009, Gerhards et al., (Reference Gerhards, Lengfeld and Häuberer2016) report a significant correlation between European identity and support for a Europeanized welfare state. In laboratory experiments in Germany and the United Kingdom, Kuhn et al., (Reference Kuhn, Solaz and Van Elsas2018) find that individuals identifying as European and supporting immigration are more likely to share resources with anonymous recipients in other European member-states. Taken together, these studies suggest that both European identity and pro-immigration attitudes foster greater solidarity towards the unemployed in other member-states.

It is a different question, however, whether European identity and immigration support render people not only more likely to show solidarity towards other Europeans but also to show equal levels of solidarity towards Europeans as their own nationals. Europeans with truly Europeanized identities and those supporting immigration should not make a distinction between co-nationals and other Europeans. In other words, their national boundaries of solidarity should be removed. In line with this argument, Kuhn et al., (Reference Kuhn, Solaz and Van Elsas2018) find that those who identify as European are equally generous towards anonymous recipients in other member-states as recipients in their own nation. In contrast, people who do not identify as European tend to discriminate against other/non-national European recipients.

The final aspect to consider is the role of education. A growing body of research demonstrates that education has become an important predictor of cosmopolitan, pro-European (Kuhn, Reference Kuhn2012; Hakhverdian et al., Reference Hakhverdian, van Elsas, van der Brug and Kuhn2013), pro-immigration (Hainmueller and Hiscox, Reference Hainmueller and Hiscox2007; Meeusen et al., Reference Meeusen, de Vroome and Hooghe2013; Lancee and Sarrasin, Reference Lancee and Sarrasin2015), and liberal attitudes (Bobo and Licari, Reference Bobo and Licari1989; Surridge, Reference Surridge2016). Additionally, the incidence of welfare chauvinism (Mewes and Mau, Reference Mewes and Mau2013) and labour market chauvinism (Ferrera and Pellegata, Reference Ferrera and Pellegata2018) is significantly more prevalent among people with lower educational attainment. Hence, compared to the lower educated, those with higher educational attainment might be more open to supporting unemployed people abroad because they are generally more supportive of immigration and European integration. Moreover, as education correlates with higher income and higher labour market competitiveness, those with higher levels of education are less likely themselves to rely on unemployment or other social benefits, and therefore do not ‘compete’ for these policies. In other words, they might be more supportive of helping other Europeans simply because they can afford to do so.

We therefore formulate the following hypotheses:

Data

To empirically test our hypotheses, we conducted an original vignette survey in the Netherlands and Spain in 2015. Unemployment levels tripled between 2007 and 2013 in each country, albeit with different consequences. At its peak, the unemployment rate in Spain reached nearly 27 per centFootnote ² ; and between 2012 and 2013, Spain received €41.3 billion in financial assistance from the European Stability Mechanism.Footnote ³ In contrast, unemployment in the Netherlands never exceeded 8%, and the country avoided any major setbacks from the recession.Footnote ⁴ The crisis was thus experienced quite differently in the two countries, which potentially had consequences for public support for European unemployment policies. While Verhaegen (Reference Verhaegen2018) reports very little cross-national variation in transnational solidarity in the EU, Vandenbroucke et al., (Reference Vandenbroucke, Burgoon, Kuhn and Nicoli2018) find that the Spanish population is among those most supportive of European unemployment risk sharing, whereas the Dutch are among the countries most critical towards such a scheme. We therefore believe that Spain and the Netherlands represent two EU member-states with opposing fates in the crisis and will therefore have opposing views on dealing with unemployment shocks.

The survey data were collected by the international survey company respondi, from an access panel of respondents in working age. We imposed quotas for age, gender, education, and region based on official statistics before drawing a random sample from the panel. Table A1 in the appendix shows how the sample compares to the overall population on these parameters. In most cases, the deviations are around 1% and they are always below 3%, with the following exceptions: Spanish people with elementary education are overrepresented (6% deviation), and respondents from Andalusia are underrepresented (5.34% deviation). In the Dutch sample, men are underrepresented by 4.51%. Our data set includes 1920 respondents in Spain and 1850 respondents in the Netherlands. Table A2 presents the descriptive statistics of the variables used in the analysis. At the beginning of the survey, respondents were randomly assigned to three different versions of the following question: ‘Are you, personally, prepared to make some personal sacrifice, for example paying a little more income taxes, to help unemployed people in [own country/Germany/Greece]’ with the answer possibilities ‘yes/no’. We chose Germany and Greece as the recipient nations as they experienced contrasting economic developments during the sovereign debt crisis. While Greece experienced its worst economic and political crisis in recent history with soaring unemployment levels, the German economy did very well. The experiment had three conditions, with one-third of the respondents randomly assigned to the national unemployed condition, one-third the unemployed in Germany, and the final one-third to the question concerning unemployed people in Greece. By randomly assigning individuals to one treatment, we avoid problems of anchoring and social desirability (as respondents see only one question) and we limit any potential effects of endogeneity.

Turning to the independent variables, we operationalize economic left-right ideology using two measures: firstly, a respondent’s self-placement on a left-right scale running from 0 (left) through 10 (right) and secondly, with a question which taps inequality aversion – ‘Right now, the difference between the poor and the rich is too big in the Netherlands/Spain’ (answer categories range from 0 to 10; we reversed the coding so that the scale points in the same direction as left-right positioning, hence higher scores mean less agreement). To operationalize immigration attitudes, we rely on the following item: ‘Right now, the Netherlands/Spain is taking too many immigrants’. The answer categories range from 0 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree). Collective identity entails several dimensions (Cram, Reference Cram2012), and researchers use different operationalizations of European identity, such as feelings of attachment to Europe or identification as national and/or European. The latter implies a competition between national and European identities and is also highly context dependent (Bruter, Reference Bruter2008). We therefore refer to European attachment, which both Bruter (Reference Bruter2008) and Sinnott (Reference Sinnott2005) deem to be the better measure of European identity. The item reads as follows: ‘People may feel different levels of attachment to their village, town or city, to their region, to their country, or to Europe. Please tell me how attached you feel to Europe’.Footnote ⁵ Answer categories were as follows: not at all attached/not very attached/fairly attached/very attached. Finally, we measured a respondent’s education level with their highest level of attainment. We control for age, gender, national attachment (same question as European attachment but referring to one’s country), being unemployed, education, and income.