Europe around the corner? How border proximity and quality of government explains European identity

Abstract

Do citizens that live close to the border of another European country feel more European? We suggest that border proximity affects European identity formation, but that the positive effect of border proximity is confined largely to areas where citizens live close to regions with better quality of government and lower levels of corruption. Using our newly collected individual level and post-coded data from the most recent wave of the European Quality of Government survey, covering over 129,000 respondents in all 27 European Union member countries, we show that citizens that live close to the border of another country express a stronger European identity, all things being equal. Yet the effect is driven largely by citizens that live adjacent to regions with relatively higher/lower quality of government compared to their own region. Our study thereby contributes to a closer understanding of where and why citizens become attached to Europe, and if and how benchmarking institutional performance and quality of government affect citizens’ willingness to belong to, and identify with, Europe.