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To Europe or Not to Europe? Migration and Public Support for Joining the European Union in the Western Balkans

Ivlevs, Artjoms; King, Roswitha M.

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Authors

Roswitha M. King



Abstract

© The Author(s) 2019. For decades, countries aspiring to join the European Union (EU) have been linked to it through migration. Yet little is known about how migration affects individual support for joining the EU in prospective member states. We explore the relationship between migration and support for EU accession in the Western Balkans. Using data from the Gallup Balkan Monitor survey, we find that prospective and return migrants, as well as people with relatives abroad, are more likely to vote favorably in a hypothetical EU referendum. At the same time, only people with relatives abroad are more likely to consider EU membership a good thing. Our results suggest that migration affects attitudes toward joining the EU principally through instrumental/utilitarian motives, with channels related to information and cosmopolitanism playing only a minor role. Overall, we show that migration fosters support for joining the EU in migrants’ origin countries and that joining such a supranational institution is likely to foster political and institutional development of migrants’ origin countries.

Citation

Ivlevs, A., & King, R. M. (2020). To Europe or Not to Europe? Migration and Public Support for Joining the European Union in the Western Balkans. International Migration Review, 54(2), 559-584. https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918319844176

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 23, 2019
Publication Date 2020-06
Deposit Date Mar 26, 2019
Publicly Available Date Apr 29, 2019
Journal International Migration Review
Print ISSN 0197-9183
Electronic ISSN 1747-7379
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 54
Issue 2
Pages 559-584
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918319844176
Keywords migration, return migration, European Union, European integration, Western Balkans
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/850231

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