Public Opinion and EU Accession - Basic in Political Rhetoric
Public Opinion and EU Accession - Basic in Political Rhetoric

Author(s): Jovan Andonovski
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: EU; Integration; Republic of Macedonia; Public Opinion; Rhetoric
Summary/Abstract: Even though the public support for the European Union (EU) and the process of accession of Republic of Macedonia (RM) into the EU has been a subject of public opinion research from the very beginning of this process, nevertheless this phenomenon has not been investigated thoroughly. The lack of specific and systematic analyses of public attitudes on the process of European integration in Macedonia results with numerous unanswered questions referring to the dynamics of the support for this process and its basic determinants. This fact is even more intriguing since analyses of public opinion in the candidate countries for EU membership can have three key implications for domestic policy: from the outcome for referendum for membership, through the impact of the European integration process on the domestic political debate and electoral rhetoric, up to the impact of the European integration process on the democratic consolidation in the post communist context.1 Therefore, this research intends to fill in this gap through preliminary analyses of the public support for the European integration process in Macedonia in the period 2004-2014. In this context, these analyses pursue two particular goals. The first one is to define the general trends of the public support for Macedonian membership in the EU and to de-construct its dynamics. The second goal is to define the most important determinants of the support for the process of European integration, i.e. to detect the key factors that affect the formation of public attitudes related to this issue.

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