Open Access
Europhoria! : explaining Britain’s pro-European moment, 1988–1992
Loading...
Files
Europhoria_explaining_2025.pdf (1.52 MB)
Full-text in Open Access, Published version
License
Attribution 4.0 International
Access Rights
Cadmus Permanent Link
Full-text via DOI
ISBN
ISSN
0032-3217; 1467-9248
Issue Date
Type of Publication
LC Subject Heading
Other Topic(s)
EUI Research Cluster(s)
Initial version
Published version
Succeeding version
Preceding version
Published version part
Earlier different version
Initial format
Author(s)
Citation
Political studies, 2025, Vol. 73, No. 3, pp. 929-954
Cite
DENNISON, James, Europhoria! : explaining Britain’s pro-European moment, 1988–1992, Political studies, 2025, Vol. 73, No. 3, pp. 929-954 - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/94020
Abstract
British attitudes to ‘Europe’ have been long characterised as ‘reluctant’. This article uses a range of qualitative and quantitative sources to describe and explain an anomalous period in which Britons were highly ‘enthusiastic Europeans’. This ‘Europhoria’ is interpreted using an expanded ‘calculation, cues, and community’ theoretical framework, including: (1) calculations driven mainly by anticipation of the ‘1992’ single market launch and ‘social chapter’ and trust engendered by unrealised negative predictions raised during the 1975 referendum; (2) proactive domestic European policy leading to harmonious, influential, insider status; (3) benchmarking of comparable, better performing European economies and (4) newfound belief that Europe was Britain’s most important international community. ‘Europhoria’ interplayed with a sense of European community and geopolitical possibilities stimulated by the fall of the Berlin Wall and unusually ‘European’ cultural trends in media, sports and arts. The reversal of these factors – in some cases at pan-European level – explains the British return to Euroscepticism thereafter. These findings have profound theoretical implications for public attitudes to Europe and historical understandings of Britain and Europe.
Table of Contents
Additional Information
Published online: 27 July 2024