Exposure to democracy and MEPs attitude toward EU integration

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of exposure to democracy during adolescence and early adulthood on the pro-EU attitude of the members of the European Parliament. Relying on the psychological theory of `impressionable years’, we test whether members exposed to less democratic regimes at the age of 18 to 25 have a higher probability of voting against pro-EU instances in the roll-call-voting of the first six legislatures, from 1979 to 2009. Our results suggest that exposure to democracy increases the probability of voting in favor of pro-EU policies by about 2%-7%, depending on the legislature. We find that the effect is stronger in votes with a significant cleavage on EU instances, while it is irrelevant in votes that do not involve them. Our results take into account heterogeneity in political groups, country of election, year of birth, and legislature and resist several robustness checks.