The Roots of Confidence in the European Union

The article analyzes public confidence in the EU using the fifth wave (2005-2008) of the World Values Survey. We argue that citizens’ confidence in the European Union depends on having an underlying trust in social and political institutions in their home countries, and that confidence in the EU does not differ substantially from confidence in other international organizations. In a multivariate regression analysis of individual-level data, we also examine the impact of economic variables, knowledge, and territorial identity.