Attitudes toward membership in the European Union in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

How can we account for the strikingly different political preferences of Czechs and Slovaks in the post-communist era, despite a half-century of shared political history and similar political institutions? In order to answer this question, I examine what motivates ordinary citizens to support or reject the EU in two new member states of post-communist Europe. In this study I investigate the structure of political attitudes toward the EU in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, finding that while utilitarian cost-benefit analyses matter, various manifestations of identity (both European and national) play crucial parts in structuring attitudes toward the EU. Moreover, using historical evidence and data from an original survey conducted in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, I reveal that the manifestation and importance of identity in support for EU membership is contextually-based. The counterintuitive role that identity is shown to play in shaping attitudes toward the EU according to context is a novel finding in political science that merits further research.