Policy Feedbacks or Responsiveness? How Public Policies Impact upon Citizens’ Attitudes

In European studies, research linking European citizens’ attitudes and public policies has largely relied on the concept of political responsiveness. This paper explores the alternative relation – though not incompatible –by using the concept of policy feedbacks. The literature on policy feedbacks  investigates how public policies impact upon citizens’ attitudes and behaviors. As long shown by theories of state-building in Western Europe, specific policies, such as education and welfare systems, had been a powerful tool to build up a sense of national community, to legitimate national political actors, and thereby the nation-state. But since the 1970’s, central states have had to share their policy responsibilities: the European Union has increasingly intervened directly or through soft law in numerous policy sectors. According to the policy feedbacks hypothesis, major changes in the legitimacy structure should therefore be noticed. Classical questions are at stake in this analysis, notably how and when national and European governing elites are able to use public policies to reshape beliefs and preferences in the citizenry. Specifically, the paper addresses the following question: In the midst of the current crisis, in a time when European citizens are supposedly turning their back from the EU are they returning to their nation-state? The paper relies on comparative data on six European countries (France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain) and several policy sectors (agriculture, education, environment, social policy). The paper is based on the Europeanisation index of domestic legislatures, as well as survey data (EES and Eurobarometers).