Europeanization of Attitudes Towards Homosexuality: Exploring Social Learning Via Education

How does exposure to EU integration affect social attitudes? Do processes of Europeanization contribute primarily to policy change, or do they also reshape the societal attitudes underlying policy? These questions matter because the EU aspires to be not just a regulatory regime but also a community of values. While common definitions of Europeanization encompass both policy- and ideational change, empirical scholarship has measured Europeanization almost exclusively in policy terms. This methodological bias has led studies of Europeanization to privilege “external incentives” (especially conditionality) over “social learning.” We reassess the relative impact of social learning and conditionality by measuring Europeanization in terms of attitudinal change. We further extend the theorization of social learning by including an indirect mechanism via domestic socialization agents, here education.

Using the European Values- and World Values Surveys, we focus on attitudes toward homosexuality because safeguarding the rights of LGBT minorities has emerged as a core EU norm, and such safeguards require a firm basis in social attitudes if they are to have practical effect. We find that social attitudes are also influenced by Europeanization – even after controlling for individual-level, sociological variables. More importantly, our findings challenge a central argument in Europeanization scholarship, namely, that hard-edged legal conditionality is a more effective mechanism for diffusing EU norms than social learning.