The Europe of elites: dimensions of europeanness of political and economic elites of the EU member states Cover Image

Elitų Europa: ES valstybių narių politinio ir ekonominio elito europietiškumo mastai
The Europe of elites: dimensions of europeanness of political and economic elites of the EU member states

Author(s): Heinrich Best, Vaidas Morkevičius, Irmina Matonytė
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla & VU Tarptautinių santykių ir politikos mokslų institutas

Summary/Abstract: In this article we analyze the background and extent of the Europeanness of political and economic elites in the EU member states. Europeanness is defined and operationalized along the lines of emotive, cognitive-eva- luative, and projective dimensions. We propose five hypotheses about the inter-relationships of dimensions of elites’ Europeanness and their ideologies, macro-contexts of life experiences, cultural and social capital as well as inter-elite cueing processes. In order to test the hypotheses we use the data of interviews of political and economic elites in 17 EU member states collected in the IntUne (FP6) project. The largest support is found for the hypothesis concerning the relationship between elites’ Europeanness and inter-elite cueing. Considerable support is also found for the hypothesized links between elites’ Europeanness and their ideologies and cultural as well as social capital.

  • Issue Year: 2009
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 3-32
  • Page Count: 30
  • Language: Lithuanian