Project on European integration indicators

This report is an attempt to gain a better understanding of public attitudes towards European integration by relating general and specific developments in societal values and expectations to underlying socio-economic trends. The analytical point of departure is the thesis that European values are gradually transformed as societies reach advanced stages of industrialisation and take on post-modern traits. As opposed to u0091modernu0092 society, u0091post-modernu0092 society is characterised by a popular emphasis on democratic political institutions and individual freedom, a diminishing prestige of science, technology, and rationality, and a rejection of traditional, bureaucratic, and hierarchical authorities. In view of this development, the report: (1) Traces general changes in European values; (2) Analyses the transformation in socio-economic structures, European value patterns, and attitudes towards European integration, based on an analysis of societal change and a grouping of the member states in a number of sufficiently distinct clusters, and; (3) Considers possible consequences for the European integration process.