Céline Belotresearch fellow at Pacte and lecturer at Sciences Po Grenoble; Sophie Jacquot, professor of political science, Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles, CReSPo and IEE
Whether at national whether at national or European level, very little is known about the way opinion polls commissioned by governments are used. governments. Work on these instruments of government, which are designed to to construct and make visible "the will of the majority of citizens", as Gallup as Gallup put it in the 1930s, generally consider them political tools. However, the logic understanding of when and why public authorities such as the European such as the European Commission or the European Parliament have recourse to and how they use their results remain largely unexplored. explored.
At using the example of gender equality policy, our research aims to lay the our research aims to lay the foundations for a more general analysis of the role the role and use of opinion polls in European policy-making. European policies. This case study is particularly interesting insofar as the commissioning of Europe-wide opinion surveys, the Eurobarometers, played a part in the development of this policy development of this policy since its emergence in the mid-1970s, and is still is still common practice today. Between 1975 and 2018, 23 Eurobarometers on issues relating to the fight against inequality between women and inequalities between women and men were commissioned by four different of the European Commission and the European Parliament. Some of these surveys conducted in 28 countries, most of them involving more than 1,000 people interviewed in each country, and sometimes over 40,000 people in total. total.
Surprisingly, these opinion polls, which constitute a particularly rich source of material (questionnaires and official reports commenting on the results of responses to the questions) have hardly ever been analyzed by specialists in European European equality policies. However, our study shows that, on the one hand that a closer look at this tool sheds new light on this specific specific competence of the European Union and the way in which public opinion is associated with it. It also shows that the nature and uses of this tool of this tool available to European institutions change according to the role role that political elites wish to assign to citizens in public policy-making public policy-making (simple recipients of information, disseminating the "voice of Europeans" to justify equality initiatives... equality initiatives...).
Opinion polls: a tool in the fight for women's rights women's rights and the construction of Europe
Until the the mid-1990s, Eurobarometer commissions helped to legitimize European public action on two levels. The surveys are used are used to inform citizens about inequalities between men and women and to express their preferences for public action in this field. in this area. This expression of European public opinion is therefore also a message message to the European institutions themselves: surveys are one of the levers surveys are one of the levers used to ensure that European public European public authorities will take responsibility for the issue of "women's emancipation and institutionalize a European policy to combat inequality. against inequality.
However, at a time at a time when the entrepreneurs of European integration are looking for new the institutional crisis of the 1960s, the expression of European public opinion is also being used as a message to national governments and citizens, particularly women, as beneficiaries of women, as the beneficiaries of "United Europe", to awaken them to a European consciousness. European consciousness. Eurobarometers thus play a part in the legitimization of the European construction process as a whole. as a whole.
When Eurobarometers become marginal communication tools communication tools
From the mid from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, Eurobarometer surveys were designed less about making the case for European integration than about disseminating disseminate information on public action and present the results of the what the European Union is doing to combat gender inequality. between women and men. However, with the institutionalization of the institutionalization of this policy over the same period, opinion surveys opinion surveys appear to be relatively peripheral tools for the European Commission's feminists (the word "feminists" or "feminist feminists" refers to feminists or former feminist activists working in the working in the civil service and likely to act as intermediaries between the between the state and the women's movement), particularly in relation to other such as the creation of expert groups.
The return of Eurobarometers in uncertain times
Since the the late 2000s, surveys of gender inequality have become more more numerous, more precise, but also more instrumental. In political crisis, the expression of public opinion is integrated by the Commission into the daily routine of European public action, playing the role of a legitimizing tool for every policy measure. This continuous to citizens' preferences could appear to be a provisional response to the to the low level of support that Europeans have tended to give to the the European political system over the past decade. At the same time, by commissioning its own surveys on equality-related issues, the European Parliament intends to use European public opinion as a means of reaffirming as a means of reaffirming the common values anchored in the European project. The commissioning Eurobarometers is therefore used by the European Parliament as a tool for to reaffirm its role as representative of the general interest.
In the end, an examination of the trajectory of European gender equality policy under the prism of Eurobarometers highlights the ways in which the the way in which recourse to citizens has contributed to the existence and and development of this policy. From the first survey in 1975 to the most recent the most recent in 2018, this instrument has a clear legitimizing legitimizing public action.
However, the the purpose of this legitimization changes over time: citizens' opinions are not always is not always mobilized in the same way, at the same time, or with the same with the same objectives over time. In fact, we have distinguished three three main types of use for these surveys by their sponsors: they can may be used as strategic toolsto reinforce an institutional to reinforce an institutional positioning; as communication tools to as communication tools to build public opinion on a given subject to build public opinion on a given subject, broaden a field of action or express a general interest; as procedural instruments to demonstrate that citizens have been citizens have been consulted on a project, or to evaluate a policy.
Research into other areas of public action will be necessary in order to generalize these results and fully understand the role attributed to opinion polls in European governance. Considering that no fewer than a thousand surveys have been commissioned by European institutions since 1970, the Eurobarometer can no longer remain a blind spot in the analysis of European policies!
This text was originally published on BePolitixthe academic blog of the Association belge francophone de science politique.