Note til DPSAVedlagte paper er et første, ufuldstændigt udkast til etstudie af “gruppeimplikation” af holdninger til euroen.Ambitionen er tofoldig:(1) at præsentere et teoretisk argument for, hvorforog hvordan vælgere i bestemte sammenhænge dannerholdninger til euroen på baggrund af deres holdning tilindvandrere, samt(2) at afprøve teorien i 3 forskellige, mindre studier.

Paperet her er præsenterer et udkast til (1) samt deto første studier under (2). Formen er altså stadigmeget udfuldstændig, og alle typer kommentarer tilbåde specifikke aspekter samt designet som sådan derforoverordentligt velkomne.

- F.H.

Foreign money: Ethnocentrism and support for euro adoption

Frederik Hjorth∗

Ph.D. CandidateDepartment of Political Science

University of Copenhagen

October 22, 2013

Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Danish Political ScienceAssociation, Vejle 24-25 October 2013.

draft – do not quote or cite

∗The author gratefully acknowledges commenters at workshops hosted by the Center for Voting and Parties atthe University of Copenhagen. Any errors are the author’s exclusive responsibility.

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Abstract

A substantial literature demonstrates that in the United States, some governmental policiesare subject to ‘racialization’, i.e. the implicit association of policies with racial identity. Yetwhile racialization is theoretically based on universal features of human cognition, observationsof racialization-like processes outside the United States are scarce.

This paper argues that, using a broader theoretical framework known as group implicationtheory allows for theorizing and discovering racialization-like phenomena in non-US contexts,even cases where salient group identities and policy issues are very different. As an exampleof group implication in a vastly different context, the paper argues that nationalistic framesduring the Danish 2000 euro referendum caused some voters to base their attitude towardeuro adoption on how they feel about foreigners.

Empirical support for the argument is provided through three studies: study 1, usingopen-ended survey responses from the euro referendums in Denmark and Sweden, whereidentity cues were respectively prominent and largely absent, shows that Danish voters weresignificantly more likely to be explain their vote in terms of national identity.

Study 2, using regression analyses of survey data, shows that as opposed to Sweden,ethnocentrism significantly predicts euro referendum vote choice among Danish voters.

Finally, a planned study 3 conducts a framing experiment replicating the effect in acontrolled setting.

2

1 Introduction

Arriving at opinions on political issues is a civic norm for members of democratic societies, yet

for most citizens it is one fraught with ambiguity, lack of motivation and insufficient factual

knowledge. The task is complicated by the fact that on many issues, not only is it disputable

what the right position is; it is unclear what the issue is really about. The literature on

political issue framing convincingly shows that frames broadly construed, i.e. interpretations

of how to perceive an issue, can affect public opinion in powerful ways (Schattschneider,

1960; Riker, 1986; Chong and Druckman, 2007)

Yet for rhetorical framings of issues, what Chong and Druckman (2007) label “frames in

communication”, to shape citizens’ reasoning about issues, i.e. “frames in thought”, they

need to resonate with citizens’ existing predispositions. A relatively recent strand of framing

research examines the power of frames that appeal to group identities. Since membership of

visible social groups is a fundamental category of human experience, political issue frames

with implicit group cues can connect issues to voters’ group identities, even when the issue

at hand is ostensibly unrelated to group conflict.

The most well-known case of group framing in political science is arguably the phenomenon

known as racialized welfare attitudes in the United States. A substantial literature shows that

among white American voters, support for means-tested income transfer programs (‘welfare’)

is racialized, i.e. shaped by voters’ racial attitudes (Gilens, 1996, 2000; Mendelberg, 2001).

However, demonstrations of similar phenomena outside the United States are few and far

between. In the absence of evidence outside of its original context, it remains unclear whether

racialization is a phenomenon specific to the United States’ politico-historical context. Some

scholars argue that the American black-white racial distinction is in fact unique (Marrow,

2009). Yet this notion is at odds with the idea of racialization being rooted in group identity

as a universal feature of political cognition. There is, in other words, a tension between the

universality of the theoretically posited mechanism driving racialization and the particularity

of the cases in which it has been shown. In order to resolve this tension, studies of whether

racialization can occur in non-US contexts are needed.

Aspiring to address this need, this paper provides evidence of racialization-like dynamic

in a context far removed from its original site of discovery. By showing the occurrence

of racialization in a political environment in which it is ex ante unlikely to be found, the

evidence supports the notion that racialization is a case of a universal phenomenon, not

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necessarily confined to the United States context. Specifically, I argue that in Denmark’s 2000

referendum on euro adoption, nationalistic cues in the campaign environment caused Danish

voters to partly base their support for euro adoption on their attitude towards immigrants.

Despite playing out a vastly different context, the mechanics of the process are analogous to

those at play in welfare racialization. I illustrate my argument with two studies using as a

control case Sweden’s 2003 referendum – in which nationalistic campaign cues were largely

absent – as well as an experimental replication of the posited effect.

The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical argument in further

detail and describes the case of the Danish and Swedish Euro referendums. Most importantly,

I argue that understanding racialization as a special case of the phenomenon group implication

allows for theorizing and discovering racialization-like phenomena in non-US contexts.

The remainder of the paper tests the proposition that euro adoption attitudes in Denmark’s

2000 referendum were in fact group implicated. Section 3 presents a content analysis of

open-ended survey responses from the two referendums. Section 4 presents results from

regression models of vote choice. Section 5 outlines an experimental study which is yet to be

conducted. Section 6 concludes.

2 Theory

The core of my theoretical argument is that the same mechanism which connects Americans’

views on welfare with their attitudes about race, connected Danish voters’ stance on euro

adoption with their attitudes about immigration during the 2000 referendum. In other words,

the same basic psychological mechanism operated in both contexts.

Even so, unmistakable differences remain between the two cases, most notably that the

ingroup-outgroup distinctions as well as the policy issues are very different. This section

argues why, these differences notwithstanding, the impact of immigration attitudes on euro

adoption in Denmark can be understood as a phenomenon akin to racialization. Specifically,

I argue that both phenomena can be understood as instances of group implication.

2.1 Racialization and group implication theory

The empirical starting point of the racialization literature is the robust association between

measures of modern or ‘symbolic’ racism and attitudes toward welfare (Sears et al., 1979,

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1997). The association is present even for rather old-fashioned measures of racism. For

example, in a seminal study of racialized welfare attitudes, Gilens (1996) shows that the

extent to which respondents agree with the notion “blacks are lazy” is a stronger statistical

predictor of their support for welfare than other likely explanatory variables such as economic

self-interest, ideological commitment to individualism, or views about the poor in general.

Early critics of the argument claimed that the association was confounded by political ide-

ology (Sniderman et al., 1986, 1996) or economic self-interest (Bobo, 1983), but experimental

evidence has convincingly demonstrated the causal impact of symbolic racism on welfare

attitudes among American voters (Gilens, 1996; Banks and Valentino, 2012; DeSante, 2013).

Recent research indicates that racialization can also impact attitudes toward governmental

provision of health care (Tesler and Sears, 2010; Tesler, 2012; Banks, 2013).

Kinder and Kam (2009) demonstrate the subtlety of racialization, showing that, while

attitudes toward increased spending on “public schools” are unaffected by racial attitudes,

asking respondents about spending on “big city schools” causes support to drop substantially

among racial conservatives. The likely reason for the difference is that ‘big city’ is a racially

coded term, implicitly signaling to participants that the policy’s beneficiaries are black.

“Such racialization”, Kinder and Kam argue, “takes place through repeated pairings of race

and welfare, first in elite discourse and then in everyday conversation and thinking” (Ibid.,

199).

Yet while relevant to American politics, this specific type of racialization is unlikely

to occur in European welfare states like Denmark and Sweden, for the simple reason that

these countries do not have a racial minority with the political significance of African-

Americans in the United States. However, they do have an ethnic minority group subject

to prejudice and whose rights and obligations are a matter of intense political contestation,

namely non-Western immigrants, particularly from Islamic countries. And since the core

psychological driver of racialization is out-group prejudice, not specifically racial prejudice,

immigrants in European welfare states can be subject to group identity framing and thinking

in a way analogous to African-Americans. While the groups are otherwise very different,

appealing to out-group prejudice is thus likely to trigger the same psychological reactions in

majority-group voters’ minds, whether the specific out-group is ethnic minorities in Europe

or African-Americans in the United States.

A recent theoretical development, group implication theory (Winter, 2008), provides a

5

conceptually stylized account of how out-group prejudice combined with issue frames that

cue group identities can cause voters to understand policy issues in terms of their group

attitudes. It is thus ideal for explaining how ethnocentrism, although conceptually distinct

from racial resentment, can nonetheless drive a cognitive process similar to racialization.

In the most general sense, group implication is “the process through which ideas about

social groups (...) can be applied to political issues that do not involve [them] directly”

(Winter, 2008, p. 19). Specifically, it is the process during which cognitive schema about

group attributes are connected to policy issue frames through a process of implicit analogical

reasoning.

There is overwhelming support in the political science literature for the effectiveness of

explicit issue framing in swaying policy attitudes (Sniderman and Theriault, 2004; Hansen,

2007). In this context, however, the focus is on a more subtle type of framing effect: the

effect of policies framed to as to be structurally similar to existing voter schema, leading

voters to draw analogies between the two.

Furthermore, a core feature of the process of group implication is that it operates through

implicit reasoning, i.e. outside of conscious awareness. In fact, the effectiveness of group

implication as a rhetorical strategy rests precisely on its implicitness. This is because

messages explicitly employing group implication are likely to fail due to norms against

explicit reasoning based on stereotypes.

2.2 Group implication of the issue of euro adoption

By construing racialization of welfare as a special case of a general phenomenon, group

implication theory subsumes racialization as just one particular instantiation of the potential

implicit linkage of group schema to issue frames. Table 1 (middle column) summarizes the

argument with respect to the United States.

Notably, the feature driving the implicit association in the United States is that the

notion of redistribution is associated with a dominant group attitude as well as features of the

actual policy. Public debate over welfare policy revolves around notions of thrift, laziness and

deservingness, which are also central to white stereotypes about African-Americans. Group

implication occurs when the policy is framed in a way that make this structural analogy

apparent.

So which policies can be framed as analogous to ethnic in-group/out-group distinctions in

6

United States Denmark

Group attitude Racial resentment Ethnocentrism

In-group White Americans Native DanesOut-group African-Americans Immigrants

In-group stereotype Hard-working Familiar, reliableOut-group stereotype Lazy Foreign, threatening

Potentially implicated policy Welfare Adoption of the euro

Analogous policy feature Redistribution IntrusionTable 1: Structure of group and policy schema in United States and Denmark

European welfare states? As mentioned, I apply the term ethnocentrism to the psychological

disposition of distinguishing sharply between native citizens and immigrants. As defined by

Kinder and Kam (2009):

“[e]thnocentrism is a mental habit. It is a predisposition to divide the human

world into in-groups and out-groups. (...) Symbols and practices become ob-

jects of attachment and pride when they belong to the in-group and objects of

condescension (...) when they belong to out-groups.” (p. 8, emphasis added)

At the heart of ethnocentrism, then, is a desire to protect symbols and practices that are

objects of in-group attachment from intrusion by the out-group. Hence, if a policy can be

framed in terms of out-group intrusion and threat to objects of in-group attachment, it is

likely to be susceptible to group implication.

Because the issue of euro adoption can be understood as a matter of the intrusion of

something foreign (i.e., the euro) threatening an object of in-group attachment (i.e., the

Danish krone), euro adoption has the potential to be implicitly linked to ethnocentric group

schema. The logic goes as follows:

Politicians who oppose joining the euro can campaign against it by strategically framing

the euro as a foreign intrusion. This framing makes the issue schematically analogous to a

group relation many voters find very pertinent: that of native Danes and immigrants, which

similarly involves an elite-driven, foreign intrusion into a familiar experience.

As a consequence, voters, trying to make sense of the complex issue of whether Denmark

should join the eurozone, adopt the framing and respond by partly basing their vote choice

on ethnocentric sentiments. The issue of adopting the euro as currency has been group

7

implicated in that voters, responding to strategic frames, understand the issue in terms of

their existing level of ethnocentrism. Table 1 (right column) summarizes the argument and

its constituent parts.

2.3 Case: the Danish and Swedish euro referendums

There is, in other words, a causal claim at the heart of my argument: namely that owing

to analogous policy features between immigration and euro adoption, Danish voters can

develop an attitude toward the latter based on their existing attitude toward the former. In

fact, I argue that the available data supports the notion that group implication took place

during Denmark’s 2000 euro referendum. Sections 3 and 4 will present evidence providing

such support.

However, in order to plausibly observe the outcome of group implicating frames, I need a

control case where such frames are not present. Studies 1 and 2 use the 2003 Swedish euro

referendum as a control case. In other words, my research design is effectively a most similar

systems comparative case study (Przeworski and Teune, 1970).

Employing comparative case study designs using Denmark and Sweden is not a novel idea

(see, e.g., Swenson (1991), Iversen (1996), Daugbjerg (1998), Green-Pedersen and Odmalm

(2008)). Here, I exploit a specific difference between the two: the fact that nationalistic

themes were prevalent in the 2000 Danish campaign, and much less so in the Sweden’s 2003

campaign.

This difference is borne out by contemporary accounts of the two campaigns. For example,

in his retelling of the Danish referendum campaign, Bille (2001) mentions that while economic

considerations dominated the debate, “appeals from the ‘no’ side to the general conservative

and nationalistic sentiments of the voters gained ground during the campaign” (p. 287).

Campaign materials from the Danish referendum provide additional, direct evidence of

messaging linking the euro with the issue of immigration. Figure 1 shows three pages from a

campaign booklet by the Danish People’s Party. With taglines such as “Should we Danes

make the decisions in Denmark?”, the campaign messages frame the euro issue in a way

strongly evocative of the immigration issue.

In comparison, contemporary accounts of the Swedish campaign mention no campaign

appeals to Swedish voters’ sense of national identity. Widfeldt (2004), in his retelling of the

referendum, explains that

8

(a) “Keep the krone - voteDanish!”

(b) “Should us Danes makethe decisions in Denmark?”

(c) “For the krone and thefatherland”

Figure 1: Danish People’s Party flyer during the 2000 euro referendum.

“[t]he campaign centred on two main themes: economy and influence. On the

former theme, the ‘Yes’ side claimed that the euro would have positive effects

for business and employment. (...) The ‘No’ side argued that there is no clear

relationship between economic performance and membership in the eurozone (...).

On the influence/democracy theme, the ‘Yes’ side used the slogan ‘Should we be

part or stay outside?’ (...). The ‘No’ side criticised the European Central Bank

(ECB) for a lack of openness and democratic accountability (...)” (Widfeldt, 2004,

p. 1146)

In other words, economic and political considerations dominated the Swedish campaign.

The reason for the difference in campaign environments is quite straightforward: In 2003,

Sweden had no established equivalent to the Danish People’s Party, which largely drove the

nationalistic messaging in the Danish campaign. Explaining this difference in turn is far

beyond the scope of this study, but other studies attribute the difference to differing strategic

incentives for issue-competing center-right parties (Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup, 2008).

The difference in campaign environments in the two otherwise similar countries makes

for a plausible test of the theoretical argument described in section 2.2. If attitudes toward

the euro can be group implicated, evidence of such a dynamic should be stronger in the

Danish referendum compared to Sweden. In other words, we should expect Danish voters to

base their vote choice partly on ethnocentrism, and Swedish voters to do so to a much lesser

extent. Studies 1-2 test this hypothesis using different methods and data. Study 3 attempts

to replicate the effect in an experimental setting. Table 2 presents the hypotheses tested in

9

Table 2: Overview of hypotheses

H1 Compared to Swedish voters, Danish voters’ stated reasons for their votechoice more often reflect identity concerns

H2 Controlling for potential confounders, ethnocentrism is associated witheuro referendum vote choice in Denmark, but not in Sweden

H3Compared to control group subjects, ethnocentrism is significantly morestrongly associated with support for Danish eurozone membership amongsubjects exposed to ethnic identity cues about euro adoption

each of the three studies.

3 Study 1: Content analysis

The purpose of study 1 is to test a basic proposition: whether Danish voters explicitly based

their vote choice on identity concerns to a greater extent than Swedish voters did.

As described in section 2.3, contemporary accounts described nationalistic themes in

the Danish campaign, but not in Sweden. If the different campaign environments shaped

voters’ thinking about the referendum, it is plausible that voters would similarly differ in

their stated reasons for how they voted. The hypothesis in study 1 reflects this idea:

H1: Compared to Swedish voters, Danish voters’ stated reasons for their vote

choice more often reflect identity concerns.

The study is based on two data sources: Denmark’s 2000 referendum survey, “EURO-

afstemningen, 2000” (Worre and Nielsen, 2003), and Sweden’s 2003 referendum survey,

“Folkomröstningsundersøkning 2003” (Holmberg et al., 2003). I exploit the fact that both

surveys asked voters a simple, open-ended question: why did you vote the way you did?.

The open-ended survey data allows for direct testing of the study’s hypothesis on

representative voter samples. The remaining methodological challenge is essentially one of

measurement: How to assess whether a voters’ stated reason reflects an ‘identity concern’?

One obvious strategy is to code the responses according to the type of concern they

reflect. While I could hand-code the responses myself, my own knowledge of the study’s

hypothesis could bias my coding in the direction of confirming my hypothesis. In order to

avoid confirmation bias, I rely on student coders to code the responses. The student coders

were naïve to the study’s hypothesis and thus unlikely to be subject to confirmation bias.

Due to budget constraints, I was not able to pay the coders for the work. This had two

10

consequences: first of all, I spread the coding job across four coders so as to limit the burden

on each coder. Each coder was assigned a quarter of the full coding set (N=1,210) plus

100 randomly drawn responses common to all coders which were used to assess inter-coder

reliability.

Second, and more importantly, I limited the coding to reasons for voting against the euro.

I chose this restriction because, since the nationalistic campaign elements argued against the

euro, identity concerns are more likely to be found among no-votes, rendering country-level

differences more easily observable. However, in order to fully test the hypothesis, the coding

needs to be redone on the full sample.

The coders were asked to place each survey response into one of three categories: Identity,

which contains responses emphasizing national identity or the national currency’s symbolic or

sentimental value. Economy, which contains economic concerns, such as potential domestic

price increases or other economic costs associated with eurozone membership. Finally, the

Polity category contains political concerns such as the EU’s democratic deficit or euro

adoption’s consequences for national sovereignty. A small residual category of unclassifiable

responses was collapsed into this latter category. The coding exhibited high inter-coder

reliability (Cohen’s κ=.8).

Table 3 presents the coding results for each country. As the table shows, political concerns

were by far the most common in both countries, accounting for an estimated about 80 percent

in both cases. However, the proportions belonging to the two other categories differ quite

sharply. Identity concerns make up an estimated 17 percent in Denmark and just 6 percent

in Sweden.

Category Prop. (DK) Prop. (SE) Dif. (DK-SE)1 Identity 0.17 0.06 0.112 Economy 0.03 0.17 -0.143 Polity 0.80 0.77 0.03

Total 1.00 1.00 0.00Table 3: Proportions of main topic categories for Denmark and Sweden.

Figure 2 presents the results in table 3 graphically. For each of the three categories, the

plot shows the estimated difference in response proportions between Denmark and Sweden

bounded by a 95 percent confidence interval. Furthermore, the figure plots a random sample

of actual responses for each category.

Besides providing evidence of the coding’s face validity, the sampled responses show that

11

some voters appeared to base their vote choice purely on concerns about national identity.

For example, the response “er 80 år gammel og vil dø som dansker, stor nationalfølelse”

[“am 80 years old and want to die as a Dane, strong sense of nationalhood”] expresses

a clearly nationalistic sentiment. Responses like this are not uncommon among identity

responses. Given that the euro referendum concerns the ostensibly economic issue of joining

the eurozone, 17 percent is arguably a substantial share of voters giving identity-based

reasons for their vote.

●

●

●

demokratin i eu/emu (insyn)

jeg er blevet snydt af danske politikere så tit så deres løfter holder ikke

nationell självständighet

ingen union

jeg ville bevare kronen

er 80 år gammel og vil dø som dansker. stor nationalfølelse

kultur (t ex kulturell gemenskap)

vil forblive dansk

ekonomi

medlemsavgift till eu/kostnaderna för att medverka i emu

euroens stadige fald

priser (varu− och livsmedelspriser

Economy

Identity

Polity

−0.1 0.0 0.1Difference in topic proportions (Denmark−Sweden)

Figure 2: Differences between Danish and Swedish voters in reasons stated for voting against the euro acrossthree main categories. Danish voters provide more identity-based responses, whereas Swedish voters provide moreeconomy-based responses. Lines represent 95 pct. confidence intervals.

4 Study 2: Regression models of vote choice

The findings from study 1 suggest that Danish voters’ stated reasons for their vote reflected

identity concerns to a significantly greater extent than in Sweden. While supportive of

the theory proposed here, the study nevertheless falls short of showing that Danish voters

actually relied on ethnocentrism when casting their vote. For one, many of the ‘identity’-

coded responses are so vague that they could reflect either genuine ethnocentrism or more

principled concerns; secondly, voters’ own explanations may not reflect the actual reasons for

their vote.

Study 2 cuts at the question from another angle, using regression models of closed-form

12

survey responses. The hypothesis tested here is:

H2: Controlling for potential confounders, ethnocentrism is associated with euro

referendum vote choice in Denmark, but not in Sweden.

The strategy is to use a measures of voter ethnocentrism and test whether it predicts vote

choice controlling for observable, potential confounders.

It is important to note that, statistically speaking, interpreting a regression coefficient as

a causal estimate requires making a number of strong, unverifiable assumptions, most notably

about the absence of unobserved confounders (Rubin, 1972; Holland, 1986; Freedman, 1991).

Since I cannot be sure that the relationship observed here is unconfounded, I refrain from

interpreting the observed association causally. Hence, when I use the term ‘effect’ below, it is

only in a narrowly correlational sense. Nevertheless, if ethnocentrism did partly motivate the

vote choice of some Danish voters, I should be able to observe a robust association between

the two. This is the aim of this study; study 3, using an experimental design, revisits the

issue of causal inference.

In order to test the hypothesis, I use data from the Danish Election Project’s 2001

survey, “Valgundersøgelsen 2001” (Andersen et al., 2003), as well as the aforementioned

“Folkomröstningsundersøkning 2003” (Holmberg et al., 2003). The two data sets share one

crucial feature: both of them ask respondents what they voted in the recent euro referendum

(i.e., the dependent variable) and ask respondents a number of attitude questions, including

plausible measures of ethnocentrism. In the Danish sample, ethnocentrism is measured

as agreement with the statement: Islam is a threat against Danish culture (Likert-scale

agreement). In the Swedish sample, ethnocentrism is measured as disagreement with the

statement: [Sweden should] aim for a multicultural society with great tolerance against people

from other countries, with other religions and ways of life (11-point scale agreement).

The responses to both questions exhibit high dispersion, and so are unlikely to be seriously

constrained due to social desirability bias. While identical measures would naturally have

been preferable, both measures arguably tap into respondents’ ethnocentrism as defined

in section 2.2 above, i.e. they reflect a predispositional distinction between in-groups and

out-groups. Most importantly, they are largely devoid of policy content relevant to the euro,

so they should only affect euro vote choice if group implication is taking place.

Having measures of ethnocentrism that tap into intergroup attitudes and not ideological

policy preferences is crucial, since, as is further discussed below, the observed association

13

could be confounded by political ideology. In order to account for this possibility, I include

measures of economic and values ideology, which can account for ideological heterogeneity

among respondents with varying levels of ethnocentrism. The idea is that once ideology is

controlled for, the remaining variation in the ethnocentrism measure reflects only intergroup

attitudes, purged of policy preferences. The notion that the measures are able to distinguish

between ethnocentrism and anti-immigration policy preferences is supported by the fact that

the ethnocentrism measures and values ideology (which predominantly concerns immigration

policy) are only moderately correlated (in both samples r = .5). The items used to measure

economic and values ideology are described in tables 10 and 11 in the appendix.

Although distinguishing between intergroup attitudes and policy preferences is thus

theoretically possible, the ethnocentrism measure for the Swedish case is unfortunately less

clearly devoid of policy content than is desirable. This makes it particularly difficult to

disentangle intergroup attitudes among Swedish voters. Furthermore, the ethnocentrism

measure was only asked in the pre-referendum survey, which reduces the effective N of the

study. Both of these factors somewhat weaken the test for the Swedish case.

In addition to the ideology measures, the regression models include a number of other

control variables, including standard demographics, party bloc preference, as well as knowledge

of the European Union. Tables 4 and 5 present summary statistics for the variables included

in study 2.

Since the outcome of interest – whether the respondent voted for adopting the euro –

is binary, I model vote choice using logistic regression. Tables 6 and 7 presents the results

from a number of model specifications. The key takeaway from the models is that, regardless

of specification, ethnocentrism remains a significant predictor of vote choice among Danish

voters. Among Swedish voters, by contrast, ethnocentrism drops out of significance once

respondents’ political ideology is accounted for.

One important downside to logit models is that coefficient are notoriously unintuitive. In

order to illustrate the strength of the observed relationships, figure 3 illustrates the predicted

effect effect of ethnocentrism in model 3 in each of the regression tables presented below.

As indicated by the thicker line, the association between ethnocentrism and vote choice

is significant only among Danish voters when controlling for demographics and ideology.

And the association is not only statistically, but substantially significant: among Danish

voters, after controlling for demographics and ideology, moving across the observed range of

14

Euro adoption, Denmark Euro adoption, Sweden Tax cuts vs. services, Denmark

0.00

0.25

0.50

0.75

1.00

0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00Ethnocentrism

Pre

dict

ed p

rob.

of s

uppo

rt

Figure 3: Ethnocentrism and predicted probability of voting ‘yes’ to the euro in Denmark and Sweden (panels1-2) as well as a placebo issue i Denmark (panel 3). The plots show predicted values based on models 3 in tables6 and 7, i.e. with controls for demographics and economic and values ideology. The association is significant onlyfor Danish voters (hence the solid line).

Table 4: Summary statistics, Denmark

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max

Euro vote choice 1,839 0.47 0.50 0 1Ethnocentrism 1,986 0.49 0.39 0.00 1.00Right-wing party 1,930 0.53 0.50 0 1Education 2,023 4.90 2.00 1 8Age 2,026 47.41 16.95 17 100Gender (female) 2,026 0.48 0.50 0 1Income 1,857 9.60 4.18 1 17Economic ideology 1,872 0.44 0.30 0.00 1.00Values ideology 1,923 0.68 0.22 0.00 1.00EU knowledge 2,026 0.28 0.26 0.00 1.00Tax cuts preference 1,935 0.47 0.50 0 1

15

Table 5: Summary statistics, Sweden

Statistic N Mean St. Dev. Min Max

Euro vote choice 2,032 0.44 0.50 0 1Ethnocentrism 855 0.38 0.25 0.00 1.00Right-wing party 2,202 0.34 0.47 0 1Education 1,872 6.49 4.05 1 12Age 2,293 46.07 16.38 18 80Gender (female) 2,293 0.51 0.50 0 1Income 1,808 0.34 0.38 0.00 1.00Economic ideology 1,589 0.55 0.10 0.20 0.96Values ideology 1,583 0.58 0.16 0.20 1.00EU knowledge 1,592 0.47 0.26 0.00 1.00

Table 6: Logit models of euro vote choice, Denmark

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Ethnocentrism −1.12∗∗∗ −0.99∗∗∗ −0.92∗∗∗ −0.79∗∗∗ −0.63∗∗

(0.14) (0.16) (0.18) (0.18) (0.20)Right-wing party (RW) 0.88∗∗∗ 0.78∗∗∗ 0.39∗∗ 0.37∗∗ 0.63∗∗∗

(0.11) (0.11) (0.14) (0.14) (0.15)Education 0.16∗∗∗ 0.15∗∗∗ 0.12∗∗∗ 0.14∗∗∗

(0.03) (0.03) (0.04) (0.04)Age −0.05∗ −0.03 −0.02 −0.03

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.03)Age sq. 0.001∗∗ 0.001∗ 0.0004 0.001∗

(0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0003)Gender (female) −0.51∗∗∗ −0.49∗∗∗ −0.39∗∗∗ −0.47∗∗∗

(0.11) (0.11) (0.12) (0.13)Income 0.07∗∗∗ 0.05∗∗ 0.05∗∗ 0.04∗

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02)Economic ideology 1.62∗∗∗ 1.55∗∗∗ 1.54∗∗∗

(0.22) (0.22) (0.24)Values ideology −0.21 −0.08 −0.001

(0.32) (0.32) (0.34)EU knowledge 1.26∗∗∗ 1.08∗∗∗

(0.24) (0.25)Constant −0.02 −0.48 −1.15∗ −1.72∗∗ −1.59∗∗

(0.09) (0.49) (0.56) (0.58) (0.62)N 1,752 1,639 1,511 1,511 1,344Log Likelihood -1,157.87 -1,027.02 -920.80 -906.05 -794.21AIC 2,321.74 2,070.04 1,861.61 1,834.10 1,610.42

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ∗∗∗p < .001

16

Table 7: Logit models of euro vote choice, Sweden

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Ethnocentrism −0.75∗ −0.61 −0.31 −0.30(0.30) (0.33) (0.39) (0.39)

Right-wing party (RW) 1.20∗∗∗ 0.99∗∗∗ 0.59∗∗ 0.59∗∗

(0.16) (0.18) (0.19) (0.19)Education 0.05∗ 0.06∗ 0.05∗

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02)Age 0.04 0.05 0.05

(0.03) (0.03) (0.03)Age sq. −0.0003 −0.0004 −0.0004

(0.0003) (0.0003) (0.0003)Gender (female) −0.74∗∗∗ −0.71∗∗∗ −0.70∗∗∗

(0.16) (0.17) (0.17)Income 0.94∗∗∗ 0.59∗ 0.58∗

(0.24) (0.25) (0.26)Economic ideology 3.34∗∗∗ 3.35∗∗∗

(0.58) (0.58)Values ideology −1.19∗ −1.18∗

(0.46) (0.46)EU knowledge 0.14

(0.34)Constant −0.23 −1.45∗ −2.42∗∗∗ −2.50∗∗∗

(0.14) (0.67) (0.73) (0.75)N 766 743 741 741Log Likelihood -498.14 -457.26 -434.71 -434.63AIC 1,002.28 930.53 889.43 891.26

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ∗∗∗p < .001

17

Table 8: Logit models of preference for tax cuts over public services, Denmark

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Ethnocentrism 0.14 0.28 0.11 0.12 0.10(0.13) (0.15) (0.18) (0.18) (0.19)

Right-wing party (RW) 1.37∗∗∗ 1.30∗∗∗ 0.70∗∗∗ 0.70∗∗∗ 0.74∗∗∗

(0.10) (0.11) (0.13) (0.13) (0.14)Education 0.07∗ 0.06 0.06 0.06

(0.03) (0.03) (0.03) (0.04)Age −0.03 0.0002 0.001 0.01

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02)Age sq. 0.0003 0.0000 0.0000 −0.0001

(0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0002) (0.0002)Gender (female) −0.73∗∗∗ −0.65∗∗∗ −0.64∗∗∗ −0.71∗∗∗

(0.11) (0.12) (0.12) (0.13)Income 0.03∗ 0.02 0.02 0.02

(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02)Economic ideology 2.16∗∗∗ 2.15∗∗∗ 2.10∗∗∗

(0.22) (0.22) (0.24)Values ideology 0.86∗∗ 0.87∗∗ 0.74∗

(0.33) (0.33) (0.34)EU knowledge 0.10 0.01

(0.24) (0.25)Constant −0.94∗∗∗ −0.69 −2.34∗∗∗ −2.38∗∗∗ −2.42∗∗∗

(0.09) (0.45) (0.53) (0.54) (0.57)N 1,816 1,684 1,563 1,563 1,400Log Likelihood -1,151.46 -1,034.52 -902.73 -902.63 -804.63AIC 2,308.92 2,085.04 1,825.46 1,827.27 1,631.27

∗p < .05; ∗∗p < .01; ∗∗∗p < .001

18

ethnocentrism reduces the predicted probability of voting ‘yes’ to the euro from 65 pct. to

42 pct., corresponding to a change of nearly a quarter of the range of the dependent variable.

Among Swedish voters, the corresponding change moves predicted probabilities from 57 pct.

to 50 pct., an effect that falls short of statistical significance.

As mentioned earlier, absent an experimental or quasi-experimental design, causal effects

cannot be reliably identified from cross-sectional data, and so study 2 does not claim to

identify a causal effect. Still, I do claim that the results of study 2 constitute evidence in

support of such an effect. In order to justify this claim, two potential criticisms require a

response.

First of all, the argument of pure partisan learning would claim that the observed

association merely reflects voters adopting party positions as their own. For example, Danish

voters identifying with the Danish People’s Party would likely give responses reflecting high

ethnocentrism and voting ‘no’ to the euro – not because there is any causal link between

the two, but merely reflecting the positions of their preferred party. This argument mirrors

traditional Michigan-school models of vote choice (Campbell et al., 1960; Green et al., 2002).

Yet partisan learning is unlikely to drive the observed effect. In order to test the partisan

learning argument, model 5 in table 6 reruns model 4 on a sample excluding Danish People’s

Party identifiers. As shown, ethnocentrism remains significant. This is also the case when

looking only at voters supporting other right-wing parties, all of which campaigned for voting

‘yes’ to the euro. Contrary to the partisan learning model, ethnocentrism is associated with

‘no’-votes even among voters supporting pro-euro parties.

The second critique, which we may call the argument of ideological constraint, argues

that the observed association is confounded by an ideological preference for national self-

determination. Voters who value Danish culture and national-level decision-making on

ideological grounds – i.e., so-called ‘values conservatives’ – may be opposed to immigration

as well as eurozone membership, which could potentially explain the entire association as

reflecting purely ideological constraint, without reference to group implication. This argument

echoes so-called ‘principled politics’ critiques of theories of symbolic racism (Sniderman et al.,

1996).

In fact, the index of ‘values ideology’ is included as a variable in models 3-5 exactly

to control for this potential influence. The ideological constraint critique cannot by itself

explain why the influence of ethnocentrism is easily controlled away among Swedish voters

19

yet in identical models remains robustly significant among Danish voters.

To further address the ideological constraint critique, table 8 presents the same models as

in tables 6 and 7 applied to a ‘placebo’ issue, respondent preferences for tax cuts vs. better

public services. Since this issue has a clear ideological component, ethnocentrism should

remain significant even when controlling for ideology. Yet as the table shows, while the

ideology measures are strongly significant, ethnocentrism never attains conventional levels of

significance. The placebo test thus supports the notion that the model is able to distinguish

variation in ideology from variation in intergroup attitudes.

Still, the aim of study 3 is to address this critique more fully, turning to an experimental

design in order to more clearly tease out psychological ethnocentrism from principled,

ideological concerns.

5 Study 3: Framing experiment

The aim of study 3, which is not yet conducted, is to reproduce the effect of group frames on

support for adopting the euro in an experimentally controlled setting.

The idea is to randomly expose subjects in a student sample to one of two conditions. In

the ‘group implicated’ condition, subjects are exposed to a cue that makes ethnic identity

salient. In the control condition there is no such cue. Table 9 presents one possible design,

showing treatment group respondents an image of a Danish krone with a Danish flag

embedded. The idea is that the image cues respondents’ ethnic identity; in several studies in

social and political psychology, flag exposure has been shown to induce a feeling of group

identity (Butz et al., 2007; Kemmelmeier and Winter, 2008; Carter et al., 2011; Ehrlinger

et al., 2011). Furthermore, the treatment has some measure of ecological validity in that it

was actually used in a Danish campaign ad, cf. figure 1.

Prior to exposure to the control or stimulus frame, subjects answer a number of ‘feeling

thermometer’ questions about societal groups, including Danes and immigrants. Following

the methodology in Kinder and Kam (2009), ethnocentrism is measured as each subjects’

thermometer score for Danes minus their score for immigrants. Hypothesis 3 reflects the

conjecture that the experimental treatment moderates the effect of ethnocentrism on support

for the euro:

H3: Compared to control group subjects, ethnocentrism is significantly more

20

Table 9: Illustration of experimental ethnic identity cueTreatment Control

Hvad ville De stemme, hvis der varfolkeafstemning om Euroen i morgen?

Hvad ville De stemme, hvis der varfolkeafstemning om Euroen i morgen?

Likert response: Certain No–Certain Yes Likert response: Certain No–Certain Yes

strongly associated with support for Danish eurozone membership among subjects

exposed to an ethnic identity cue about euro adoption

Laboratory experimental political science if often criticized for a lack of generalizability

and/or resemblance to real-world conditions, i.e. lacking external validity and mundane

realism (McDermott, 2002; Iyengar, 2011). This criticism is often warranted and indeed is

at times too readily brushed aside by experimentalists. In this article, however, the aim

of study 3 is somewhat narrower: namely to show, using a design that allows for reliable

causal inference, that attitudes toward the euro can be group implicated. Conversely, it is

the purpose of studies 1 and 2 to lend credence to the claim that it has in fact occurred in

real political life.

6 Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was two-fold: first, to argue that given requisite theoretical

abstraction, racialization is not a phenomenon unique to the United States, but can in fact be

understood as a special case of group implication. Although the group identities and policy

issues involved can vary, the fundamental psychological logic is not confined to American

race relations.

The second purpose of the paper was to argue that group implication occurred during

the 2000 Danish euro referendum and provide evidence in support hereof. The results from

studies 1-2 support the notion that, exposed to nationalistic campaign messages, Danish

21

voters understood the euro adoption issue partly in terms of their ethnic identity. In other

words, the issue of euro adoption was group implicated.

Two potential implications for the study of public opinion deserve consideration. First, the

study suggests that the American literature on welfare racialization, so far largely confined

to domestic applications, can in fact inform research elsewhere, although it is likely crucial

that the theoretical application is appropriately contextualized.

Second, the findings suggest that even in still highly homogeneous, coherent, highly

redistributive societies, political appeals to group identities can influence voters’ thinking

about issues. The contingencies and consequences of group identity in welfare state politics

is likely a fruitful avenue for further research.

22

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Appendix

Table 10: Measures of attitude variables, Denmark

Variable Items Scale

Ethnocentrism Jeg nævner nu nogle synspunkter fra den politiske debat,som man kan være enig eller uenig i. Her er der et kortmed fem svarmuligheder. Jeg vil gerne bede Dem vælge etaf svarene.Indvandring udgør en alvorlig trussel mod vores nationaleegenart

1-5

Economic ideology Jeg vil nu læse nogle politiske påstande op, som De kanopfatte som en slags diskussion mellem to personer, A ogB. Vi beder Dem sige, om De er mest enig med A ellermest enig med B.Man er gået for langt med sociale reformer her i landet.Folk burde mere end nu klare sig uden sociale sikringerog bidrag fra samfundet.

1-3

Forskellene i indtægter og levestandard er stadig for storei vores land. Derfor burde folk med mindre indtægter fåen hurtigere forbedring af levestandarden end dem medhøjere indtægt.

1-3

Forretnings- og industrifolk bør i større grad have lov tilat bestemme over deres egne forretninger.

1-3

Der bør i langt større grad end nu indføres brugerbetalingi den offentlige sektor.

1-3

Values ideology Jeg nævner nu nogle synspunkter fra den politiske debat,som man kan være enig eller uenig i. Her er der et kortmed fem svarmuligheder. Jeg vil gerne bede Dem vælge etaf svarene.Indsatsen for at forbedre miljøet må ikke gå så vidt, atden skader erhvervslivet.

1-5

Voldsforbrydelser bør straffes langt hårdere end i dag. 1-5Flygtninge og indvandrere bør have samme ret til socialbistand som danskere, også selv om de ikke er danskestatsborgere.

1-5

26

Table 11: Measures of attitude variables, Sweden

Variable Items Scale

Ethnocentrism Jag kommer nu att läsa upp ett antal förslag på olikasamhällen som en del människor anser att vi bör satsa påi framtiden i Sverige.Satsa på ett mångkulturellt samhälle med stor toleransgentemot människor från andra länder med andra reli-gioner och levnadssätt?

0-10

Economic ideology Jag skall nu läsa upp en lista på saker som en del män-niskor tycker borde genomföras i Sverige.Minska den offentliga sektorn? 1-5Sänka skatterna? 1-5Minska inkomstskillnaderna i samhället? 1-5Minska finansmarknadens inflytande? 1-5Bedriva mer av sjukvården i privat regi? 1-5

Values ideology Jag skall nu läsa upp en lista på saker som en del män-niskor tycker borde genomföras i Sverige.Ta emot färre flyktingar i Sverige? 1-5Minska u-hjälpen? 1-5Öka arbetskraftsinvandringen i Sverige? 1-5

27