Sharon Baute

• PhD
• Assistant Professor at University of Konstanz

While the free movement of people is one of the cornerstones of the European integration project, a pressing question remains whether public support depends on who is moving. Against the backdrop of increasing debates on the development of a European Health Union, this study focuses on the case of patient mobility and compares support levels to tho...

In multi-level systems, the erosion of democracy in one unit risks affecting the quality of democracy in other units and across the levels of the system. The European Union (EU), where democracy and the rule of law constitute fundamental community norms, faces this problem as several member states undergo democratic backsliding. While previous lite...

This study investigates researcher variability in computational reproduction, an activity for which it is least expected. Eighty-five independent teams attempted numerical replication of results from an original study of policy preferences and immigration. Reproduction teams were randomly grouped into a ‘transparent group’ receiving original study...

Amidst the global surge in healthcare expenditures, there is a growing political and academic debate about individual versus collective responsibility for health and healthcare costs. This study explores the causal effects of health risks and income cues on citizens’ attribution of responsibility for health outcomes and healthcare costs. An origina...

Since the 1950s, the history of European integration unfolds as a unique social experiment, witnessing the transformation of a non-existent entity into an increasingly institutionalized force. This article delves into the consequences of this ongoing institutionalization on public attitudes towards the institution itself: the European Union (EU). W...

In the fight against climate change, the European Union has developed a new growth strategy to transform Europe into the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. To support EU member states in their transition towards greener economies, climate change mitigation policies are being implemented at the EU-level. However, such policies can be designed...

This chapter explores public opinion on Social Europe from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. It critically reviews the literature concerning public attitudes towards Social Europe, clarifying the main concepts used, while presenting new empirical research, gaps and avenues for future research. Drawing on cross-national survey data from...

This article advances research into mass Euroscepticism by investigating the role of distributive justice. Drawing on cross-national survey data from 23 countries, the study shows that perceived injustice of individual opportunities (i.e. educational and job opportunities) and outcomes (i.e. earnings) nourish Eurosceptic sentiments, independent of...

This study explores how researchers' analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in...

Since the Eurozone crisis, intense political debate has resurfaced about deservingness judgements in European solidarity. To contribute to this debate, this article proposes a refined concept of ‘multi-level blame attribution’. It postulates that public support for EU-level welfare policies crucially depends on how citizens attribute responsibility...

In recent decades, European welfare states have adopted demanding active labour market policies (ALMPs), aimed at increasing labour market participation through imposing stricter work-related obligations and benefit cuts in case of job offer rejection. This article investigates whether support for such demanding ALMPs is driven by risk perceptions...

We argue that support for redistribution increases when one experiences “positional deprivation,” situations when one’s own income increases slower or decreases faster compared to that of others. This specific combination of economic suffering over-time and relative to others has effects beyond well-studied measures of suffering that are static and...

Two contrasting perspectives can be identified in the current literature on the relationship between European integration and the welfare state. On the one hand, the race to the bottom thesis presumes that welfare spending will be reduced to the lowest common denominator. On the other hand, the upward convergence thesis suggests that European integ...

Previous research into public support for welfare solidarity often refers to the importance of 'reciprocity', which means that generous social benefits are supported if they are matched by credible commitments to contribute by those who can. The current article adds to this body of literature by providing novel empirical evidence on the roles of ge...

This article investigates the relationship between social resentment and Euroscepticism. It argues that that populist parties mobilize the resentment of the losers of modernization by addressing new cultural and political cleavages as well as the issue of European integration. Using survey data from the Belgian National Election Study 2014, the stu...

The paper reports findings from a crowdsourced replication. Eighty-four replicator teams attempted to verify results reported in an original study by running the same models with the same data. The replication involved an experimental condition. A “transparent” group received the original study and code, and an “opaque” group received the same unde...

This paper reports findings from a crowdsourced replication. Eighty-five independent teams attempted a computational replication of results reported in an original study of policy preferences and immigration by fitting the same statistical models to the same data. The replication involved an experimental condition. Random assignment put participati...

The COVID-19 outbreak in Europe has brought attention to EU health policy as a focal point for solidarity, particularly as it concerns access to medicines. Against the backdrop of policy proposals for EU joint procurement of medicines, this article expands our understanding of public opinion towards this particular aspect of European integration. D...

Findings from 162 researchers in 73 teams testing the same hypothesis with the same data reveal a universe of unique analytical possibilities leading to a broad range of results and conclusions. Surprisingly, the outcome variance mostly cannot be explained by variations in researchers’ modeling decisions or prior beliefs. Each of the 1,261 test mod...

This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to include conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis and that may lead to diverging results. We coordinated 16...

The question of what kind of Europe citizens want and whether they support a more active EU role in social policy is a subject of intense debate in European welfare states. An analysis of public opinion about an EU initiative on minimum income protection reveals challenges and opportunities for the development of a Social Europe. The hopes that les...

The European Union has gradually assumed increasing authority in the domain of social policy. This increasing importance of Social Europe fundamentally redraws the boundaries of existing solidarity arrangements. This chapter investigates whether the Europeanisation of social policy creates new structural conflicts between winners (benefiting from t...

The economic crisis and the unequal degree to which it has affected EU member states have fuelled the debate on whether the EU should take responsibility for the living standards of European citizens. The current article contributes to this debate by investigating for the first time public support for an EU-wide minimum income benefit scheme. Throu...

Samenleving & Politiek, Volume 26, 2019, issue 4 (April). Sinds de jaren 1990 is de publieke consensus over het Europese project almaar afgenomen. Meer recent wordt het verhevigde euroscepticisme het best geïllustreerd door de Brexit-stem in het Verenigd Koninkrijk, het grote electorale succes van eurokritische partijen en de toenemende publieke o...

In an era of mass migration, social scientists, populist parties and social movements raise concerns over the future of immigration-destination societies. What impacts does this have on policy and social solidarity? Comparative cross-national research, relying mostly on secondary data, has findings in different directions. There is a threat of sele...

This study investigates public support for two types of EU-wide solidarity that currently exist, namely member state solidarity (i.e. transfers to less developed and crisis-hit countries) and transnational solidarity (i.e. granting cross-border social rights to EU citizens). Drawing on data from the 2014 Belgian National Election Study, we find tha...

This study investigates how support for Social Europe is related to citizens’ welfare attitudes. On the one hand, welfare attitudes can spill over from the national to the European level, given that Social Europe aims to achieve similar goals to those of national welfare states. On the other hand, support for the welfare state can be an obstacle, i...

Although the notion of ‘Social Europe’ can refer to different principles and policy options, most research narrows down attitudes towards Social Europe to a unidimensional construct. In this study, we instead propose a multi-dimensional approach, and contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we elaborate the notion of ‘Social Europe’ conce...

This study investigates whether citizens' concerns about the EU's impact on social security are a distinct source of Euroscepticism. By analysing data from the European Values Study 2008, we show that citizens differentiate between domain-specific fears about European integration (i.e. about social security, national sovereignty, culture, payments...

Gender differences in professional health service use in 25 European countries A study on the impact of medicalisation attitudes and gender stratification.In this paper we investigate the impact of gender stratification on the gender gap in both medicalisation attitudes and professional health care use. Furthermore, we examine to what extent medica...