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Post-accession congruence in Bulgaria and Romania: measuring mass-elite congruence of opinions on European integration through mixed methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Petar Bankov  and
Sergiu Gherghina
Petar Bankov*
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, 40 Bute Gardens, Room 401, Adam Smith Building, G12 8RT Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Sergiu Gherghina*
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, 40 Bute Gardens, Room 1206, Adam Smith Building, G12 8RT Glasgow, Scotland, UK
*
E-mail: Petar.Bankov@glasgow.ac.uk
E-mail: Sergiu.Gherghina@glasgow.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article proposes a mixed-methods measurement of the mass-elite congruence of opinions on the EU based on a combination of speech and survey data. It focuses on two countries (Bulgaria and Romania) that were known for their pro-European profile until their EU accession, but which faced many political difficulties afterwards. The analysis covers the 2013–2017 period that includes a great deal of these post-accession difficulties. The article illustrates how we can make meaningful comparisons between short-term, dichotomous mass, and elite attitudes with timeframes determined by non-electoral events.

Keywords

Elite-mass congruenceMixed methodsCentral and Eastern EuropeEuropean Union

Information

Type
Symposium
Information
European Political Science , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 562 - 572
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 European Consortium for Political Research

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