Can fridges be used in political science research?
I employ fridges as visual cues in online experiments to test participants in Germany and the UK for implicit support for the EU.
Building on ideas of an emerging banal Europeanism, I use this empirical approach for my PhD research in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Banal Europeanism
This term suggests an emerging banal attachment to the European Union: As people are increasingly exposed to visual markers of the EU in everyday live, they are expected to grow accustomed to - and more supportive of - the EU. Preexisting explicit identification with the EU is not assumed as a necessary condition for growing 'banal' EU support.
Experimental Research
Research on EU identities can benefit from new, innovative empirical research methods. Experimental research approaches can meaningfully enhance current understandings on how people relate to the EU - a debate that is so far usually building on large scale survey research or is otherwise often restricted to theoretical debates only.
EU Identities
This research is part of the larger debate on European identities: do they exist, how can they be measured - and how important are they to the people in the EU? While there are a breadth of meaningful approaches to this question, implicit support - fostered by 'banal Europeanism' - might play a bigger role here than is often thought, and deserves more attention in the field of EU identity studies.
