Mitchell, Kristine. European Identity and Diffuse Support for the European Union in a Time of Crisis : What Can We Learn From University Students? In European Identity Revisited: New Approaches and Recent Empirical Evidence, edited by Viktoria Kaina, Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski, and Sebastian Kuhn, 177-198. New York: Routledge, 2016.

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In decades past, before the European Union developed into its current political configuration, popular support was not so integral to European integration. Indeed, it was hardly considered at all, by practitioners or theorists alike. To the extent that public opinion was considered during these early years of the European project, a 'permissive consensus' was thought to underpin the decidedly elite-driven undertaking (Lindberg/Scheingold 1970). The integrating Europe of this era was but a 'would-be polity' (Lindberg/Scheingold 1970): the European institutions had limited competences, were not thought to matter in significant ways for ordinary Europeans, and thus attracted little public interest. In this mostly intergovernmental system, the member states remained the key players and were considered the appropriate site for democratic accountability.