United in diversity? A model to measure the political culture regarding defence in Europe

Abstract

The evolution of the European Union (EU) Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) raises questions about whether societies in member states share a common or convergent defence culture. Conceptual and methodological problems in the existing literature, however, make it difficult to measure this phenomenon. That is why this paper proposes a new model to measure the political culture relative to European defence, using a mixed factor analysis. In addition, drawing on a series of Eurobarometer surveys, it charts current attitudes towards defence in European citizenship and the impact of the war in Ukraine. The findings point to the existence of several political subcultures regarding defence in the EU. They also indicate various methodological strengths – and limitations – arising from the available Eurobarometer data.

Keywords

• defence culture
• political culture
• european union
• common security and defence policy (csdp)
• exploratory factor analysis (efa)
• confirmatory factor analysis (cfa)