EU och folkomröstningarna En undersökning om de europeiska ländernas skiftande karaktär och hur dess väljare agerat i förhållande till detta

Sammanfattning: 33 referendum has taken place in european states regarding the European Union since the fall of the Berlin wall. This thesis aims to initialy identify potential patterns in this group of referenda to launch and test a theory/hypothesis anchored in this pattern. The european states are differing in nature and the standard of living is chosen as the factor that can potentially have affected the outcome of the referenda held. The carrying thought here being that the voters in states with considerably lower standard of living than the european average would have a more positive attitude towards a deepened cooperation among european states. To try this connection between standard of living and how european citizens have placed their votes a main and principal quantitative test is undertaken. It is followed by discussion and arguments about the result of the test. The argumentation goes from being hopefull of the strenght of the hypothesis, to a more ciritical view of its' strength. The thesis is wrapped up in some argumentation about how and why it fails to explain what it was initially intended to do. The conclusion is that it has far to many defects and it is inadequate to use for generalisation. Nyckelord: folkomröstning, levnadsstandard, Europeiska Unionen, samarbete