Making European Citizens?: How Participation in Model European Union Conferences Influences European Identity, Support of the Eu and Political Involvement

Model European Union (MEU) is a simulation of European politics that provides participants with a hands-on experience of the decision-making process of the European Union (EU). Hundreds of young Europeans meet each year at multi-day MEU conferences in cities across Europe. Does this experience have a measurable and lasting impact on participants knowledge about and attitudes towards the EU? And if so, how can we theoretically and empirically explain these effects? Paul Runz develops a framework for the analysis of European citizenship and discusses several mechanisms that could account for attitude changes of MEU participants. To answer his research question, he employs a quasi-experimental design with quantitative data from surveys with participants of MEU conferences in Strasbourg, France and in Mainz, Germany.