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(Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, & Perraton 1999). This has also been recognised in
official documents of the European Commission such as the March 2000 Lisbon
Agenda. The political elites of the EU15 committed themselves in Lisbon to a
strategic agenda for the next decade of the EU to become the most dynamic and
competitive knowledge-based economy in the world which would be able to avoid
jobless growth and generate sustainable economic growth with more and better
jobs, greater social cohesion and more respect for the environment. Obviously,
significant differences in the perception and assessments of these various goals
and relevant aspects of globalisation stretch from the EU and national political
elites further to individual electorates of the enlarged EU. Therefore, Beck and
Grande have warned that “the term 'jobless growth' remains trapped in the national
outlook because it absolutises the national context and fails to realise that the cre-
ation of jobs is a transnational affair and must be analysed accordingly” (2007, p.
118). They have further argued that “the hierarchy of centre and periphery and the
associated global inequalities are being inverted: the centre no longer represents
the future and the prototype for the periphery” (2007, p. 119). Given the chang-
ing contexts of current perceptions of a relevant political agenda of the EU, it is
therefore logical to assume that differences in view of globalisation across the 27
electorates of the enlarged EU can importantly contribute to explanation of dif-
ferences in the attitudes to the future political agenda concerned with issues of
environmental and cohesion and regional policies. Table 4.1 gives the results of
an attempt to specify a dimension based upon opinions on five selected aspects
of globalisation. Principal component analysis is applied (Rummel, 1970) which
specifies basic dimensionality of the correlation matrix of five indicators. The indi-
cators are answers from Eurobarometer no. 64 (fieldwork carried out in October
and November 2005). The survey is based on samples of resident populations of
the EU Member States aged 15 years and over. Basic sample design is a multi-
stage random procedure and face-to-face interviews; the number of sampling points
is drawn with probability proportional to population size (for a total coverage
of the country) and to population density (NUTS II level). Sample size is 1,000
respondents in each country and in microstates Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta 500
respondents.
Table 4.1
Dimension negative view of globalisation
1
Component
loadings
Indicators
(1) Currently afraid of job transfer to other Member States with lower
production costs (QA18.8; mean
0.909
=
68.5%)
(2) Globalisation leads to relocation of companies to countries where labour
is cheaper (QA55; mean
0.903
=
31.5%)
(3) Companies that relocate do so to increase profit (QA57; mean
=
69.0%)
0.809
(4) Globalisation brings FDI to our country (QA56; mean
=
15.4)
−
0.602
(5) Net agreement that the EU protects us from negative effects of
globalisation (QA56; mean
−
0.843
=
-7.5%)
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