Our next guest of speaker series of the Institute for Political Science is Dániel Kovarek (European University Institute) with the presentation entitled:

Do European citizens take cues from executives of other member states? An experimental test of transnational cues in a compound polity

Concerned with cue-taking, a large literature studies how political parties shape citizens’ opinions about the EU. National elites also heavily influence public opinion in their own member state regarding EU policies. Yet there is surprisingly little research on how cues from national elites of another EU member state are received – and whether they influence citizens’ policy preferences in other member states at all. This is despite frequent, systematic and conscious cueing efforts of national executives, targeting citizens of other EU countries. This paper advances the literature by studying transnational cueing, drawing on two pre-registered survey experiments, fielded in representative samples of European citizens in 16 EU member states (N=30,600). Respondents were exposed to real newspaper editorials (by Emmanuel Macron in Study 1 and Viktor Orbán in Study 2, respectively) discussing policy proposals on setting up a common border force/asylum office and further enlargement, respectively. Treatment arms varied the extent of information regarding the source of op-ed. We theorize that policy cues will be moderated by perceptions of national executives, notably through their sovereignist/integrationist position, as well as the partisan leanings of respondents. Our findings have important ramifications for our understanding of how transnational dimensions of contestation replace territorial divisions in the European Union. The article also sheds new light on how heads of states and governments influence public opinion and preferences on EU policies.