Search

The study investigates the willingness of citizens to sanction violations of international norms. We focus on a particular type of norm: Institutionalized norms that are only vaguely familiar to citizens. More specifically, the study will focus on how citizens react when they are simultaneously made aware of the existence of the norm and a (hypothetical) case of its violation. Broadly, we are interested in the extent to which citizens condition their willingness to sanction on contextual factors, whether all citizens condition equally, and how the relevance of contextual factors compares to the effects of cross-contextual individual predispositions. To study an individual’s willingness to sanction international norm violations, we conduct three survey experiments that each focus on a particular institutionalized international norm. These norms involve 1) the deficit limit for the public budget in the European Union, 2) rules of non-discriminatory trade practices and 3) the use, development, production, stockpiling, and transfer of chemical weapons. In each of these experiments, we experimentally vary the perpetrator and the counterparty as well as the severity of the norm violation and ask respondents to indicate their willingness to sanction the perpetrator. The experiment will be embedded in surveys conducted in 9 EU member states and the UK. Data will be collected through an additional wave of an existing panel survey in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and an additional cross-sectional survey using fresh samples in Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Hungary. The sample size for the panel survey depends on how many respondents are willing to be re-interviewed; the target sample size of the cross-sectional survey is N=1000 per country. On the individual level, we investigate whether moral beliefs about retribution, attitudes toward the respective actors, and general postures toward a rule-based international order affect the experimental results.

The project seeks to study European public attitudes toward military aid for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia in the context of the Ukraine-Russia War. Specifically, we are interested in how moral convictions about European solidarity and retribution structure support for these policies. The project employs a dual strategy of observational and experimental data analysis. Using observational data, we estimate correlations between moral convictions (solidarity and retribution) and policy attitudes (military aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia). In addition, an experimental variation in the measurement of the policy attitudes will either frame the policies as helping Ukraine, as punishing Russia, or provide no frame. The experimental variation is hence targeted at introducing and/or increasing the relevance of these moral convictions when respondents evaluate the policies. The preregistration specifies hypotheses about 1) the associations between moral convictions and policy attitudes, 2) the main effects of the experimental treatments, and 3) about the interaction between moral convictions and treatment effects. Additionally, the preregistration proposes exploratory research questions. Instruments will be embedded in surveys conducted in 9 EU member states and the UK. These surveys are an additional wave of an existing panel survey in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and a cross-sectional survey using fresh samples in Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Hungary. The sample size for the panel survey depends on how many respondents are willing to be re-interviewed; the target sample size of the cross-sectional survey is N=1000 per country.

The goal of the project is to examine how economic costs and morality influence citizens' attitudes toward offering more aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. In particular, we examine whether moral convictions regarding retribution and European solidarity lose meaning when citizens are made to consider the economic costs of aid to themselves and their country. The project employs a dual strategy of observational and experimental data analysis. Using observational data, we estimate correlations between moral concerns (retribution and European solidarity) and support for offering more aid to Ukraine. In addition, an experimental variation in the measurement of the policy attitude will either frame the aid being associated with low, medium, or high economic costs, or will not provide a frame. The experimental variation is hence targeted at introducing and/or increasing the relevance of cost considerations when respondents evaluate the policy. An additional, secondary experimental component varies the type of aid (military; non-military; [BLANK]). The preregistration specifies hypotheses about 1) the associations between moral concerns and policy attitude, 2) the main effects of cost frames, and 3) about the interaction between moral convictions and treatment effects. Additionally, the preregistration proposes exploratory research questions. The experiment will be embedded in surveys conducted in 9 EU member states and the UK. Data will be collected through an additional wave of an existing panel survey in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and a cross-sectional survey using fresh samples in Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Hungary. The sample size for the panel survey depends on how many respondents are willing to be re-interviewed; the target sample size of the cross-sectional survey is N=1000 per country.

The project is a partial replication of a project previously registered at OSF. There, experiments were embedded in a 2020 Pan-European survey to test whether European solidarity is driven by norm-based and self-interest based motives. The experiments used hypothetical crisis scenarios in the foreign and security domain. One experiment used a scenario in which Russia attempts to destabilize Latvia through paramilitary actions and create a situation similar to the one in Ukraine in 2014. For details, see the registration of the previous project (https://osf.io/kur5h). This project aims to explore the context-sensitivity of the experimental effects by replicating the Latvia-crisis experiment after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. We will conduct the exact same experiment with European citizens in the post-invasion context and compare the findings to the pre-invasion findings. We approach the research question of context-sensitivity in an exploratory fashion. Below, we preregister research questions about differences in the distribution of the outcome variables and the experimental effects. We abstain from proposing hypotheses about these differences. Hence, the purpose of this preregistration is tying our hands not to move from an exploratory to a confirmatory approach after data analysis. The experiment will be embedded in surveys conducted in 9 EU member states and the UK. Data will be collected through an additional wave of an existing panel survey in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and a cross-sectional survey using fresh samples in Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Hungary. The sample size for the panel survey depends on how many respondents are willing to be re-interviewed; the target sample size of the cross-sectional survey is N=1000 per country.

European security and defense cooperation as well as integration has been a salient issue in the past years, illustrated, for example, by the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which enables those 25 EU governments that wanted to participate to fund, develop and deploy armed forces together. Key political figures such as French President Emmanuel Macron have also hinted at their keen interest in advancing European defense and security cooperation, for example, by pushing the EU and Europe to become strategically autonomous from the US. Yet, little is yet known about conditions under which the lay public supports such cooperation. We examine this question in the context of a plausible scenario of EU military intervention to a country whose condition can have significant repercussions on European countries. Such an intervention can take on different forms, and we expect that public support for such a mission depends on exactly how the intervention takes place. Several different aspects of the intervention likely affect people’s preferences and we are particularly interested in five theoretically important dimensions: 1) who is in charge of approving the mission? (Trigger); 2) who intervenes? (Composition); 3) who pays the mission? (Financing); 4) who participates in the mission? (Participation); and 5) how the EU should decide the intervention? (Decision making). By randomly varying the five dimensions, we experimentally examine which aspect is most relevant to citizens and how much, and how this varies across society. The experiment will be conducted in 24 EU member states and the UK, with sample sizes of 1,500-2,000 per country.

How does the European public evaluate the performance of the European Union in negotiating and purchasing COVID vaccines for its member states? While the COVID pandemic will likely have a multitude of effects on future EU politics, at the public level these evaluations of the EU vaccine procurement performance might be most influential. The EU vaccines negotiations arguably were the single most visible task the EU performed during the pandemic. Consequently, citizens might form attitudes about the desired involvement of the EU in important future (crisis) issues on the basis of their approval or disapproval of the job the EU has done with COVID vaccines. We study European public evaluations of the EU’s vaccine procurement performance by collecting data on these evaluations in a Pan-European survey conducted in 20 EU member states and the UK, with target sample sizes of 750-1,000 per country. At the descriptive level we are interested in the distribution of this performance evaluation, its relationship with the performance evaluation of the EU’s general handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the variation of these attitudes (and their relationship) across member states. The core of the study and the focus of this pre-registration is a survey experiment that studies the effects of providing respondents with information about the EU’s vaccine procurement performance. In doing so we aim to illuminate the extent to which citizens are familiar with the most common (expert) considerations about EU performance discussed in public discourse. As a flipside to this perspective, we can also address whether providing information about positive and negative aspects of the EU performance may shift public opinion towards a favourable or unfavourable evaluation, respectively. In European public discourse, there are positive and negative views on the EU’s vaccine procurement performance. Supporters of EU vaccine procurement say it has allowed the EU to secure vaccines at a less expensive price, and helps ensure equality across EU member states in terms of when they get vaccines. Critics of this approach say the EU has made crucial mistakes, which has led to a much slower access to vaccines compared to countries like the US and UK. In the survey experiment, we experimentally vary whether respondents are confronted with (1) the view of the supporters, (2) the view of the critics, (3) both views, or (4) neither.

We study conceptions of national identity and ambivalence toward policies aimed to assist ethnic outgroups in need. The study replicates and extends research reported in Lindstam et al. (2021). These authors propose that simultaneously defining national identity along ethno-cultural and civic lines may – under certain circumstances – give rise to conflicting considerations, leading people to experience ambivalence. Individuals who hold such mixed conceptions of national identity are more sensitive to the salience of additional considerations. Accordingly, their reaction to the framing of an issue in civic and ethno-cultural terms is stronger than the reaction of citizens with more ideal type (civic or ethno-cultural) conceptions of national identity. An implication of their study is that political elites might have more leeway in shaping public opinion on issues such as immigration and humanitarian relief than previously thought, by invoking different considerations that touch upon national identity. The present research strives to test this proposition by conducting a survey experiment that manipulates the salience of civic and ethno-cultural considerations. The experiment will not only test the claims in Lindstam et al. (2021) in a more direct fashion, it will also be conducted in the comparative setting of a Pan-European survey. One of the limitations of Lindstam et al. (2021) is that it only provides evidence from Germany. We conduct a survey experiment that asks respondents whether they would support their country to organize a rescue mission to save migrants from Africa and the Middle East who are in distress in the Mediterranean Sea. Responses to this question serve as the first of two outcome variables. For the second outcome variable, measured immediately after the first, respondents are asked about their general immigration attitudes. Contextualizing information is experimentally varied. There will be (1) a control condition with no additional information, (2) a condition with information that speaks to a civic conception of national identity, and (3) a condition with information that speaks to an ethno-cultural conception of national identity. The experiment will be conducted in 20 EU member states and the UK, with sample sizes of 750-1,000 per country. This is only a rough estimate, since the survey in which the experiment is conducted is the second wave of a panel survey. Hence, the actually realized sample sizes will depend on the wave 1 retention rate. The 21 countries surveyed are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Sweden. Cited research: Lindstam, E., Mader, M., & Schoen, H. (2021). Conceptions of National Identity and Ambivalence towards Immigration. British Journal of Political Science, 51(1), 93-114. doi:10.1017/S0007123418000522

This project studies the implications of threat perceptions on citizens' support for international cooperation. It builds on prior research that finds a consistent positive correlation of the perceived level of international security threats and higher support for European security and defence integration across European societies. We propose both observational and experimental hypotheses concerning the relationship between threat (whether observational data of threat perception or experimentally varied treatments about the level of threat) and attitudes and preferences towards forms of international cooperation and integration. Study 1: Observational data We propose two theoretical mechanisms for how threat may affect cooperation/integration preferences: (1) the level of perceived threat should be positively correlated with the belief that international cooperation is crucial (as opposed to a hindrance) to dealing with the respective threat, and (2) this abstract support for international cooperation will be positively correlated specific policy support for European security and defence integration. We collect data on threat perceptions, beliefs about the effectiveness of international cooperation in dealing with these threats, and support for European security and defence integration in a Pan-European survey conducted in 20 EU member states and the UK, with target sample sizes of 750-1,000 per country. Study 2/3: Experimental data We conduct two experiments to test whether (1) characterizing a situation as more (or less) threatening causes respondents to be more (or less) supportive of European defence integration, and whether (2) characterizing international cooperation as more (or less) likely to be effective causes respondents to be more (or less) supportive of European defence integration. We conduct these experiments in the Pan-European survey mentioned above.

The study explores European solidarity in times of vaccine scarcity. If vaccines are scarce and have to be shared among member states with different levels of need, difficult trade-offs have to be made. We analyze how citizens across Europe make these trade-offs, using a survey experiment that confronts respondents with the scenario of a corona-type virus spreading in another European country and asks about support for a range of policy options that the respondent’s country could choose. Some policy options refer to helping the member states, whereas other focus on closing the country off against this member state or implementing national lockdowns. The experiment varies 1) the country in which the virus is spreading and 2) the likely implications of (not) sharing their one country’s vaccine supply with the affected country. In addition to the main effects of these experimental treatments, we are particularly interested in the effect of a generalized norm of European solidarity on support for different policies and its interaction with the experimental treatments. The experiment will be conducted in 20 EU member states and the UK, with target sample sizes of 750-1,000 per country.

We conduct an experiment to study the effect of the EU purchasing vaccines on attitudes toward joint procurement projects in the area of security and defence. The EU purchasing vaccines was the most visible EU action during the pandemic. On the downside, the EU’s negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies were slow, contributing to the (in many countries) slow progress of the vaccination. The EU negotiating with the companies also meant that the individual member states had less control over the outcome of the negotiations than if they had negotiated themselves. On the upside, the negotiated price was low, making the vaccines more affordable than what individual (smaller) countries presumably could have achieved had they negotiated on their own. This recent, salient instance of a European procurement process might have changed citizen views on other EU procurement projects as well, including in the area of security and defence. While the pandemic has been a singular event, the mentioned upsides and downsides of the EU’ role in the vaccine procurement process are applicable to other procurement processes. Hence, witnessing (or being reminded of) the vaccine procurement process might influence how people think about other procurement processes as well. To study this possibility empirically, we conduct a survey experiment as part of a Pan-European survey. The experiment tests the effects of three different frames on attitudes toward European defence procurement. The experimental treatments provide respondents either with a consideration about (1) affordability, (2) loss of national control, or (3) the EU’s vaccine procurement performance. Another subsample serves as a control group. It (4) receives no consideration about European procurement processes. We collect the data described above in a Pan-European survey of 16 EU member states and the UK, with sample sizes of 750-1,000 per country.

In population surveys, respondents often show remarkably high levels of support for cooperation projects within the realm of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). These support figures might be 'soft', however, in the sense that respondents do not take potential costs into account when evaluating these cooperative projects. In this study we explore how mentioning different forms of potential costs influences support for these projects. While the neglect of costs in policy evaluations has been studied before, we are the first to examine this in the context of CSDP. Two types of costs are taken into account: Social costs, which directly affect (certain groups of) citizens, and budget costs, which initially burden only the government or polity. Studying the second cost component is a particularly important contribution, as it is less clear whether citizens connect public finances with their own lives. What is more, we differentiate between national budget costs and EU budget costs. This allows us to weight the relative importance of these different budgetary costs. To the best of our knowledge, there is no prior research taking into account these different cost components in one experimental setting. We test our hypotheses in two scenarios: The deployment of a European crisis management operation and the procurement of a common military aircraft. Using these two scenarios, we are able to test whether it makes a difference to the respondents if the project relates to substantive outward-looking activities (crisis management) or procedural, inward-looking projects (procurement). The costs are experimentally varied on two dimensions: (A, Social costs): 1. Mentioning of social costs 2. no information; (B, Budget): 1. Mentioning of national budget costs 2. Mentioning of EU budget costs 3. no information. The experiment will be conducted in 24 EU member states and the UK, with sample sizes of 1,500-2,000 per country.

China's political and economic ambitions pose various challenges for the member states of the European Union. While these issues are increasingly discussed at the elite level, we know little about public sentiment. In this project we study how Europeans want their country’s relationship with China to look like. Since little is known about public attitudes toward China policies, we analyze three key aspects. Specifically, we study the general question of cooperation with China, worries about becoming dependent on China, and whether one’s own country should criticize China for its human rights violations. As a first component of our study, we seek to broadly understand what might drive China policy attitudes. To this end we consider two types of individual-level dispositions that might influence these attitudes. Roughly, these derive from the two core aspects of the broader issue, i.e. (1) the actors involved and (2) the policy domain. First, we consider group attitudes, namely attitudes toward China (attitudes towards the outgroup) and nativism (attitudes toward the ingroup). These dispositions capture stances toward the actors involved. Second, we account for foreign policy postures, which capture which principles citizens think should guide their country’s foreign policy (abstracted from the specific policy instances). We draw on established literature and account for militant internationalism, cooperative internationalism, and isolationism. As a second component, we are interested to what extent the European public conditions its policy attitudes on considerations about China’s attempts to increase its influence in the world---including in Europe. A prominent tool China uses to achieve this goal is the “New Silk Road” initiative (also known as the “Belt and Road Initiative”), a multi-billion infrastructure project that includes investments throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe. While these investments have the potential to benefit both China and the countries in which the investments are made, China’s engagement has received different types of criticism. A prominent criticism is China's “debt-trap diplomacy” to fund the initiative's infrastructure projects. Accordingly, China uses debt to gain undue political influence in the affected countries. In Europe, these concerns gain importance as Chinese influence on one or more EU member states might have substantial repercussions for all member states. To study these two components, we measure public attitudes toward China in a Pan-European survey. To address the first component, we directly ask a third of the respondents in each country about their views on (1) their country cooperating with China, (2) the importance of avoiding dependence on China, and (3) whether their country should criticize Chinese human rights violations. To study the second component, we confront the other two thirds of respondents with one of two “Silk Road” scenarios. These two treatment groups are asked to imagine that (1) their own country or (2) other EU member states have reached an agreement with China that China will invest substantial means in the infrastructure of the respective countries. We are interested in whether these scenarios change respondents’ responses to the three policy issue items asked immediately afterwards. This study makes three key contributions: First, we provide a broad picture of European public attitudes toward their country’s China policy and the individual-level factors that are associated with these attitudes. Second, we dive into the implications of one of China’s most important foreign policy tools, the New Silk Road initiative. Using a survey experiment we investigate whether citizens’ preferences for their country’s China policy differ in light of the prospect of directly profiting from Chinese investments in infrastructure compared to other EU member states profiting from Chinese investments. Third, we are able to compare public opinion in a variety of EU member states that currently cooperate with China to different degrees and in different ways. This allows us to take into account whether cross-national differences are an important factor in respondents' evaluation of further cooperation with China. We collect the data described above in a Pan-European survey of 20 EU member states and the UK, with target sample sizes of 750-1,000 per country.

International cooperation has come under fire in Western democracies in the last years. However, there is only limited research on why respondents actually become dissatisfied with specific policies of international cooperation. We argue that people show higher levels of disapproval with international cooperation when being made aware of the potential costs of these initiatives (both on the societal and financial level). Respondents should be especially critical when they, as members of a specific social group, are directly affected by the societal costs. While the effect of costs on policy evaluations for international cooperation activities has been extensively studied before, we are the first to examine this for European international health policies within the COVID-19 context. Additionally, we take two specific costs into account: Societal costs, explicitly affecting citizens in metropolitan areas, and financial costs, burdening the national government or all participating countries. Societal costs in our scenario refer to reduced welfare state capacities in metropolitan areas when setting up an international health organization. Financial costs refer to the burden on public budgets associated with setting up this organization. We make two important contributions in our study: First, we assign societal costs to a clearly defined and identifiable social group that is directly affected by the costs of cooperation, which we are able to identify using both subjective self-assignment and objective measures. This allows us to test whether making the respondents aware of societal costs only occurring for people in metropolitan areas actually decreases the willingness to cooperate more strongly compared to those not living in metropolitan areas. Secondly, we differentiate between national financial costs and pooled European financial costs. This allows us to weigh the relative importance of these different financial costs and examine whether respondents react differently to these financial costs - although both finally come along with costs for their government. We test our hypotheses in a scenario focusing on building a powerful European health agency to fight future diseases and pandemics. The costs are experimentally varied on two dimensions: (A, Societal costs): 1. Mentioning of societal costs 2. no information; (B, Financial costs): 1. Mentioning of national financial costs 2. Mentioning of pooled (European) financial costs 3. no information. The experiment will be conducted in 20 EU member states and the UK, with target sample sizes of 750-1,000 per country.

While there is a large body of research on attitudes toward globalization and its different facets, less is known about the stability of such attitudes and how these respond to major events. In this study, we will make use of a German panel survey that contains repeated measures of individuals’ attitudes toward globalization and its different facets: The Campaign Panel of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). The time window we are able to analyze with the GLES Panel starts in fall 2016 (wave 1), and the latest wave is currently in the field (wave 22, May/June 2022). We start from a broad and inherently multi-dimensional understanding of the concept of globalization. Following Mader et al. (2020), we distinguish four different types of globalization-related attitudes: 1. Attitudes toward economic facets of globalization (e.g., free trade, international investment) 2. Attitudes toward European integration as a political facet of globalization 3. Attitudes toward immigration and migrant integration as a socio-cultural facet of globalization 4. Attitudes toward globalization in general (i.e., individuals’ attitudes toward the concept of “globalization”) We will study the repercussions of two major events that happened during the field time of the GLES panel: 1. The COVID-19 pandemic, which started in Europe around February 2020 2. The Russo-Ukrainian War, which started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February, 24th, 2022 In the context of both events, globalization issues were discussed prominently by political elites and within the public sphere. For example, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic countries adopted strict restrictions on international travel and migration. The measures adopted had significant repercussions on international trade in goods as well, disrupting internationalized supply chains. This, in turn, triggered a public debate on the dangers of globalized production networks and on the merits of autarky. In the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Western countries adopted strict economic sanctions against Russia, cutting economic ties to a significant degree. The calamities of the war led to an unprecedented wave of inner-European migrant flows, when millions of Ukrainians, mostly women and children, fled their country for a safe haven in EU member states. In contrast to some of the reactions to the 2015 European migrant crisis, the Ukrainian refugees were welcomed by national governments, even by Eastern European member states who had strictly avoided the take-in of refugees in 2015/2016. Both crises also triggered discussions on the necessity of a common and united European response early on. In the course of events, the EU member states agreed to adopt major measures, such as the European Union Recovery Instrument “Next Generation EU” in response to the economic difficulties created by the pandemic or the packages of sanctions against Russia (and Belarus) in response to the Russian aggression. We expect these events, and the elite discourses that followed them, to have had major repercussions on attitudes toward globalization within the German public. In the project, we aim to study these repercussions comprehensively, not least in order to understand the co-evolution of individuals’ attitudes toward different facets of globalization. Our focus is on the question of how attitudes changed, both in the aggregate and within subgroups. Cited work: Mader, M., Steiner, N. D., & Schoen, H. (2020). The globalisation divide in the public mind: belief systems on globalisation and their electoral consequences. Journal of European Public Policy, 27(10), 1526-1545.

Under what circumstances do busy members of the public pay attention to foreign policy issues? According to the ‘fire alarm’ model (Zaller 2003, Saunders 2014), generally inattentive audiences will become engaged with foreign policy matters when they sense elite division. We explore the effects divided elites can play in fostering interest in (and support for) national involvement in EU foreign policy. As part of a broader Volkswagen Stiftung Foundation SecEUrity Project researching the relationship between elites and the mass audiences in European defence, this survey experiment assesses the effects of elite division on samples designed to resemble the population in France, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain (countries that have different historical levels of support for the European Union). Some of the elite division cues we examine have not been studied before (particularly cues from European Union leadership). We compare the effects of disagreement with a government policy emerging from national opposition parties, the governing party, a party within the governing coalition, and the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on public approval and interest in learning more about the disputed policy. In line with other research on elite cues, we also examine the moderating effects of individual-level attitudes and foreign policy postures. This allows us to compare the relative effects of national versus individual-level factors on the ‘fire alarm’ account of when domestic audiences are likely to respond to foreign policy. We conduct a survey experiment that asks respondents how supportive they are (and how much attention they would devote to learning more about) government plans to increase national involvement in the EU naval mission Atalanta. The elite cues conditions we vary are: (1) key figures of opposition party publicly disagreeing with the government plan, (2) key figures of the governing party disagreeing with the government plan, (3) key figures of coalition partner party publicly disagreeing with the government plan (in Germany and Italy only, where this division applies), (4) the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security disagreeing with the government plan, and (5) a control group in which key figures of opposition party publicly agree with the government plan. The study will have an exploratory element where we check for variation in experimental results across countries.

Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, German chancellor Olaf Scholz said this event was a watershed (Zeitenwende). “And that means”, he elaborated, “that the world afterwards will no longer be the same as the world before”. In this project, we understand this claim as a hypothesis, and we test it at the level of German mass belief systems about foreign and security policy. We provide an analytical scheme for the types of changes in belief systems that might have taken place (and why), and examine empirically whether they actually did. Starting from the idea that attitudes are organized in belief systems, we theorize that two types of changes may occur: (1) Changes in attitudes toward different topics (horizontal dimension) and at different levels of specificity (vertical dimension) (2) Changes in associations between attitudes (horizontal and vertical). In terms of mechanisms, we consider two: Changes in belief systems may come about either as a result of individuals’ independent processing of information about external events (in this case Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) or as a reaction to strategic elite communication. The decisive factor here is that both mechanisms are based on the information environment in which the individual thinks and acts. From there, the answer to the question of individual attitude change lies in answering the more specific questions of what slices of the information environment (i.e. of the external events and elite communication) reach an individual, are processed, and how. Rather than empirically investigate these two mechanisms and each step of information processing in detail, we set a less ambitious goal in this project. These theoretical ideas rather direct our attention to the presumably relevant aspects of the information environment. This allows us---with the help of some simplifying assumptions---to formulate expectations about possible changes. Namely, we will describe the elements of the information environment that seem potentially relevant for individuals’ reactions. On this basis, we will hypothesize average changes under the assumption that this information reaches citizens and is processed by them. Second, we will discuss how the information environment and the reception and processing of information might differ based on several individual characteristics. As elaborated below, we will register both hypotheses and research questions, depending on how certain we are about the characterization of the information environment and how strong the available theories are. The project uses observational data from the GLES Panel survey (see most recent published version: GLES (2021). GLES Panel 2016-2021, Waves 1-15. GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. ZA6838 Data file Version 5.0.0, https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13783). The panel waves bracket the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine to test the hypotheses and explore the research questions. By analyzing responses to survey items that were included both before and after the invasion, the data structure allows us to study stability and change in foreign and security attitudes and their association at the intra-individual level. Before- and after-invasion measures of a range of topics are available, allowing an analysis of the implication of the invasion for different domains and hierarchical levels of German citizens’ belief systems. This registration is done before the post-invasion wave data collection is completed.

In an increasingly globalized world, political debates often involve the transmission of source cues across national borders. Europe's far-advanced political integration means that such cues are particularly frequent there. Surprisingly little research has studied the effects of transnational communication on public attitudes in this context. In this project we explore one important facet of this development, namely the implications of transnational cues. We explore whether different types of foreign source cues make a difference for citizens’ attitude formation about European integration issues. While the effects of cues from various foreign elite actors (foreign governments, the United Nations) have been studied before, we are the first to provide evidence on whether the positioning of supranational European institutions and foreign public opinion also serve as cues that citizens use to form an opinion. To better evaluate the impact of these transnational cues, we also account for domestic cues, namely from the national government and national public opinion. This is particularly important as we have no prior knowledge on whether cues matter at all for the policy issue that we selected to study, i.e. the introduction of an EU arms exports regime. Testing the impact of cues from public opinion represents a second, more general contribution of the study. To the best of our knowledge, there is no prior research on the relevance of such cues—neither of domestic nor foreign public opinion cues. In sum, we provide a comprehensive pricture of the (relative) effectiveness of cues from a broad range of foreign and domestic sources. We conduct a survey experiment that asks respondents for their evaluation of a policy proposal to introduce an EU arms exports regime. Additional information on the position of the following actors/entities are experimentally varied: 1) The governments of the other EU countries, (2) public opinion in the other EU countries (3) the European Commission, (3) the [country] government, (5) public opinion in [country], (6) no cue / control. The experiment will be conducted in 24 EU member states and the UK, with sample sizes of 1,500-2,000 per country. In addition to the general effectiveness of the cues, we are also interested in the question of relative effects sizes (Is there variation in the average treatment effect of the five cues?). Beyond average treatment effects, we are interested in the degree to which cueing effects are moderated by citizen characteristics and whether the cueing effects vary across countries.

Interest groups have become important communicators in political communication. Yet, we know very little about the effects of their interventions. While persuasion research stresses that prior attitudes toward senders, such as credibility assessments, are decisive for acceptance or rejection of messages, it is not clear whether this is also true for interest group communication, given their typically low public profiles. In this, the second of two studies, we examine the persuasiveness of political communication by different political actors and the moderating role of individual credibility assessments towards the sender.

Pre-registrations as well as reproduction and supplementary material for a study that is conditionally accepted for publication the 'Journal of Communication' . Please read the READ-ME and download the reproduction material as ZIP to maintain the appropriate folder structure.

Interest groups have become important communicators in political communication. Yet, we know very little about the effects of their interventions. While persuasion research stresses that prior attitudes toward senders, such as credibility assessments, are decisive for acceptance or rejection of messages, it is not clear whether this is also true for interest group communication, given their typically low public profiles. In this, the first of two studies, we examine public profiles and credibility assessments of 10 German interest groups and parties represented in parliament. This pre-registration contains an analysis pipeline (Stata syntax). Based on synthetic survey data that was generated before data collection, the attached analysis syntax contains both data wrangling steps and the statistical analysis. This pre-registration is an update submitted on the first day of data collection of an existing pre-registration that was submitted prior to data collection (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KQNAU). See section "other" for details.