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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.

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.

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.

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.