1. No category

Does the Position Matter? The Power of
Different Party Cues on European
Integration1
Roberto Pannico
PhD Candidate
Department of Political Science and Public Law
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
1st Gothenburg-Barcelona Workshop on Experimental Political Science
7th – 8th of May 2015
University of Gothenburg
1
Author’s note: Please do not copy, quote or cite without permission.
e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
This paper enlarges the narrow literature that uses the experimental methodology for
analysing the influence of political parties on voters’ attitudes toward EU. Following previous
literature, it will focus on message’s characteristics as moderators of parties’ persuasive power.
However, in doing so, the present paper differs from previous experimental studies in several
relevant aspects: (1) it expands the range of party positions usually taken into account, allowing to
differentiate between positions for or against the integration process and positions that use a risk or
an opportunity frame; (2) the experimental design allow to control for parties’ characteristics, to be
sure that the difference in persuasive power of different party positions are due to the nature of the
message and not to the nature of the party that communicate it; (3) the paper is not only focused on
assessing the persuasive power of different party messages; it also measure the “added value” that a
particular position gains in terms of public support thanks to the fact that it is endorsed by a political
party and not by a more neutral actor; the aim, therefore, is not only to understand which party
positions receive more support from voters, but also to discover if (and to what extent) political
parties are able to make their supporters accept a position that otherwise they would not share.
Results show that, when different positions on EU are stated by a neutral source, voters express
different level of support; on the contrary, when different positions are expressed by political
parties, voters always express the same level of support and always higher than in the neutral source
case. These finding show a high reliance of voters’ opinions on party messages, questioning the
effective constraining nature of citizens’ attitudes for political elites’ activity at the European Union
level.
.
Keywords: European Union, Experiment, Political Parties, Euroscepticism, Heuristic
2
Introduction
This paper tries to answer to the following questions: Are political parties able to shape
voters’ preferences on European integration? Which are the party positions that have a higher
persuasive power? Are citizens willing to support any position taken by political parties? The aim is
to discover how independent citizens’ attitudes toward the European Union are, and if political
parties are able to “move” voters’ attitudes in any direction they prefer.
The influence of political parties’ stances on voters’ policy positions has been demonstrated
on several issues (see, for example, Coan et al. 2008, Brader and Tucker 2009, Kam 2005). Some of
the studies that take into account parties’ positions as determinant of citizens’ levels of
Europeanism have underlined the importance of moderator factors; in particular, some authors
focused on political national context (e.g., electoral law, referendum occurrence, etc.) or on political
parties’ features (e.g., salience of European issue in the party, level of intra-party dissent on
European issues, etc.) to discover under which conditions the messages of the parties on the EU are
more persuasive (Ray 2003, Steenbergen et al. 2007).
However, as noted by Maier et al. (2012) “Research on elite cueing takes structural context
variables of domestic party systems as proxies for the cues that dominate within any given country.
The implicit assumption of such research is that structural features of party system determine public
political communication and that the cues reach out to all citizens or all partisan supporters” (p. 4).
This means that scholars take for granted that a particular structure of the political system and/or
party system determines party messages with particular features. What these studies do not do is
actually analyze the message itself to determine which of its features affect its persuasive power
more.
This paper enlarges the narrow literature that uses the experimental methodology for
analysing the influence of political parties on voters’ attitudes toward EU. Moreover, following
previous literature, it will focus on message’s characteristics as moderators of parties’ persuasive
power. However, in doing so, the present paper differs from previous experimental studies in
several relevant aspects.
First of all, this paper expands the range of party positions on EU that are usually taken into
account. Scholars usually distinguish party positions on the EU depending on their negative or
positive valence: the first type of positions describes the European Union as a risk, while the second
one describes it as an opportunity. The idea behind this categorization is that voters’ risk aversion
makes European citizens more sensitive to messages that stress possible losses compared to
messages that highlight possible benefits.
3
However, this kind of categorization does not take into account the full range of possible
positions that a party can have on a European Union issue. In particular, it does not allow
distinguishing between different kind of Euroscepticism (and Europhile positions). A political party
can express a position against European integration in two ways: it can oppose further steps on the
integration process (describing them as a risk), or it can propose steps for returning to a preintegration situation (describing them as an opportunity). The same thing can be said for a pro-EU
message: it can propose steps forward on the integration process, or it can oppose steps backward.
In the present debate on the fate of European Union, voters’ risk aversion can be “used” not only by
Eurosceptic political parties for stimulating opposition to more integration; it can also be “used” by
Pro-EU (usually mainstream) political parties to induce concerns for the return to a pre-integration
situation. This paper will therefore classify parties’ messages using two different dimensions: the
first one is the Euroesceptic/pro-EU dimension, which separates messages that are against the
integration process from messages that are in favour. The second one is the risk-opportunity
dimension that separates messages that highlight a threat for citizens from messages that stress
positive consequences.
Moreover, differently from previous studies, the experimental design used in this paper
allows to control for party characteristics. In previous experimental literature on EU different
positions are usually ascribed to different parties. However, Brader et al. (2013) have demonstrated
that some party characteristics, like incumbency or ideological ambiguity, can affect their capacity
to shape the attitudes of their voters. Therefore, the high persuasive power of a particular political
message might be due to the high ability of the party to communicate it. Ascribing the same
positions to the same parties, the experimental design of this paper allows to measure the “net”
impact of message’s characteristics.
Finally, the aim of this paper is not only to understand which parties positions have a higher
persuasive power; the interest of the study is also in discovering if a person is more likely to agree
with a particular political position on EU when it is endorsed by its closer party than when it comes
from a more neutral source. This means that on one hand, as in previous experimental studies on
EU, I will compare the persuasive power of messages that have different content (positive or
negative), but the same source (political parties); on the other hand, I will also compare the
persuasive power of messages that have the same content, but different sources (political parties or
neutral source). In the first case I will assess the persuasive power of different party messages. This
analysis is needed if I want to understand which party positions are more likely to gain support from
European citizens, and in particular if citizens risk aversion can be used for stimulating support as
well as opposition to European integration. In the second case I will measure the “added value” in
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terms of public support that the party label adds to a particular political position (for a similar
approach to parties’ cues, see Brader and Tucker 2009, 2012; Brader et al. 2013); in this case the
aim is to understand if (and to what extent) political parties are able to make their supporters accept
a position that otherwise they would not share.
This paper is organized as follows: In the first section, I will show how each of the
paradigms that tries to explain citizens’ levels of Europeanism always reserves a prominent role for
the political parties. In the second section, I will explain the process that makes party cues so
influential, and the factors that, according to the literature, affect their persuasive power on citizens’
levels of Europeanism. In the third section, I will expose the difference between my study and
previous literature. The forth section is dedicated to formulation of the hypothesis. The design of
my experiment is described in the fifth section, while I will show the results in the sixth one.
Finally, the last section is reserved for the discussion of the results and the conclusions.
Do parties matter?
Are the positions of political parties influential in structuring the level of Europeanism of
public opinion? According to David Easton, support is of great importance in ensuring the
persistence of every political system. When political authorities, and the institutions in which they
have established control, seem to be indifferent to the needs of the various social groups, the whole
political system might be brought into question (Easton 1965). Within this context, the case
concerning the European Union presents many peculiarities. Because of its history, it is of great
importance within this specific political system to emphasize the relationship between the attitudes
of public opinion and political elites. In the first studies about integration, in fact, public opinion of
member states was relegated to a marginal role (Sinnot 1995); it was assumed that European
citizens were basically disinterested in European integration, and that they merely provided a
“permissive consensus” (Lindberg and Scheingold 1970), which allowed the political elites to
continue pursuing the European ideal free from the pressure of public opinion. However, over the
years, the limits that negative attitudes of public opinion could impose to the integration process
have been increasingly visible. If, in fact, the stimulus for the conclusion of certain treaties comes
from political elites, it is equally clear that public opinion is increasingly influencing the national
policymakers and the European institutions through referenda, European elections, or national
5
elections (Eichemberg and Dalton 1993). As stated by Hix and Høyland, “Europe’s political
leaders, at both the national and European level, operate in a political environment where actions at
the EU level are constrained by citizens’ attitudes” (Hix and Høyland 2011, pp.105).
However, the new role of the public in shaping the integration process does not entail that
the political elite cannot influence the way in which European citizens conceive the European
Union. The level of Europeanism of European citizens is not independent from political parties'
action. The literature that studies the determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward the EU can be
classified in three categories; each of them assigns an important role to political parties.
This is evident, first of all, in those works that focus on political variables for explaining the
attitudes of public opinion toward the integration process. The assumption of this approach is that
the domestic political context strongly affects the level of Europeanism of European Union’s
citizens. Factors such as the satisfaction for, or the trust in, the national political system, for
example, have proven to be good predictors of the public’s attitudes toward integration (SànchezCuenca 2000; Anderson 1998; Muñoz et al. 2011). Or, more importantly here, some scholars have
also demonstrated how citizens’ opinions about the EU are also affected by their party affiliation
(Anderson 1998, Hooghe and Marks 2005).
The other two main approaches in the literature also require, to some extent, a role played by
the political elite. The economic approach focuses on the relationship between costs and benefits
that European citizens can get from the integration process; it is supposed, in other words, that the
attachment of European citizens to EU institutions is basically utilitarian. Given the evident
economic connotation of the integration project, this kind of approach examines economic variables
of a different nature (e.g., position in the labour market, subjective perception of economic
situation, national unemployment rate, etc.) to understand whether or not citizens think it is worth
being part of the European Union (Eichenberg and Dalton 1993, Gabel 1998, Gabel and Whitten
1997; Tucker et al. 2002; Herzog and Tucker 2010). This kind of analysis, however, usually
assumes that European citizens are constantly well informed about economic issues, a circumstance
far from being confirmed (Anderson 1998). So, how can citizens be simultaneously uninformed
about economic processes of the EU and structure their level of support on the basis of economic
remarks? In his study, Gabel (1998) affirms that the evaluations of public opinion are formulated
thanks to cheap information that the public can find in the political and social context; that is to say,
the better informed groups (politicians, journalists, trade unions members) provide citizens with
more understandable information about the European Union. This means that citizens vary in their
level of Europeanism on the base of their own analysis of the economic benefits of the integration,
6
but the information they use for this analysis is provided by, among others, political parties. Once
again, political elites appear to play an influential role.
Finally, the expansion of the European project in the wake of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992
led experts to focus on cultural variables. In particular, it was argued that being part of the European
Union means, on one hand, to delegate to the supranational institutions many of the duties
traditionally reserved to member states and, on the other hand, to move toward a certain dilution of
national specificities due to the homologating effect of European policies (McLaren 2002). These
studies therefore focused on variables, such as the attachment to one’s own national identity or the
fear of other cultures, for predicting voters’ attitudes toward the EU (McLaren 2002, Carey 2002,
Duchesne and Frognier 1995). Also in this context, the political elite play an important role: it has
been documented that right-wing extremist political parties can successfully mobilize these national
identity considerations against the EU (De Vries and Edwards 2009).
It seems clear, therefore, that the political elite can affect the voters’ evaluation of the
integration process, and that “though the days of elite-level bargaining insulated from public
opinion by a permissive consensus seem to be over, the fate of the European Union still lies in the
hands of the political leadership of Europe” (Ray 2003, p. 991). The question that this paper tries to
answer is, to what extent?
The paper uses experimental data for discovering if the political elite are able to shape
voters’ attitudes toward European integration. There are three main advantages in using an
experimental design instead of cross-sectional data for our test. First of all, experiments allow us to
solve the problem of reverse causality and the consequent overestimation of the parties’ effect. The
congruence between attitudes of political parties and their voters may be due to the influence that
the formers exert on the latters (top-down process); but it is equally true that political parties can try
to maximize their votes by “adjusting” their stances to the attitudes of their voters (bottom-up
process); in this last case, the voters influence the position of political parties. And, in fact, the
bottom-up process has been successfully tested in the context of European Union politics
(Steenbergen et al. 2007; Carruba 2001). The use of experimental data, however, allows us to avoid
the problem of the overestimation of the top-down process. We can be sure that the possible
congruence between parties’ and voters’ positions is totally due to the influence of the parties on the
voters, given that the different positions of political parties are due not to the bottom-up process, but
to the researcher’s manipulations.
The second advantage of the experimental methodology refers to the exposition of voters to
parties’ positions. As noted by Maier et al. (2012), traditional cues studies assume that parties’ cues
reach all citizens or all party supporters. This assumption is problematic given that the possibility
7
that a voter is exposed to its party's position depends on individual (political interest, political
sophistication, etc.) and contextual factors (e.g. the ability of political parties to communicate their
positions). The experimental design solves part of this problem, given that the party position is
communicated to all participants. Of course, given that my experiment is embedded in an on-line
survey, there is always the possibility that participants decide to skip the screen with the treatment
or that they are not paying attention to what they are reading. However, despite these flaws, the use
of an experiment allows to improve the likelihood of a homogeneous exposition to party cues: the
availability of the cue will be the same for all the subjects; whether or not they will use this
availability will depend, of course, from personal choices.
Finally, the use of an experimental design also solves the problem of omitted variables. The
correlation between parties’ and voters’ attitudes could be due to the effect of a third variable that
influences both of them. For example, a change in the composition of the European Parliament or
the European Commission can affect the support for the European Union of political parties and
their voters. In this case, we would have neither a top-down nor a bottom-up dynamic; the
congruence between the two levels of support would be the consequence of the effect of a third
variable. As noted in Gabel and Scheve (2007), in this case, not even the use of a time-series
analysis could solve the problem, given that “Elite and mass opinions may change roughly at the
same time in response to changes in the political environment” (pp. 1015). With the experimental
design, however, we do not have to worry about omitted third variables, because it is the researcher
who manipulates political parties’ positions.
Despite the advantages of the experimental design, studies that use this methodology to
analyze the effect of party cues on voters’ attitudes toward EU are still the exception. This paper,
therefore, gives a contribution to the expansion of this narrow literature.
Cues and the European Union
As we have seen in the previous section, it is clear that political parties matter in shaping
citizens’ attitudes toward the European integration process. Why? What is the process that causes
political parties to be so influential on citizens’ opinions about the European Union?
There is an abundance of evidence that the average citizen knows little about politics, and
public opinion researchers agree on the fact that ordinary people tend to pay only occasional and
8
then usually superficial attention to politics (Sniderman et al. 1991), so they lack factual
information about politics (Hobolt 2007). Because of this, when citizens have to express an opinion
on political issues, they usually rely on what the literature calls “heuristics,” that is, “judgmental
shortcut, efficient ways to organize and simplify political choices, efficient in the double sense of
requiring relatively little information to execute, yet yielding dependable answers even to complex
problems of choice” (Sniderman et al. 1991, p. 19). This means that, because of lack of information
among voters, “cues offered by informed actors can influence the opinion of less informed
individuals on complex issues” (Hellström 2008, p. 1130). Among the different kinds of heuristics
that people can use, the position of the party they vote for or they feel closest to is obviously a
popular choice, given they have in common ideological predispositions (Zaller 1992). Moreover,
this influence of parties’ stances is not limited to a particular issue, but has been demonstrated in
different kinds of economic, foreign, administrative, and immigration policies (see Coan et al. 2008,
Brader and Tucker 2009, Kam 2005). In sum, the position of a party on a particular issue offers a
judgment shortcut that allows the voters to infer their own position without having detailed
information on the issue at stake (Hobolt 2007).
In the European context, the need for using party heuristics can be even higher because
people can perceive the EU as a more distant political system compared with the national one, given
its complex functioning and the less direct influence that citizens have on it. As already said, people
are not well informed about national politics, but their level of knowledge of EU politics is even
lower (see Hobolt 2007, Hooghe and Marks 2005, Anderson 1998). And in fact, the influence of
parties’ positions on voters’ attitudes toward the European Union has been demonstrated in several
studies (Ray 2003, Steenbergen et al. 2007, Wessels 1995, Gabel and Scheve 2007).
What strengthen this influence? In the literature on EU support, the attention of the scholars
has been sometimes attracted by the contingent nature of this cueing process. In particular, some
authors focused on national contextual factors (e.g., electoral law, referendum occurrence, etc.) or
on political parties’ features (e.g., salience of European issue in the party, level of intra-party
dissent on European issues, etc.) to discover under which conditions the leading role played by the
political elite is more powerful (Ray 2003, Steenbergen et al. 2007). What the literature seems to
lack is the analysis of the message’s characteristics: is the influence of political parties also
moderated by the features of the positions they take?
As noted by Maier et al. (2012), “Research on elite cueing takes structural context variables
of domestic party systems as proxies for the cues that dominate within any given country. The
implicit assumption of such research is that structural features of party system determine public
political communication and that the cues reach out to all citizens or all partisan supporters” (Maier
9
et al. 2012, p. 4). This means that scholars take for granted that a particular structure of the political
and/or party system determines a particular kind of message from the political parties.
Following the direction indicated by Maier et al. (2012), the second contribution of this
study is to enlarge the body of literature that actually analyses the direct relation between the
parties’ cues (and their characteristics) and the voters’ opinions about the European Union. In this
way, it contributes to the shift of the attention from structural political features that are supposed to
determine a particular kind of communication, to the actual characteristics of this communication.
The dimensions of the cues
The aim of this paper is the analysis of the influence that political parties exert on voters’
attitudes toward European integration. As stated in the previous sections, this study will use
experimental data to discover which are the characteristics of the party messages that improve their
ability to shape voters’ opinions. In doing so, however, the present study differs from previous
literature in several important aspects. This section is dedicated to the explanation of these
differences.
To the best of my knowledge, the only studies that use experimental data for testing the
influence of parties’ cues on voters’ support for the EU come from Maier et al. (2012) and Kumlin
(2011). The authors of these articles test the persuasive power of different party cues on the
European Union using real world propaganda material. People in treatments groups are exposed to
different parties’ position on EU, while respondents of control groups are not exposed to any kind
of material. All experiment’s participants are then asked about their opinion on European
integration. In this way the authors are able to measure which kind of political message is more
persuasive.
The first difference between my study and previous literature concerns the political
message’s characteristics that are supposed to improve its persuasive power. Literature on media
frame of European Union suggests that the positive or negative valence of the message can make
the difference (de Vreese et al. 2011, Schuck and De Vreese 2006, Maier and Rittbergen 2008). The
distinction between positive and negative messages is based on the concepts of risk and
opportunity; a positive message is one that portrays the object of the discussion as an opportunity
10
for the citizens, while a negative message describes it as a risk. These different messages do not
have the same impact on voters’ political opinions: negative messages seem to be more effective in
shaping citizens’ attitudes toward EU issues (de Vreese et al. 2011, Schuck and De Vreese 2006).
This is due to the fact that, when the consequences of a particular new policy are uncertain, people
“assign relatively more weight and importance to events that have negative, as opposed to positive,
implications for them or those dear to them. When making decisions, they place more emphasis on
avoiding potential losses than on obtaining potential gain” (Cobb and Kuklinsky 1997, p. 91).
The studies of Maier et al (2012) and Kumlin (2011) apply the same ideas to the analysis of
party cues on European Union. For Maier et al. (2012) a positive party cue is the one that “presents
the EU as an opportunity for the future and describes it with positive characteristics whereas a
negative cue does the opposite” (Maier et al. 2012, p. 6); Kumlin’s experiment on welfare states
uses the same categorization, given that negative treatments present the EU as threatening the
national health care, while the positive ones do the opposite, describing the positive consequences
of the free movement of doctors and patients. Consistently with media frame studies, both articles
find a higher effect of negative party cues compared with the positive ones.2 The conclusion that
could be drawn from the results of these studies is that, given citizens’ risk aversion, eurosceptic
messages are more persuasive than pro-EU ones.
In the context of European integration, therefore, the risk/opportunity dimension has been
used in such a way that a risk frame has been always associated with positions against the
integration process, while the opportunity frame has been considered exclusively in the context of
pro-integration positions. This categorization, however, does not exploit all the potentialities that
the study of the European Union can offer. Limiting the classification to just two possible positions,
it does not allow for taking into account the full range of possible parties’ stances on the European
Union. In particular, it does not allow for distinguishing between different kinds of Euroscepticism
(and pro-Europe positions). A political party can express a position against EU in two ways: it can
oppose further steps on the integration process (describing them as a risk), or it can propose steps
for returning to a pre-integration situation (describing them as an opportunity). The same thing can
be said for a pro-EU message: it can propose further steps on the integration process, or it can
oppose steps back. For example, French Fronte National states a position against the integration
2
In the case of Maier et al. (2012), the negative economic cue is the only one that has an effect also on no-partisan
respondents. However, this particular strength is not ascribed to the negative valence of the cue, but to the fact that
during the 2009 European Electoral Campaign, economic blame of European Union was a consensual position among
citizens. An alternative explanation provided by the authors relates to the characteristics of the parties that provide
this particular cue.
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process describing the creation of Eurobonds as a risk3; but Italian Movimento 5 Stelle states an
equally eurosceptic position describing the exit of Italy from Eurozone as an opportunity 4. The
same thing happens in the pro-EU field: Spanish PSOE states a pro-integration position when it
stress the opportunities offered by the creation of Eurobonds5, but German SPD states an equally
pro-EU stance describing the risks linked to call the Euro into question 6 . Therefore, the
correspondence between risk frame and eurosceptic positions (and between opportunity frame and
pro-EU positions) used in previous literature seems to show just half of the general picture. In the
present debate on the fate of European Union, voters’ risk aversion can be “used” not only by
Eurosceptic political parties for stimulating opposition to more integration; it can also be “used” by
Pro-EU (usually mainstream) political parties to induce concerns for the return to a pre-integration
situation.
We are able, therefore, to go beyond the simple “one-dimension” approach where
Eurosceptic/pro-EU positions correspond to risk/opportunity frames. We can classify parties’
messages using two different dimensions: the first one is the Euroesceptic/pro-EU dimension,
which separates messages that are against the integration process from messages that are in favour.
The second one is the risk-opportunity dimension that separates messages that highlight a threat for
citizens from messages that stress positive consequences. In sum, compared with previous studies,
the “two-dimensions” approach also allows to take into account pro-EU positions that frame a step
back in the integration process as a risk, and Eurosceptic positions that stress the opportunities
offered by the return to a pre-integration situation. This paper, therefore, takes into consideration
the full range of possible position that a party can express on the European Union issue, allowing a
deeper comparison between the persuasive power of Eurosceptic and pro-EU parties.
The article by Maier and her colleagues has another difference compared with my study: it is
not possible to test the persuasive power of different political messages controlling for party
characteristics. Brader et al. (2013) have demonstrated that some party characteristics, like
incumbency or ideological ambiguity, can affect their capacity to shape the attitudes of their voters.
3
"The introduction of Eurobonds mechanically would result in a sharp increase in interest rates paid by France to
repay debt because it should bear the risk of the most vulnerable countries, such as Greece" (own translation from
French). Source: FN’s webpage at: http://www.frontnational.com/2012/05/eurobonds-attention-danger/.
4
"Leave the euro will allow companies to be more competitive in exports and create new jobs and wealth for the
country" (own translation from Italian). Source: M5S’ propaganda material at:
http://d2ddakkt2rzmi5.cloudfront.net/Volantino_con_i_Motivi_per_uscire_dall_euro.pdf.
5
"We will advocate the implementation of a system of mutualization of debt that would bring benefits to both strong
and weak economies" (own translation from Spanish). Source: PSOE’s European electoral program 2014 (pp.10) at:
http://www.psoe.es/source-media/000000599000/000000599184.pdf.
6
“Who calls the Euro into question exposes Europe and the mankind to economic, social and political incalculable
risks” (own translation from German). Source: SPD’s European electoral program 2014 (pp.11) at:
https://www.spd.de/scalableImageBlob/114930/data/wahlprogramm-data.pdf.
12
Therefore, the high persuasive power of a particular political message might be due to the high
ability of the party to communicate it. In Maier et al. (2012), different cues are communicated by
different parties so that it is not possible to say if the differences in persuasive power of different
cues are due to the nature of the message or to the nature of the parties that communicate it.7 The
same thing can be said regarding Kumlin (2011). However, in this last case the focus of the article
is on the effect of cues from incumbent and opposition parties in Sweden. Therefore, controlling for
party characteristics would be inconsistent with the aim of the study
The last difference between previous literature and my study concerns the kind of party
influence that will be measured. As said, in previous experimental studies people in different
treatments groups are exposed to different parties’ position on EU, while respondents of control
group are not exposed to any kind of material. Later, attitudes of people in the control group are
compared with attitudes of people of different treatment groups for discovering which party
position on EU has a bigger effect on voters’ attitudes. This design allows to understand which kind
of political message is more persuasive. My study, however, tries to take a step further in the
understanding of political parties’ influence. My purpose is not only to understand which kind of
party position is more persuasive; I also want to find out if (and under which circumstances) a
particular position is more attractive for voters when it is endorsed by their party than when it is
endorsed by a more neutral source; what I want to measure is the “added value” that a particular
position gains in terms of public support when it is endorsed by a political party. In substance, I
want to see to what extent the label of the preferred political party is able to increase the popularity
of a particular policy position. An example can help to clarify the difference between my study and
the previous literature: let’s say the position of party X on European integration is that “EU is a
threat for our national culture” while the position of party Y is that “UE is an opportunity for our
economy”; the approach of Maier et al. (2012) and Kumlin (2011) is to see which one of these
positions have a higher effect on voters’ attitudes; they are therefore interested in comparing the
persuasive power of messages that have different content (negative and positive), but the same
source (political parties). My approach, however, adds to this analysis a further step: in fact, I am
also interested in discovering if the positions “EU is a threat for our national culture” and “EU is an
opportunity for our economy” have a bigger persuasive power when they are stated by a political
party (treatment groups) than when they are stated by, for example, current people (control groups).
This means that I am also interested in measuring the persuasive power of messages that have the
7
The authors themselves stress this point when, describing the limitations of using real world material for the
experiment, they say that “If we want to disentangle the effects of the message versus the messenger (…) we need full
control over the contexts of the experiments. Hence, future studies must complement experiments based on realworld stimuli with ones based on artificially altered treatment materials.”
13
same content, but different source (political party and neutral source). In this way I can also
measure the added value that the party label adds to the persuasiveness of a particular point of
view8. In sum, my objective is not only to understand which position stated by a political party is
more persuasive, but also to discover if a particular position receive a higher support when it comes
from a party than when it comes from a different source (for a similar approach to parties’ cues, see
Brader and Tucker 2009, 2012; Brader et al. 2013). In the first case, my aim is to understand which
party positions are more likely to persuade voters. In the second case the objective is to understand
if (and to what extent) political parties are able to make their supporters accept a position that
otherwise they would not share.
In sum, the present paper differs from previous experimental literature on support to
European integration in tree points: (1) using the “two-dimensions” approach, the paper takes into
account the full range of positions that a political party can express on European integration,
challenging the idea that, because of voters’ risk aversion, Eurosceptic positions could experience
an advantage in persuasive power; (2) the used experimental design (see next sections) allows to
control for party characteristics for the purpose of measuring the “net” persuasive power of different
party positions; (3) the paper is not only focused on the persuasive power of different party
positions, but also on the “added values” in term of public support that the party label adds to a
particular position; the aim is not only to understand which party position has a higher persuasive
power, but also if political parties are able to make their voters support a position that otherwise
they would not share.
HYPOTHESES
On the base of the theoretical framework and the methodological considerations exposed
above, several hypotheses can be formulated. These hypotheses will concern the two different
aspects of party influence described in the previous sections. H2 will concern the persuasive power
of different party cues, that is the support that different party positions receive from voters (the
comparison, therefore, will be between messages that have different content but the same source:
political parties). On the other hand, H1, H3a and H3b concern the added value in terms of support
8
Actually, in Kumlin (2011) the author does have the opportunity to measure the “added value” of the party label
because he exposes the participants of the experiment to the same stimulus from different sources (anonymous
source and party source). However, the author prefers to focus on the effect that both party and neutral cue have,
compared with a control group that, as in Maier et al (2012), did not receive any treatment.
14
that the party label adds to e political position (in this case, the comparison will be between
messages that have the same content but different source: political parties and neutral source).
First of all, we have seen how electors, given their lack of political knowledge, use the
positions of the party they vote as a cognitive shortcut for inferring their own position without
needing detailed information on the topic. They choose their party as source of the cue because they
know that they have in common political and ideological predispositions. For this reason it is
consistent to expect that, in general terms, a position stated by the preferred political party
experience a higher level of support than the same position stated by a more neutral source. So, the
first hypothesis is the following:
H1: voters' support for a particular policy position will be higher when it is stated by their
political party than when it is stated by a more neutral source
Secondly, we can formulate some expectations on which are the message’s characteristics
that increase the support for party positions, that is which party positions have a higher persuasive
power. According with the discussion in the previous section, the difference among Eurosceptic and
Pro-EU messages should not matter in this case; as we saw, voters’ risk aversion can be used for
both Eurosceptic and pro-EU party positions and for this reason none of them should experience an
higher support from citizens. Concerning the support for risk or opportunity messages, on the
contrary, we should find some differences. In particular, we know from previous literature that
voters are more easily persuaded by a risk than by an opportunity frame. Therefore, we can
formulate the following second hypothesis:
H2: voters’ support for party positions that use a risk frame is higher than votes’ support for
positions that use an opportunity frame.
Finally, we can formulate two competing hypothesis on how the risk/opportunity frame
affect the “added value” that a particular position gains in terms of public support when it is
endorsed by a political party. On one hand, we could expect that the higher persuasiveness of risk
frame holds both when political positions are stated by political parties and when they are stated by
more neutral sources. In this case, even thought we expect party label to raise support for both risk
and opportunity positions, the size of party's added value would not change in accordance with the
type of used frame. That is, we could expect that:
15
H3a: the added value in terms of public support that the party label adds to a particular
political position does not changes based on the use of a particular frame.
On the other hand, we could expect the party have a leveling effect on voters' support for
different positions. Voters' propensity toward positions that use a risk frame depends on the fact
that, in a situation of uncertainty about the consequences of a particular new policy, people "place
more emphasis on avoiding potential losses than on obtaining potential gains" (Cobb and Kuklinsky
1997. p. 91). However, the perceived uncertainty about policy's consequences could reduce when a
position is stated by the preferred political party. After all, in this case people are receiving a cue
from the party they trust; a party that, attaching its label to a particular policy option, is providing a
"guarantee" on policy's consequences. For this reason we could expect that, even though risk
positions experience more support than opportunity ones when they are stated by neutral source,
this difference will reduce when positions are endorsed by political parties. That is, the endorsement
by political parties would increase the support for opportunity positions more than the support for
risk ones. Formally, we could expect that:
H3b: the added value of party label is higher with positions that use an opportunity frame
than with position that use a risk frame.
Hypothesis H3a and H3b tell different stories about the strength of party cues. The first one
describes a situation in which, even though parties are able to raise the support for any policy
option, they are not strong enough for making people set aside their risk aversion. Hypothesis H3b,
on the contrary, describes a situation where party endorsement not only rises the support for any
policy option, but it is also able to make people be sensible to opportunity frame as much as to risk
one.
Experimental design
The experiment was embedded in the sixth wave of the online panel study “Stability and
Change in Political Attitudes” designed by the research Group “Democracy, Elections and
Citizenship” of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The internet survey was
16
administered between the 5th and 12th of May 2014, shortly before the 2014 European Elections.
The survey was completed by 1071 Spanish citizens older than 17 and younger than 48 years of
age, while the number of participants of the experiment was 6399. Table 1 compares both the survey
and the experiment samples with another face-to-face standard survey carried out in the same period
on a representative sample of Spanish population. As we can see, in the survey and experimental
samples there is an overrepresentation of people between 35 and 39 years of age, while people
between 18 and 24 years of age are underrepresented. There is also an overrepresentation of the
most educated part of the population and an underrepresentation of categories without a University
degree. These characteristics of the sample limit the possibility of generalization of the study.
However, it is worth noting that the young age of our sample and the overrepresentation of most
educated citizens within it work against the possibility of finding a party effect. In fact, people with
high levels of education are supposed to be more able to have an autonomous idea of the European
integration (they are less likely to need heuristics), while young people are less likely to have
developed the familiarity with the party that allows the effectiveness of the cue (Coan et al. 2008).
Moreover, according to the Eurobarometer of June 2014, 92% of Spanish citizens tend not to trust
political parties. These data are substantially confirmed by our panel study, where among the
participants in the experiment, the mean level of trust in political parties is 1.85 on a 0–10 scale
(SD=0.08, MEDIAN=1). As noted in the literature, trust in political parties is a prerequisite for
observing their influence on voters (Coan et al. 2008). The situation of Spanish political system,
therefore, makes it more difficult to find evidence of political parties’ influence on voters' attitudes
toward the EU. Therefore, any party effect that we could observe in our data is likely to be an
underestimation of the effect in the general population.
Respondents were randomly exposed to one of eight different cues: four cues were from a
political party, while the other four were from a no-party (neutral) source:
1- ProEU party cue with opportunity frame (A)
2- ProEU neutral cue with opportunity frame (B)
3- Eurosceptic party cue with risk frame (C)
4- Eurosceptic neutral cue with risk frame (D)
5- Eurosceptic party cue with an opportunity frame (E)
6- Eurosceptic neutral cue with an opportunity frame (F)
7- ProEU party cue with a risk frame (G)
9
The difference is due to the fact that some respondents of the survey refused to declare their party preferences and
for this reason they have been excluded from the experiment.
17
8- ProEU neutral cue with a risk frame (H)
So, in accordance with the theoretical framework exposed above, the cues are differentiated
on the base of three dimensions. The first one is the source of the cue. It can come from the
respondent’s preferred party or from a neutral (no-party) source; this differentiation will allow us to
measure the added value of the party label. The second dimension of the cues is its position toward
the European integration. We will use this dimension for comparing the persuasive power of
Eurosceptic and pro-EU party cues. 10 The last dimension is the risk/opportunity one, which
separates cues that stress a potential threat from cues that highlight possible positive consequences.
This difference will be useful for understanding if the persuasiveness of a party position depends on
the used frame. Table 2 shows the position of each cue on the three dimensions.
Each respondent was exposed to a position on a specific policy. In the “party cues” groups
(A, E, G, and C), the positions have been attributed to the respondent’s preferred party (previously
ascertained in the survey). In the “neutral cues” groups (B, F, H, and D), the positions have been
attributed to “some people”; these last groups are needed to have, for each position, a baseline for
calculating the added value in terms of support generated by the party label; in this light, the use of
“some people” seems particularly suitable, given it does not link the cue to any specific source.
After the stimulus, respondents were asked about their level of agreement (on a scale from 1 to 10)
with the position they were exposed to. This indicator will show us the level of support that each
party (or neutral) position experience among voters.
In groups A, B, C, and D, respondents were exposed to a fake proposal on integration in
energy policies. In groups A and B the party (or neutral) position is in favour of more integration,
while the position in groups C and D opposes it. The party (or neutral) position does not change
depending on respondent’s preferred party. This means that, for example, a PP’s and a PSOE’s
supporter in group A was exposed to the same cue in favour of more integration; the only difference
was the party that express this position (PP in the first case and PSOE in the second one). This kind
of design is needed if we want to control for party characteristics. As noted above, if different
positions were attributed to different parties, it would not be possible to understand if a heightened
persuasiveness of a particular cue is due to the content of the party’s message or to some party’s
characteristic. On the other hand, the choice of a no-salient issue in the Spanish political debate
(integration in energy policies) and the generic nature of the used proposals 11 assure that any
position can be plausibly attributed to any party. Moreover, the use of fake proposals reduces the
10
I use the term “Eurosceptic” for indicating cues that oppose more integration and propose a step back. The term
“pro-EU” is used to indicate cues that propose more integration or oppose a step back.
11
See Appendix A for more detail on the treatment material that was used.
18
likelihood that the respondents are pre-treated (Slothuus 2012): in an experiment on party influence,
it is possible for scholars not to find a cue’s effect when, in the real world, this effect is very
powerful. “Because parties have policy reputations, experimental participants may already know
where the parties stand before they are told in the experiment—they are ‘pre-treated’” (ibid. p. 1).
In such a situation, we would find the same results in the control and in the treatment groups, not
because the cue does not have an effect, but because it did before the experiment, and all the voters
will take the position of the party.
[Table 1 around here]
[Table 2 around here]
The same logic was applied in groups E, F, G, and H, with the only difference being that the
policy positions were about a step back on the European integration process. In groups E and F the
cue was in favour of this step back, while in groups G and H it was against.
In all the “risk” treatments (G, C, H, and D), the party (or neutral) cue informs respondents
about possible negative consequences of more integration or a step back; in particular, they say that
gas and electricity bills could increase. In all “opportunity” treatments (A, E, B, and F) respondents
are informed about the fact that more integration or a step back could decrease energy bills.
To sum up: a pro-EU party cue with opportunity frame stress the good consequences of
more integration in energy policies, while an Eurosceptic party cue with risk frame underscore the
potential risks of such step toward integration; an Eurosceptic party cue with opportunity frame
stress the good consequences of a step back in the integration of energy policies, while a pro-EU
party cue with a risk frame underscore the potential risks of such step back. The “neutral cues” are
exactly the same of “party cues” except for the fact that they do not come from respondents’ party
but from “some people”.
As is seen in Appendix A, the stimulus consists of a very short text informing the
respondents about the position of their preferred party (or “some people”) on the role of the
European Union in energy policies. In any stimulus, a small picture is present that summarizes the
position of the party (or “some people”) and also includes the party’s icon (or a neutral icon). The
text’s editing is similar to a newspaper’s editing, even though it was never said to the respondents
that they were reading a newspaper article. Figure 1 shows an example of ProEU party cues with an
19
opportunity frame, while Figure 2 shows an example of Eurosceptic neutral cue using a risk
frame12.
Figure 1 - An example of ProEU party cue with opportunity frame (version for the Partido Popular)
Figure 2 - An example of Eurosceptic neutral cue with risk frame
12
Figures 1 and 2 show the treatment material in its original Spanish version. The reader can find the translation in
English of all the experiment material in Appendix A.
20
Finally, I decided to use the same issue (energy policies) in all groups in order to improve
the comparability of the different cues. If the object of the policy proposal changed depending on
the group, a possible difference in the power of the cues could be due to the different importance
attached to different issues.
Results
The analysis of the results will focus on two aspects: on one hand, I am interested in
discovering if voters support for party positions depends on message’s characteristics like the used
frame (risk/opportunity) or the Eurosceptic/Pro-EU dimension. On the other hand, I will also focus
on the added value in terms of support that a position experiences when it is endorsed by a political
party.
To be sure that our randomization for the composition of the 8 groups was successful, we
run a multinomial logistic regression (see Table 3); as dependent variable we used respondents’
membership to the different groups, while as independent variables were selected covariates that the
literature considers predictors of the persuasiveness of party cues (like party attachment and
political sophistication) and predictors of support to EU (like trust in national institutions, attitudes
toward other culture, perception of economic situation, etc). The model’s likelihood ratio chisquared was not statistically significant (p=.31), confirming that the random assignment was
performed correctly. It is therefore possible do not include these control variables in the analysis we
will perform.
[Table 3 around here]
Graph 1 gives us a general idea of the party label added value. The light bar presents the
mean level of support for the cue's position among people in the four control groups, while the dark
bar does the same for people assigned to treatment groups. A political position seems to be more
attractive for voters if it is endorsed by their preferred party than if it comes from a neutral source
(some people). The mean level of support in the control groups is 5.9, while in treatment groups it is
6.8, with a statistically significant difference of 0.9 points (p<0.001, two-tailed) on the 0–10 scale.
Therefore, we can say that the source of the message matters for voters in the moment they have to
21
decide whether or not they share a political position. These results are a first partial confirmation
that we can accept our H1. If the preferred party label is associated with a political position, the
level of agreement raises by almost 10% of the scale, suggesting us that the party label does provide
political position with an added value in terms of public support.
The next step is to use the other two dimensions of the cues (Eruosceptic/ProEU and
risk/opportunity) for analysing both the persuasive power of party messages and the added value of
the party label. In Graph 2 is presented the level of support for the different positions clustered on
the base of the Eurosceptic/Pro-EU dimension. In the Eurosceptic groups are included cues that
oppose further integration (using a risk frame) and cues that propose a step back (using an
opportunity frame), while in the Pro-EU group are included cues that propose more integration and
cues that oppose steps back. As we can see, the two dark bars, that represent the level of support for
Eurosceptic and Por-EU party positions, are virtyally the same, meaning that party messages against
the integration process are not more persuasive than party messages in favour of European Union.
These results are not surprising, given that the "two-dimenions" approach allowed us to include in
both Eurosceptic and Pro-EU group party positions that used risk as well as opportunity frames; in
this way voters' risk aversion can not make the difference between the persuasive power of
Eurosceptic and Pro-EU messages. Graph 2 also show a party added value in both groups of
messages. In the case of Eurosceptic cues, the difference between the level of support when the
position is endorsed by a political party and when it is endorsed by "some people" is 1.18 (with a
p<0.001, two-tailed), while in the case of Pro-EU cues it is equal to 0.74 (with a p<0.01, twotailed).
[Graph 1 around here]
[Graph 2 around here]
Graph 3, where cues are clustered on the base of the risk/opportunity dimension, presents
results that challenge our initial expectations. In the risk group are included cues that oppose further
integration and cues that oppose a step back (both of them describing possible negative
consequences), while in the opportunity group are included cues that propose more integration or a
step back (both of them describing possible positive consequences of these changes). First of all we
have to note that voter do not express higher support for positions that use a risk frame than for
positions that use an opportunity one. Negative frame does not seem to have a higher persuasive
power neither when the position is expressed by political parties, nor when it is endorsed by a
22
neutral source. In the first case, in fact, the dark bars are virtually identical, while in the second case
(light bar) voters even express an higher support for positions that stress possible positive
consequences (but the difference is not statistically significant). We have to reject H2. As a
consequence of the no-effect of the risk frame, we also have to reject H3a and H3b that were build
on the assumption that voters would have expressed a different level of support for risk and
opportunity positions 13 . However, as we will see below, there are evidence for the party label
having a levelling effect as described in our H3b, even though not in reference to the
risk/opportunity dimension. We can also speculate on why we did not find higher support for party
positions using a risk frame. One of the reasons could be linked to party characteristics: as we saw
in previous sections, experiment literature on party cues on EU usually assign different positions to
different parties. However, Brader et al. (2013) have demonstrated that some party characteristics
can affect their capacity to shape the attitudes of their voters. Our results show that, if risk and
opportunity positions are endorsed by the same political parties, none of them receive a higher
support from voters.
Concerning the party label added value, also in the case of Graph 3 we can confirm that
people are more easily persuaded by a position if it stated by their political party than if it stated by
a more neutral source. In the case of risk positions, the difference between control and treatment
group is 1.08 points (p<0.001, two-tailed), while in the case of opportunity position it is 0.80 points
(p<0.01, tow-tailed).
Graphs 1, 2, and 3 show us some important results that we can summarize as follow: (1)
voters support for party positions on EU is not affected by neither the risk/opportunity nor the
Eurosceptic/Pro-EU dimension. In both Graph 2 and 3 the dark bars are not different among them,
meaning that voters’ support for Eurosceptic positions (or risk positions) is equal to voters’ support
for Pro-EU stances (or opportunity stances); (2) party label always provides an added value in terms
of voters’ support. In all three graphs the differences between the light (control groups) and the dark
bars (treatment groups) are statistically significant, meaning that political parties are able to raise
their voters’ support for a specific proposal by simply attaching their label to it. We can also say
that the general results we have seen in Graph 1 are not due to the particular weight of a specific
kind of cue: Graphs 2 and 3 show that political parties are able to raise voters’ support regardless of
the position they take toward European integration or the aspects they decide to stress.
These results can be better interpreted looking at Graph 4, where is presented the level of
support for the four positions used in the experiment in both their neutral and party version. The
13
Formally, we could accept our H3a because the party added value does not change depending on the used frame.
However, our expectation was to find a higher persuasive power of risk frame in both party and neutral messages.
23
first thing that we can note is that voters express the same level of support for all the party positions
(the dark bars are very similar and not statistically different from each other). These results confirm
the finding of previous graphs: the characteristics of the message do not make any difference for
voters when they have to express support for a position endorsed by political parties. If the position
is endorsed by the preferred party, people are willing to support, for example, a step back in the
integration process (Eurosceptic-Opportunity position) to the same extent they support further
integration (ProEU-Opportunity). From this point of view, voters’ attitudes do not seem really
constraining for parties’ action in the European Union context.
The power of political parties appears even stronger when we look at the party label added
value. As we can see, the use of the party label has a statistically significant effect in three out of
four cases. In particular, political parties seem to be able to move voters’ preferences when they
oppose further integration, propose steps back, or oppose steps back. The influence of the parties is
equal to, respectively, 0.86 points, 1.47 points, and 1.30 points (respectively, p<0.05; p<0.001;
p<0.001; two-tailed). The only cue where the results are not statistically significant (but still in the
expected direction) is the one that proposes a closer integration. However, in this case the small
difference between the control and treatment group is not due to a low persuasiveness of the parties’
message, but to a particularly high level of support in the control group. As already noted, the level
of voters’ support for parties’ positions is virtually the same in the four cases; on the contrary, when
the position is endorsed by “some people,” voters show a significantly higher level of support for
the pro-EU opportunity cue, compared with the other three (the light bar is higher). This difference
seems due to the Spanish political context. All of the biggest Spanish parties, in fact, are in favour
of a deeper European integration14. For this reason, it is likely that the participants of the experiment
are pre-treated. They have already received the pro-EU opportunity party cue in the real world, and
for this reason, they will agree with it even if the position is not endorsed by their political party. As
described in the article of Slothuus (2012) cited in the previous section, the pro-EU opportunity
party cue does not seem to have an effect because it already had occurred in the real world.
[Graph 3 around here]
[Graph 4 around here]
14
According with 2010 Chapell Hill expert survey all Spanish political parties score higher than 4 in the 1-7 scale of
support to European integration (higher values meaning higher support).
24
The results shown in Graph 4 are useful for understanding the power of political parties in
shaping their voters’ attitudes. The higher level of support for the pro-EU opportunity neutral cue
tells us that in the real world, political parties have already been successful in influencing citizens’
support for European integration. The significant party added value in the other three cues tells us
that, if they need it, political parties are able to raise public support for any other position simply
using the persuasiveness of their party label. If political parties endorse a Eurosceptic-risk,
Eurosceptic-opportunity, or pro-EU-risk position, they can make them receive the same level of
support that the pro-EU position does. Again, it seems that voters’ attitudes are not really
constraining for political elite activity. Political parties can raise public support for any political
position simply by attaching their label to it.
However, we also have to note that participants to the experiment do not seem able to
differentiate among all the 4 different positions; they are not totally aware of what each position is
advocating. Manipulation checks reveal that voters can clearly distinguish between the Pro-EU
opportunity position and the Eurosceptic opportunity one: they are aware that the former propose
more integration and the latter propose a step back. However, the absolute majority of respondents
that were exposed to the Eurosceptic risk cue and the relative majority of respondents that were
exposed to the Pro-EU risk position think that the message is advocating a step back in the
integration process (they assimilate these positions to the Euroskeptic opportunity one). On one
hand these results tell us that Spanish voters can not clearly distinguish between party positions on
EU they are not used to. On the other hand, however, the general results of our study are
substantially confirmed: even if we restrict our analysis to just the Pro-EU opportunity and
Eurosceptic opportunity positions, we still have a situation where people express different level of
support for different positions when they are stated by a neutral source, but the same level of
support when these positions are stated by political parties.
Conclusion
Literature on European Union suggests that the time of “permissive consensus” is over.
Today, the political elites at both national and European level have to take into account voters’
preferences when taking action in the European Union context. In this light, voters’ attitudes
toward European integration would constrain political parties’ activity in EU’s political arena.
However, given citizens’ lack of information on EU, political parties are able to shape voters’
25
attitudes toward European integration; this means that political elites are able to shape the
constraints that are supposed “to limit” their activity at the European Union level.
The aims of this paper were two. On one hand, following experimental literature on EU
support, it wanted to compare the persuasive power of different party positions on European Union.
The idea was to discover if political messages with different content (Eurosceptic/ProEU or
risk/opportunity) but the same source (political parties) experience different level of voters’ support.
For this analysis, the present paper took into account a broader range of political parties’ positions
than previous literature: we argued that in the current EU debate political parties can use both risk
and opportunity frame, regardless they are advocating Eurosceptic or Pro-EU positions. In this light,
voters’ risk aversion can be “used” for stimulating opposition as well as support for the European
integration process. We also used an experimental design that allowed us to control for party’s
characteristics: we wanted to be sure that a different persuasive power of a particular party message
was due to the nature of the message and not to the nature of the party that communicate it.
On the other hand, the paper also wanted to measure the added values in terms of support
that the party label adds to a particular political position. In this case, the idea was to compare the
persuasive power of messages with the same content, but different sources (political parties or
neutral source). This kind of analysis was needed to understand if political parties are able to make
voters support a position that otherwise they would not support (or they would support to a less
extent).
The results of the experiment depict a situation in which voters’ attitudes toward European
integration are strongly dependent on parties’ cues. First of all, the dark bars in Graph 2, 3, and
more in details Graph 4, shows that voters express the same level of support for all party positions.
Citizens do not seem to differentiate between position in favor of the integration process and
positions against it. Moreover, the use of risk or opportunity frame seems to do not have any effect
on the support that voters express for a particular party position. When the message comes from the
preferred political party, it always receives the same level of support. Spanish voters seem to do not
have previous political attitudes that allow them to “accept” party cues that are in line with their
political beliefs and to “reject” the cues that contrast with them.
The analysis of the party added value confirms this strong dependence of voters’ attitudes on
parties’ positions. Graph 1 show us that the same political position receives a higher level of voters’
support when it is stated by the preferred party than when it is stated by a neutral source. Moreover,
Graph 2 and 3 show that this added values does not depend on any characteristic of the political
message. The difference between the light and the dark bars is always statistically significant,
26
meaning that political parties are always able to raise the support for a particular position by simply
attaching their label to it.
Finally, the analysis of party added value in Graph 4 shows that political parties have a
levelling effect on voters’ support for different positions. The high Europeanism of Spanish political
parties causes the high level of support for the pro-EU opportunity cue in the control group.
Citizens have already received this cue in the real world and have already been persuaded by it. For
this reason, they can “recognize” their party’s position even when the party label does not appear.
Therefore, we find the same level of agreement with the cue in the treatment and control groups in
this case not because the party label does not exert an influence on voters’ attitudes, but because it
already exerted the influence before the experiment. If we look at the control groups of the other
three cues, we note that the level of support is significantly lower than it is in the case of the pro-EU
opportunity one; however, in all three cases, this support rises when the positions are endorsed by
political parties, and reaches the level of the cue that proposes more integration. This indicates that
Spanish people tend to agree less with unfamiliar positions on the EU, unless they are stated by
their political party. When the message comes from a neutral source, voters can differentiate
between positions that are in line with their political beliefs and positions that contrast with them;
but when the message comes from their preferred political party, voters are willing to support all the
positions to the same extent, accepting also those positions that were rejected when stated by “some
people”. In sum, the non-effect of the party added value in the case of the Europhile-pro cue tells
us that in the real world political parties have already been successful in influencing citizens’
support for European integration. The significant party effect in the other three cues tells us that, if
they need it, political parties are able to raise public support for any other position.
These results depict a situation where voters’ attitudes toward the EU do not seem
particularly constraining for political parties. When people have to express a judgement on the
European integration process, they rely on the position of the preferred party. Moreover, regardless
of the position political parties will take, voters will always be ready to follow them. Any political
position on European integration can reach the same level of public support when it is endorsed by
political parties. This strong dependence of voters’ attitudes on parties’ stances is even more
surprising when we consider that we observed it in a country like Spain, were the trust in political
parties is dramatically low. Even in a context where the political elite are strongly losing their
political legitimacy, they are still able to exert a strong influence on citizens’ political attitudes.
During the “permissive consensus” period, political parties were free to act at the European level
without taking into account citizens’ attitudes; today, citizens’ preferences definitely have a more
prominent role in European Union politics. However, political parties are far from losing their
27
leading role. They are still able to strongly affect the integration process through the influence they
can exert on public opinion.
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32
Graphs and Tables
Graph 1 - The persuasive power of cue's source
33
Graph 2 - The cue's position on EU
34
Graph 3 - The cue's frame
35
Graph 4 - The persuasive power of parties' cues
36
CIS 3024
May 2014
(18 to 47)
Survey Sample
May 2014
Experiment Sample
May 2014
Gender (% women)
47.99
46.58
44.97
-1.41
-3.02
Age
18-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-47
16.93
15.73
16.69
18.94
20.06
11.64
7.87
15.84
15.37
26.99
23.34
10.59
7.55
13.84
14.47
27.83
23.58
12.74
-9.06***
0.11
-1.32
8.05***
3.28
-1.05
-9.38***
-1.89
-2.22
8.89***
3.52
1.10
Education
Primary or less
Secondary (1ststage)
Secondary (2nd stage)
Vocational (high)
University or more
5.70
30.28
26.35
13.01
24.66
0.75
24.27
16.87
14.90
43.21
0.63
23.58
15.72
14.62
45.44
-4.95***
-6.01**
-9.48***
1.89
18.55***
-5.07***
-6.70**
-10.63***
1.61
20.78***
N
1246a
1067
636
a
The N for “Education” in CIS 3024 is 1245
*p<0.05 **p<0.01 ***p<0.001 (two-tailed)
Table 1 - Characteristics of the Sample (Test of proportions)
Differerence
(Survey Sample–
CIS 3024 )
Differerence
(Experiment SampleCIS 3024 )
TREATMENT GROUPS
OPPORTUNITY
RISK
PRO-EU
The party proposes further
integration in energy policies
(A)
The party opposes a step back on
integration in energy policies
(G)
EUROSCEPTIC
The party proposes a step back
on integration in energy policies
(E)
The party opposes further
integration in energy policies
(C)
CONTROL GROUPS
OPPORTUNITY
RISK
PRO-EU
Some people propose further
integration in energy policies
(B)
Some people oppose a step back on
integration in energy policies
(H)
EUROSCEPTIC
Some people propose a step
back on integration in energy
policies
(F)
Some people oppose further
integration in energy policies
(D)
Table 2 - The 8 cues of the experiment in accordance with the three dimensions
Age
Gender
Close to mainstream parties
Political sophistication (EU)
Perception of economic situation
Unemployed
Party closenessa
Left-Right position
Trust in political parties
Trust in European parliament
Perceived cultural threat
Constant
Likelihood ratio X2
Significance
Observations
Party
ProEU
Opportunity
-0.03
(0.02)
-0.10
(0.33)
0.38
(0.35)
0.13
(0.17)
0.07
(0.23)
-0.10
(0.38)
-0.32
(0.41)
0.07
(0.10)
-0.10
(0.09)
0.07
(0.08)
0.05
(0.07)
-0.11
(1.55)
82.79
.3056
639
Party
Eurosceptic
Risk
-0.03
(0.02)
0.14
(0.33)
0.51
(0.35)
-0.02
(0.17)
-0.19
(0.23)
-1.04*
(0.45)
-0.21
(0.40)
0.02
(0.10)
-0.15
(0.09)
-0.00
(0.08)
-0.08
(0.07)
2.24
(1.51)
Neutral
Eurosceptic
Risk
-0.00
(0.02)
-0.16
(0.32)
0.51
(0.34)
-0.22
(0.17)
-0.06
(0.23)
-0.02
(0.37)
-0.43
(0.41)
0.05
(0.09)
-0.20*
(0.09)
0.12
(0.08)
-0.08
(0.06)
0.92
(1.51)
Party
Eurosceptic
Opportunity
0.01
(0.02)
-0.23
(0.31)
0.17
(0.32)
-0.31
(0.16)
-0.23
(0.21)
-0.38
(0.36)
-0.15
(0.36)
-0.02
(0.09)
-0.15
(0.08)
0.01
(0.07)
-0.11
(0.06)
2.58
(1.41)
Neutral
Eurosceptic
Opportunity
-0.05*
(0.02)
-0.51
(0.34)
0.17
(0.36)
-0.01
(0.17)
0.04
(0.24)
0.27
(0.37)
-0.73
(0.44)
0.12
(0.10)
-0.22*
(0.10)
0.05
(0.08)
-0.02
(0.07)
1.92
(1.55)
Party
ProEU
Risk
-0.01
(0.02)
0.02
(0.33)
-0.56
(0.37)
-0.38*
(0.17)
-0.15
(0.23)
-0.41
(0.39)
-0.90*
(0.45)
0.15
(0.10)
-0.06
(0.09)
-0.00
(0.08)
-0.13*
(0.06)
1.94
(1.49)
Neutral
ProEU
Risk
-0.01
(0.02)
-0.31
(0.33)
0.25
(0.35)
-0.21
(0.17)
-0.10
(0.23)
0.04
(0.37)
-0.17
(0.39)
-0.02
(0.10)
-0.14
(0.09)
0.02
(0.08)
-0.05
(0.07)
1.66
(1.53)
a
This variable distinguishes between partisans respondents (value=0) and respondents that feel they agree more with a party compared to the others, although they
do not feel close to any of them (value=1).
Table 3 - Randomization Test. Mlogit Regression Model. Dependent Variable: Treatment. Base Category: Treatment 2 (Neutral ProEU
Opportunity).
APPENDIX A
STIMULI
Participants of the experiment were randomly exposed to one of the following 8 cues15:
TEXT A
EU AND SPAIN
[PARTY] IN FAVOR OF A BIGGER ROLE OF EUROPEAN UNION IN
ENERGY POLICIES
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
[PARTY] proposes a bigger role of European Union in energy policies because this change could
decrease gas’ and electricity’s bills.
The following picture describes the position of this party.
Party’s/
neutral
logo
Reduce the
power of EU
Mantain the
current situation
Increase the
power of EU
TEXT B
EU AND SPAIN
IN FAVOR OF A BIGGER ROLE OF EUROPEAN UNION IN ENERGY
POLICIES
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
15
The original material was in Spanish. In Appendix A is presented the translation in English.
Some people propose a bigger role of European Union in energy policies because this change could
decrease gas’ and electricity’s bills.
The following picture describes the position of these people
TEXT C
EU AND SPAIN
[PARTY] AGAINST A BIGGER ROLE OF EUROPEAN UNION IN ENERGY
POLICY
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
[PARTY] opposes a bigger role of European Union in enegry policies because this change could
raise gas’ and electricity bills.
The following picture describes the position of this party.
Party’s
logo
41
TEXT D
EU AND SPAIN
AGAINST A BIGGER ROLE OF EUROPEAN UNION IN ENERGY POLICY
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
Some people oppose a bigger role of European Union in enegry policies because this change could
raise gas’ and electricity bills.
The following picture describes the position of these people.
TEXT E
EU AND SPAIN
[PARTY] IN FAVOR OF A REDUCTION OF THE ROLE OF THE EU IN
ENERGY POLICIES
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
[PARTY] proposes a reduction of the role of the EU in energy policy because this change could
decrease gas’ and electricity’s bills.
The following picture describes the position of this party.
42
Party’s
logo
TEXTO F
EU AND SPAIN
IN FAVOR OF A REDUCTION OF THE ROLE OF THE EU IN ENERGY
POLICIES
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
Some people propose a reduction of the role of the EU in energy policy because this change could
decrease gas’ and electricity’s bills.
The following picture describes the position of these people.
43
TEXTO G
EU AND SPAIN
[PARTY] AGAINST A REDUCTION OF THE ROLE OF THE EU IN
ENERGY POLICIES
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
[PARTY] opposes a reduction of the role of European Union in energy policies because this change
could raise gas’ and electricity bills.
The following picture describes the position of this party.
Party’s
logo
TEXTO H
EU AND SPAIN
AGAINST A REDUCTION OF THE ROLE OF THE EU IN ENERGY
POLICIES
22nd APR 2014 – 13:27 CET
Some people oppose a reduction of the role of European Union in energy policies because this
change could raise gas’ and electricity bills.
The following picture describes the position of this party.
44
DEPENDENT VARIABLE
After having read one of these 8 texts, the respondents were asked about their level of agreement
with the position exposed:
To what extent do you agree with the position stated by [this party/these people]?
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Totally
Totally
disagree
agree
PRE-TREATMENT QUESTIONS
Before exposing respondents to the stimuli of the experiment, the following question was asked:
Which of the following parties do you consider closer to your ideas?
45
El PSOE
El PP
IU
ICV
CIU
La CUP
Ciutadans
El PNV
UpyD
Amaiur
ERC
El BNG
CC
Compromis
Equo
FAC
Geroa Bai
NABai
UPN
Cha
Others
None
People that answered “Others” were excluded from the experiment, while people that answered
“None” were redirected to the following question:
Even if you do not feel closer to any party, is there any party that you like more than others?
El PSOE
El PP
IU
ICV
CIU
46
La CUP
Ciutadans
El PNV
UpyD
Amaiur
ERC
El BNG
CC
Compromis
Equo
FAC
Geroa Bai
NABai
UPN
Cha
Others
None
If also in this case the respondent answered “None”, he was excluded from the experiment.
47