Do European Citizens Take Cues from Executives of Other Member States? An Experimental Test of Transnational Cues in a Compound Polity

Concerned with cue-taking, a large literature studies how political parties shape citizens' opinions about the EU. National elites heavily influence domestic public opinion regarding EU policies. Yet, there is surprisingly little research on how cues from politicians of another EU member state are received – and whether they influence citizens' policy preferences in other member states at all. This is despite frequent, systematic, and conscious cueing efforts of national executives targeting citizens of other EU countries. This paper advances the literature by studying transnational cueing, drawing on two pre-registered survey experiments fielded in representative samples of European citizens in 16 EU member states (N=30,600). Respondents were exposed to real newspaper editorials (by Viktor Orbán in Study 1 and Emmanuel Macron in Study 2, respectively) advocating for further enlargement and policy reforms on setting up a common border force/asylum office, respectively. Treatment arms varied the extent of information regarding the source of the op-ed. Results indicate that exposure to cues from the Hungarian government or Orbán increases support for enlarging the EU to include Serbia. This effect is moderated by respondents' own sovereignist/integrationist position. In contrast, the paper finds that cues from Macron decrease support for a common border force and asylum office, with this treatment effect being rather homogenous across different voter groups. These findings have important ramifications for our understanding of how transnational dimensions of contestation replace territorial divisions in the European Union. The article also sheds new light on how executives influence public opinion and preferences on EU policies. Furthermore, the finding related to extremist actors (Orbán) being more successful in cueing than mainstream ones (Macron) is important both for normative and empirical reasons.