Looking Forward: Prospective Benchmarking and Support for European Integration

Public attitudes toward European integration are shaped by comparisons between national and supranational governance. Benchmark theory argues that citizens evaluate the European Union (EU) relative to domestic alternatives, yet its micro-foundations remain underspecified. In particular, it remains unclear whether such comparisons rely primarily on retrospective assessments of past performance or on prospective expectations about future trajectories. This paper examines the temporal structure of benchmarking in the formation of EU integration preferences. Using original survey data from Switzerland, a highly politicized case of differentiated integration, we construct retrospective and prospective EU--CH benchmarks that capture whether respondents evaluate the EU more or less positively than Switzerland in the past and in the expected future. The results show that prospective benchmarks strongly predict support for further integration, whereas retrospective benchmarks lose explanatory power once future expectations are taken into account. In addition, the influence of prospective benchmarking varies across ideological positions: expectations about the EU’s future trajectory substantially shift integration preferences among left-leaning respondents, while right-leaning citizens display comparatively stable opposition regardless of relative expectations. These findings introduce a temporal dimension to benchmark theory and show that benchmark evaluations are not merely assessments of relative performance, but shaped by political ideology. By clarifying how prospective expectations structure benchmark comparisons, the paper advances our understanding of public opinion toward European integration.