 Transforming public opinion about European integration: Elite influence and its limitsKonstantin Vössing European Union Politics, 2015, vol. 16, issue 2, 157-175 Abstract: This article shows that political elites can use political explanations to transform public opinion about European integration. It also finds that concentric group affiliation based on self-categorization as a member of the nation and Europe impedes elite influence, while individuals with exclusive affiliations are more easily persuaded to change their opinions on European integration. I conduct a laboratory experiment to test my theoretical expectations. By investigating elite influence and its interaction with identity, the article addresses conflicting perspectives on the transformation of public opinion in prior research: one approach proposes that integration attitudes are anchored in individual dispositions and thus relatively stable, while another argument emphasizes the capacity of elites to induce attitude change. A comparison with utilitarian considerations and political sophistication shows that no other disposition imposes more robust limits on elite influence than a concentric group affiliation, and none triggers greater susceptibility to persuasion than an exclusive identity. Keywords: Elite influence; European integration; identity; political explanations; public opinion (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:16:y:2015:i:2:p:157-175 Access Statistics for this article More articles in European Union Politics |
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