The impact of EU institutional advertising on public support for European integration
| Author | Enrique Hernández,Roberto Pannico |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116520935198 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The impact of EU
institutional advertising
on public support for
European integration
Enrique Herna
´ndez
Department of Political Science, Universitat Auto
`noma
de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain
Roberto Pannico
Instituto de Cie
ˆncias Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa,
Lisboa, Portugal
Abstract
Utilitarian theories propose that support for the EU is based on an instrumental cal-
culus about the costs and benefits of European integration. Drawing on these theories,
we analyze whether and how ads produced by European institutions affect public sup-
port for the EU. Our findings, based on a panel survey experiment, indicate that these
ads increase support for the EU, and that ads emphasizing the policy benefits of
European integration are more effective than ads emphasizing its reduced costs.
However, these positive effects are short-lived, since they had disappeared one year
after citizens were initially exposed to the ads. In a context of increasing negativity
towards the EU, these findings, based on realistic treatments, have relevant theoretical
and policy implications.
Keywords
Advertising, European integration, Euroscepticism, political support
Corresponding author:
Enrique Herna
´ndez, Department of Political Science, Universitat Auto
`noma de Barcelona, Edifici B, Campus
de Bellaterra, Bellaterra 08193, Spain.
Email: enrique.hernandez@uab.cat
European Union Politics
2020, Vol. 21(4) 569–589
!The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116520935198
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Introduction
During the Euro crisis support for European integration and trust in European
Union (EU) institutions experienced severe drops in many member states (Braun
and Tausendpfund, 2014; Foster and Frieden, 2017). This increasing negativity
towards the EU contributed to the upsurge of Eurosceptic parties in the 2014
European Parliament Elections (EPE) and to the Brexit vote (Herna
´ndez and
Kriesi, 2016; Hobolt, 2016).
Many studies have analyzed public support for the EU, as well as its conse-
quences for the integration project. Building on the insights from these previous
projects, in this article, we assess how European institutions can reconcile citizens
with the EU. Specifically, we analyze whether and how short (30 seconds) ads
produced by European institutions, and distributed through social media, can
increase support for the EU. For this purpose, we draw on utilitarian theories
of EU support to derive expectations about the potential effects of these institu-
tional ads on citizens’ attitudes towards the EU, as well as on Easton’s (1975)
seminal work on political support to elaborate on the mechanisms through which
these effects unfold. Based on these theories, we hypothesize that advertising that
provides persuasive information about the low costs and/or the high benefits of
European integration should increase citizens’ generalized support for the EU (i.e.
their diffuse support), precisely, by having a positive impact on their evaluations of
the outputs generated by European institutions (i.e. their specific support).
Our empirical analyses draw on an experiment fielded in Spain through an
online panel survey that exposed participants to two ads produced by the
European Parliament (EP) as part of an advertising campaign. Through these
ads, the EP aimed to inform citizens about the functioning and benefits of the
EU. Given their focus on the benefits of EU integration, these ads provide an ideal
testbed of utilitarian theories of EU support.
The results indicate that both ads increase diffuse support for the EU. However,
the effects of an ad that emphasizes how citizens directly benefit from EU policies
are stronger than those of an ad that highlights the reduced economic costs of
European integration. The analyses also indicate that some of the positive effects
of the ads on diffuse support are effectively mediated by changes in respondents’
specific support. However, the positive effects of the ads on diffuse EU support are
short lived, since they had disappeared one year after participants took part in the
experiment.
These findings have relevant theoretical and policy implications. In line with
utilitarian theories, our study reveals that the advantages and disadvantages citi-
zens’ perceive to get from the integration process mold their public support for
European integration. In other words, in the EU context, an increase in specific
support is likely to spillover and lead to an increase in diffuse support for the EU.
Therefore, as suggested by Hobolt and Tilley (2014), the legitimacy of the EU
appears to be highly dependent on its performance. In practical terms, these find-
ings imply that EU institutions can increase public support for the EU by
570 European Union Politics 21(4)
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