A growing body of survey research shows that the European Union (EU) has a relatively benign image around the world, except among Arab populations. What informs Arab citizens' sceptical attitudes toward the European Union (EU)? Combining literature on Arab public opinion and perceptions of the EU, we argue that Arab citizens' feelings about the EU are influenced most prominently by their desire for sovereignty. Moreover, traditional utilitarian and cue-taking mechanisms should also impact Arab EU attitudes. We empirically test our argument using data from the third wave of the Arab Barometer (AB). Our findings confirm that Arab citizens' EU views seem to be informed by their desire for sovereignty, as well as economic considerations and trust in domestic elites. Having provided evidence on Arab opinions about the EU, we discuss relevant theoretical and methodological directions for future research.

How strong are societal cuesunderstood as the linkage between heuristics present in society and the object of evaluationcompared to elite cues in influencing citizens' attitudes toward international politics? Our general argument is that societal cues have so far been underestimated in their effectiveness. More specifically, we argue that societal cues may have a direct effect or significantly diminish the effect of elite cues even in authoritarian contexts, when both cues are used at the same time. To test our hypotheses, we turn to cueing effects on citizens' UN attitudes in two Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia and Jordan. First, we depict that anti-Americanism is a significant and substantial heuristic in shaping Arab attitudes toward the UN. Thereafter, the results of a self-administered survey experiment show that governmental cues significantly and substantially affect public UN favorability. While cueing citizens with a heuristic linking the US to the UN has no direct effect in itself, it substantially weakens the effect of the governmental cues when both are employed at the same time. We outline the important implications of these findings at the end of the article.

Recent research has indicated that Arab Muslims are skeptical of Western institutions such as the European Union. Do European Muslims hold comparable attitudes toward the European Union? In this article we develop a two-step argument based on a transfer of satisfaction logic. We build on both American politics literature on immigrant trust in the host country's national political actors and on European Union literature assuming a transfer of trust from the national to the international level. Our expectation is that European Muslims should be more favorable toward the domestic political actors and, as a result, toward the European Union than their Christian and agnostic counter-parts. Our empirical evidence suggests the plausibility of the transfer of satisfaction argument while other factors seem to be of minor influence.

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