In the European Union we trust: European Muslim attitudes toward the European Union

Abstract

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.

The role of societal cues in explaining attitudes toward international organizations: the least likely case of authoritarian contexts

“…However, most recently Kertzer and Zeitzoff (2017) have argued that societal cuesor social cues, in the terminology of Kertzer and Zeitzoffmay be at least as important in shaping attitudes toward foreign policy. Other scholars have highlighted that what we think we know about citizens taking cues might be, to a certain degree, blurred by systematic biases in experimental settings (Barabas and Jerit 2010;Bechtel et al 2015) or by misinterpretations of the empirical effects of citizens' trust in domestic elites (Harteveld, van der Meer, and De Vries 2013;Isani and Schlipphak 2017a). In line with such more critical voices, we maintain that the literature seems to so far have overseen societal cues.…”

Who is asking? The effect of survey sponsor misperception on political trust: evidence from the Afrobarometer

“…As noted earlier, governmental performance and its evaluation by citizens also plays a large role for levels of political trust: The more citizens are satisfied, the more trust they have in political actors (Isani and Schlipphak 2017a).…”

“…The more a society is shaped by distrust based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity or religion, the more one should observe distrust in political actors as well. Identity-based factors affecting trust in government institutions have been posited to matter in the Global South (Blaydes and Linzer 2012;Isani and Schlipphak 2017a). The same holds for a feeling of being connected to the community that is represented by governmental actors: the stronger the feeling of belonging together within a state/nation, the higher the levels of trust.…”

“…In addition, the article also looks at the religiosity of respondents. It is expected that religiosity will negatively influence political trust although previous literature has shown mixed results (Isani and Schlipphak 2017a).…”

Methods for analysing citizens’ attitudes: a hypothetical Italian referendum about the membership of the European Union as a case study

“…A general decline in EU trust has occurred in the last decade. Still, the negative peaks in EU support have occurred with two acute crises (Harteveld et al 2013 ; Dellmuth and Tallberg 2015 ; Isani and Schlipphak 2017 ; Conti et al 2020b ). First, after the 2010–2011 economic crisis and the subsequent technocratic government, led by Mario Monti, the EU was ‘blamed’ by Italians for the austerity measures realised against member states (Conti et al 2020a ).…”