“…This study, however, also pays attention to the importance of public opinion of states neighbouring the EU to account for existing research on the EU's impact on democratization, society, institutional development and even on freedom of mass media beyond the EU's Member States (Gawrich et al, 2010;Lankina et al, 2016b;Obydenkova, 2008Obydenkova, , 2012Schweickert et al, 2011). Here, the impact of national corruption on public opinion about 'distant' institutions might be ambiguous due to the influence of autocratic external factors and, more importantly, the role of historical legacies (Lankina et al, 2016a;Obydenkova, 2014, 2015;Obydenkova and Libman, 2012).…”