Saturday, March 15, 2014
Sales Conference (Omni Shoreham)
One of the most far-reaching consequences of the Euro crisis is that governments of affluent EU member states now employ substantive financial resources for guarantees and bailouts of their neighbors in economic distress. This puts a spotlight on public opinion, because EU citizens see their taxes being used for unique fiscal transfers. However, what structures public opinion on intergovernmental redistribution in the EU? This paper contributes to an emerging literature on this topic (Bechtel, Hainmueller, and Margalit, 2012 and forthcoming; Stoeckel and Kuhn, forthcoming) in two ways. First, it compares citizens’ attitudes on EU fiscal transfers to their views on other tax uses: redistribute domestic policies and other international transfers, such as foreign aid. Second, I examine elite leverage over public opinion on international fiscal transfers. To this end, I conduct a survey experiment on the extent to which elites can mobilize citizen’s identities – national or European – for or against EU fiscal transfers. This allows me to map the cleavage structure that underlies public opinion on redistributive issues at the international level, while also examining the leverage of elite cues. Data comes from an online survey answered by a probability sample of German web users (accessed through Yougov). Germany is selected for its large contribution to EU bailout packages and power over future fiscal transfer mechanisms in the EU.
