Elite Cues and International Fiscal Solidarity: New Evidence from a Survey Experiment

The goal of this paper is to assess the impact of elite cues on people’s support for transnational redistribution in a multi-party system. The paper relies on analyses of the German Longitudinal Election Survey 2013 and an online survey experiment (N=1013) fielded before the European Parliament elections 2014 in Germany. Previous research (Bechtel et al. 2014) finds that supporters of German mainstream parties view transnational redistribution of fiscal resources in the EU more favorably than supporters of an extreme left or right wing party. However, it is unclear whether this association between elite positions and public opinion on transnational redistribution really reflects elite cueing rather than ideological congruence between parties and supporters. Our experimental results reveal the causal relationship and show the mobilizing effect of elite cues on citizens’ attitudes towards transnational redistribution. Yet, it is only people who feel close to a party that follow elite cues. People who do not identify with a particular party – about 30 percent of citizens – ignore elite messages even when a strong party consensus is made salient. Our results additionally provide insights into the generalizability of predominantly US American research on elite cueing effects to a European multi-party system.