Shaping Public Opinion about Regional Integration: The Rhetoric of Justification and Party Cues

Abstract

The article investigates how justifications used by politicians to explain their positions on policies of regional integration shape public opinion about these policies. I argue that support for a policy position increases when politicians tailor their justifications to the expectations of their audience, and I suggest that this happens even when party cues offer a less effortful way of forming opinions. I test my theoretical expectations in laboratory experiments with diverse samples, which manipulate party cues and justifications for a policy of European integration. I find that citizens use justifications and cues to form opinions. The relative importance of the two factors depends on individual dispositions and political context. In a non-competitive context (study 1), politically invested citizens use cues, while uninvested citizens use justifications. In a competitive context (study 2), the opinions of politically invested citizens are shaped by both factors, while the opinions of uninvested citizens become erratic.