Misinformedness about the European Union and the Preference to Vote to Leave or Remain

Autor(en)

Julia Partheymüller, Carolina Plescia, Sylvia Kritzinger

Abstrakt

European politicians have become increasingly concerned about the possible distorting effects of citizens not only being uninformed, but systematically misinformed about the European Union (EU). Against this background, this study assesses the role of EU knowledge in shaping the preference to vote to leave or remain in a (hypothetical) referendum on EU membership using cross-national survey data that were collected simultaneously in eight EU countries during the run-up to the 2019 EP elections. The surveys included a newly designed item battery of EU knowledge capturing both the accuracy as well as confidence in knowledge of the respondents. The results show that misinformedness is associated with a preference to leave the EU, the uninformed citizens tend to be undecided or not intending to vote, while the well-informed prefer to remain. Overall, our findings contribute to the ongoing debates about the role of misinformation in politics.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Staatswissenschaft

Journal

Journal of Common Market Studies

Band

60

Seiten

1449-1469

Anzahl der Seiten

21

ISSN

0021-9886

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13316

Publikationsdatum

09-2022

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

504007 Empirische Sozialforschung, 506004 Europäische Integration

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Economics and Econometrics, Business, Management and Accounting(all), Political Science and International Relations, Business and International Management

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/misinformedness-about-the-european-union-and-the-preference-to-vote-to-leave-or-remain(9b31d95f-7bf4-45b9-8942-77af02c59306).html