Who’s Tired of Supporting the War? Elite Cues & NATO’s Commitment to Ukraine

• In Event: Elite Cues, Policy Information, and Discourse

Abstract

Why do NATO leaders occasionally signal opposition to collective action? How do they justify this opposition to their allies and the public, and do their arguments influence public opinion within alliance member states? This puzzle has become increasingly relevant in light of NATO’s commitment to support Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Democratic leaders are generally sensitive to public opinion about war and have an incentive to shape popular support for military interventions in both domestic and foreign audiences. Though all NATO members have committed to the transatlantic consensus of aiding Ukraine, the observable trend of war fatigue in a number of prominent NATO countries indicates a shift in supportive attitudes as concerns of a frozen conflict loom. This paper proposes a population-based survey experiment in Germany to explore whose communication matters most for shaping public opinion towards the war in Ukraine, comparing messaging from the national leader with that of allied leaders and foreign leaders directly involved in the conflict. Not only is Germany an extremely important NATO member-state, but its political climate features salient ideological divides regarding the alliance. German public opinion towards NATO tends to be volatile, which indicates that elite cues may exert significant influence on public support for NATO’s engagements. The population-based, conjoint experiment explores the effects of negative cues (emphasizing war fatigue) and positive cues (emphasizing no war fatigue) from four important leaders: Chancellor Scholz, President Biden, President Putin, and President Zelenskyy. Elite cues to (dis)continue national contributions to the war effort are likely more effective when individuals trust the elite, prompting an additional inquiry into the role of trust as a moderator in the relationship between communication and popular support for war.

Author

• Hannah Elizabeth Jakob Barrett, Aarhus University