Abstract
Our goal is to contribute to the debate on public opinion about foreign policy by studying French opinion on European defence. According to surveys, around 80% of French people support it. From a minimalist point of view, such a support must result from answers given au hasard to questions that only political elites are interested in. But such an explanation is short-sighted. People may lack information about European defence and may not pay much attention to it, but even though: why would the hazard be so much positively inclined? To answer this question, this paper proposes to use James Stimson's public policy mood applied to French opinion on European defence, in order to observe its evolutions over time (1991-2016). This aggregate measure reveals that behind this support, there are movements in the public opinion linked to international events, demonstrating people's capacity to think about this issue and connect the dots. It also shows that the support to European defence is correlated to opinions towards the transatlantic relationship, whereas it is not correlated to attitudes towards European integration. However, one question remains: how can this correlation be explained? The way the media frame European defence is assumed to explain this trend. By looking at the way surveys questions on these topics are asked on the one hand, and by comparing surveys results to media coverage of European defence on the other hand, we demonstrate this relationship between public opinion and media frames.
Panel: Democratization and Politicization of Military Issues in Europe
Cite this presentation
@inproceedings{eiss-2018-it-s-the-americans-stupid-is-it-understanding-the-french-suspect-plebiscite-for,
author = {Cyrille Thiébaut},
title = {It’s the Americans, Stupid... Is it? Understanding the French (Suspect) Plebiscite for European Defense},
booktitle = {European Security Studies Conference 2018},
year = {2018},
url = {https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2018-it-s-the-americans-stupid-is-it-understanding-the-french-suspect-plebiscite-for.html}
}