Public Support for TTIP in EU Countries: What Determines Trade

Policy Preferences in a Salient Case?

Paper prepared for presentation at the ECPR Graduate Student Conference, University of

Tartu, 10-13 July 2016

Nils D. Steiner

Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz Department of Political Science

55099 Mainz Germany

E-Mail: steiner@politik.uni-mainz.de Web: www.nilssteiner.com

Abstract: Research on attitudes towards international economic integration usually measures support for economic openness via survey questions on abstract preferences in contexts where policies on international economic integration are, arguably, of low salience in the public mind. The ongoing controversy over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) represents an opportunity to re-examine the correlates of individual-level preferences over international economic integration on a specific real-world case of relatively high salience. In this paper, I draw on three recent rounds of Eurobarometer surveys conducted in the 28 EU member states and previous approaches to explaining preferences over international economic integration to explore the correlates of preferences towards a free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA. I find that, at the individual level, attitudes towards TTIP are most strongly related to general attitudes towards economic globalization and the European Union as well as satisfaction with the functioning of (national) democracy. At the aggregate level, support for TTIP is unrelated to a number of a priori likely correlates such as general levels of economic openness and economic ties to the US. Suggestive evidence is obtained that the prevalence of post-materialist values in a society might to some extent account for cross-country variation in opposition to TTIP. Overall, the findings add to growing skepticism that attitudes towards economic openness can primarily be explained by economic self-interest and point to politically richer explanations that reserve a role not only for socio-cultural attitudes towards international openness, but also for the broader political processes surrounding the dispute over a particular trade policy.

Acknowledgements: Previous versions of this work were presented at a research seminar at the Department of Political Science and at the Mainz Workshop on Foreign Direct Investment and Multinational Corporations, both at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. I thank the participants for their helpful and constructive criticisms and suggestions.

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1. Introduction

Since July 2013 the EU and the USA are negotiating over a free trade and investment agreement named

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). With tariffs between the USA and the EU already

down to a low level, the main focus of TTIP lies in the reduction of non-tariff barriers to international

trade and investment (see Council of the European Union 2013). The broad reduction of market access

restrictions and regulatory hurdles to international trade and investment amounts to a particular ambitious,

deep form of international economic integration. Even the sheer sizes of the involved economies,

together amounting to almost half of worldwide GDP, render TTIP a preferential free-trade agreement of

extraordinary high scope.1 As compared to the usual low public salience of international trade policies in

the EU member countries, TTIP has gained a remarkable amount of attention in the media and public

spheres of at least some of the EU member states. This public attention has brought stiff controversies

and fierce opposition with regard to the negotiation process itself and over the substance of the potential

future treaty. An international alliance named “Stop TTIP” collected over 3.25 million signatures against

TTIP (and CETA) in an unofficial “European Citizen’s initiative” from 7 October 2014 to 6 October

2015 (Stop TTIP 2015) and a large demonstration against TTIP with about 150,000 participants took

place in the German capital on 10 October 2015 (FAZ 2015), for example. According to the most recent

available Eurobarometer data from November 2015 (see below), a free trade and investment agreement

between the EU and USA is still supported by a clear majority of Europeans, but opposition is on the rise

and opponents outnumber TTIP supporters (already) in four of the EU member states. On the European

side, the ratification of a TTIP will ultimately require approval by the European Parliament, the European

Council and, in all likelihood, ratification within the member states in accordance with their national

regulations, i.e. in most cases approval by the national parliaments. In some countries (e.g. the

Netherlands), even a public referendum is not unlikely to follow after a TTIP has passed the national

parliament.

As the stakes involved in a potential future transatlantic free trade agreement are high and public opinion

will matter in some way for the final outcome of the negotiations, it is important to know what explains

individual attitudes towards TTIP. Yet despite the high relevance of this issue no previous study

systematically studies the correlates of attitudes toward TTIP, to the best of my knowledge.2 The present

contribution represents an initial attempt towards addressing this research gap.

Support for TTIP is, however, not only of interest in itself, but forms a very interesting case for the

academic study of preferences towards international economic integration more generally. This is for a

1 For a general treatment of preferential free trade agreements, see Dür and Elsig (2015). 2 A partial exception is a working paper by Andreas Dür (2015) who fielded an original survey on TTIP in France, Germany and the United Kingdom in early 2015. Yet, Dür is not interested in the correlates of support for TTIP per se, but rather uses the case to study the role of interest group cues and substantial frames via survey experiments. He finds that interest group cues do not matter for support for TTIP, while substantial frames pointing to positive or negative effects of the trade agreement have an effect that is, moreover, moderated by self-reported prior information levels on TTIP and general attitude strength on the question of free trade vs. protectionism.

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number of related reasons. First, there is by now a sizable literature on preferences towards international

economic integration and specifically towards international trade, yet these studies usually measure

preferences over economic integration through abstract questions in contexts where trade policy is,

arguably, of rather low salience in the public mind (for evidence on this low salience with regard to the

US, see Guisinger 2009). It is questionable whether such survey expressions are anchored in well-

developed opinions on the issue (on this general “non-attitude” problem, see Converse 1964 and Zaller

1992) and, therefore, whether they matter for preferences in specific real-world controversies over trade

policies. Against this background, it seems wise to re-examine the role of different approaches to the

explanation of preferences toward international economic openness in a real-world case of relatively high

salience. In this paper, I focus on three such approaches: (1.) the economic self-interest argument, (2.)

socio-cultural attitudes towards openness and internationalization, and (3.) cues from and attitudes

towards political elites. Do these approaches help us to explain support for TTIP as well? Are attitudes

towards TTIP shaped by general preferences towards economic openness in the first place? A second

related issue is that the usual focus on general preferences towards free trade leaves open the question of

free trade with whom (see also Kuo and Naoi 2015: 102). In this regard, studying a specific preferential

free-trade agreement is interesting, inter alia, in that it allows us to test theories of economic self-interest

in a more focused way by drawing on specific predictions on which individuals (or countries) are likely to

gain or lose from this particular deal. Such predictions provide us with additional empirical leverage for

assessing the validity of theories of economic self-interest. A third advantage is that studying preferences

for specific salient trade policies allows us to consider the impact of the broader political process

surrounding it. It might be the case, for example, that individuals oppose a specific trade policy out of

their distrust of those political elites who initiated the proposal. Again, such potential insights are lost if we

only measure and study general preferences towards international trade.3 In short, studying public

preferences over specific salient and controversial trade policies means studying attitudes towards trade

policy when and in a form in which they are most likely to matter for concrete political processes and

outcomes.

This study examines the correlates of support for TTIP via an observational design. I draw on three recent

rounds of Eurobarometer surveys conducted in the 28 EU member states in November 2014 (EB 82.3),

May 2015 (EB 83.3) and November 2015 (EB 84.3). These surveys contain a binary measure of approval

3 Similar arguments are raised in two studies on Costa Rica’s referendum on the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (Hicks et al. 2014; Urbatsch 2013). I build on these more recent attempts to study trade policy preferences in a more focused and disaggregated way. In this context, we should also mention Rho and Tomz’ (2015) approach of studying preferences towards protectionism for specific industries. Another related and clever idea is to study preferences towards hypothetical preferential trade agreement via conjoint experiments (Spilker et al. forthcoming; Strezhnev 2013). All these recent studies, and some more, confront the problem identified by Kuo and Naoi (2015: 102) in their recent state-of-the-art review on individual attitudes toward trade policy: “[W]hile the menu of trade policy options that governments can adopt is complex in reality, the majority of survey instruments used have asked for respondents’ opinions about ‘placing new limits on imports’ or ‘increasing trade’ […] While these questions might allow scholars to solicit citizens’ gut-based, general reactions to trade, these survey instruments often diverge from the day-to-day context in which citizens think about trade policy.”

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of a free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA and a number of interesting

measures that tap into attitudes likely to affect support for TTIP (even though not all of these measures

are perfect for the present purpose). I combine these surveys with data on economic aggregates. The

resulting dataset is analyzed by means of multilevel regression models. The analysis mostly focusses on the

individual level factors correlated with support for TTIP – in line with the main theoretical interest of this

paper and in light of the limitations to studying country effects via multilevel models when the number of

countries is modest, especially in non-linear models (e.g. Bryan/Jenkins 2016; Stegmueller 2013). I

cautiously introduce some country-level predictors in supplementary analyses of a more exploratory

nature.

I find that, at the individual level, attitudes towards TTIP are most strongly related to general attitudes

towards economic globalization and the European Union as well as satisfaction with the functioning of

(national) democracy. At the aggregate level, support for TTIP is unrelated to a number of a priori likely

correlates such as general levels of economic openness and economic ties to the US. Suggestive evidence

is obtained that the prevalence of post-materialist values in a society might to some extent account for the

amount of opposition towards TTIP causing a negative association between GDP per capita and approval

of TTIP. Overall, the findings add to growing skepticism that attitudes towards economic openness can

primarily be explained by economic self-interest and point to politically richer explanations that reserve a

role not only for socio-cultural attitudes towards international openness, but also for the broader political

processes surrounding the dispute over a particular trade policy.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section two reviews the three main approaches to

explaining preferences towards international economic integration: economic self-interest, socio-cultural

attitudes towards internationalization and cues from and attitudes towards political elites. Section three

applies these general approaches to the particular circumstances of TTIP in order to derive expectations

on the correlates of support for TTIP on the individual and aggregate level. In doing so, I add

considerations that are specific to the case of TTIP and cannot be meaningfully subsumed under the

umbrella of one of the three main approaches. Section four describes the data and discusses estimation

issues. Section five presents the results. A final section concludes.

2. Explaining preferences over international economic integration: Three main approaches

Previous research on individual preferences towards international economic integration has, mostly

focusing specifically on international trade policy, identified three major sets of explanatory factors: (1.)

determinants related to economic self-interest, (2.) socio-cultural attitudes towards openness and

international integration and (3.) cues from and attitudes towards political elites.4 In this section, I briefly

4 This categorization is roughly in line with Hicks et al.’s (2014: 106) three-fold classification into a “bottom-up” approach that focusses on economic self-interest, another bottom-up approach dealing with non-economic attitudes and a “top-down” approach suggesting “that voters are often uncertain about their preferences or can be swayed by

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review each of these three approaches which I will then apply to the particular circumstances of TTIP in

section three in order to derive a set of hypotheses to be tested in the empirical part.

One obvious first source for divergent preferences towards international economic integration is economic

self-interest: Those who are likely to economically gain from economic openness should be in favor of more

integration, those who are likely to economically lose should oppose further integration. A rich body of

literature in mass international political economy draws on this basic argument. Typically focusing on

preferences towards trade policy, these studies employ some theory of international trade in order to

derive predictions on who is likely to materially gain from further trade integration, and should be in favor

of free trade, and who is likely to lose, and should hold protectionist attitudes. The underlying models

used to develop expectations on the distributive consequences of increased openness in this literature are

mostly of the traditional Ricardo-Viner or Heckscher-Ohlin type.

In the Ricardo-Viner world (i.e. the specific factors models), winners and losers are defined along sectoral

lines with workers or capital-owners in comparatively advantaged industries, i.e. those industries

producing at lower relative opportunity costs as compared to the production abroad, gaining from

liberalization. From the Ricardo-Viner perspective, we would expect those who work in industries that are

comparatively advantaged to be in favor of free trade; while those working in comparatively disadvantaged

industries should tend to favor protection. In the Heckscher-Ohlin world (i.e. the factor endowment

model), where factors of production are mobile between industries, the distributive cleavages divide

different factors of production instead of sectors. According to the Stolper-Samuelson theorem that is

based on this model, capital and/or skilled-labor profits from international economic integration in

relatively capital and/or skill abundant countries (see: Rogowski 1989: chapter 1). In global comparison, in

the developed countries high-skilled labor and capital are the relatively abundant factors, while low-skilled

labor is relatively scarce. As high-skilled workers are the ones objectively expected to gain from an

increase in economic openness in the developed countries, they should be more supportive of increased

economic openness in general – according to the logic of economic self-interest.

The seminal contribution by Scheve and Slaughter (2001) tests the model implications of the sectoral and

the factor endowment model against each other using data from the US. Scheve and Slaughter find that

those with higher skill levels are less protectionist as predicted by the Heckscher-Ohlin model, while

international competitiveness of the sector in which individuals work is not consequential in their model.

A number of other studies confirm the basic pattern reported by Scheve and Slaughter that, in relatively

rich developed countries, preferences are divided across factoral lines with higher educated individuals

tending towards free trade as predicted by the Heckscher-Ohlin model (Hays et al. 2005; Mayda and

Rodrik 2005; O’Rourke and Sinnott 2001; Scheve and Slaughter 2006). Some of these studies also point to

political elites who, because of their public position, resources, and information, have the capacity to influence public opinion.”

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the simultaneous effects of sector of employment consistent with the Ricardo-Viner model (e.g. Hays et

al. 2005; Mayda and Rodrik 2005).

In addition to the Heckscher-Ohlin and Ricardo-Viner perspective, a more recent contribution to this

literature (Ardanaz et al. 2013) has drawn on the “new new” trade theory (see the seminal contribution:

Melitz 2003) to rationalize a skill level-gap in support for economic openness that holds even in relatively

skill-scarce countries. The underlying logic of this heterogeneous firms-model is that, from an intra-

industry perspective, it will be highly productive firms that draw heavily on input from high-skilled labor

that profit from increased export opportunities. This, in turn, drives up the demand and reward for skilled

labor.

The economic-self-interest argument has come under attack by researchers who argue that the differences

in attitudes toward trade between individuals with higher and lower individual attainments are actually

caused by differences in exposure to the idea of free trade being beneficial (Hainmueller and Hiscox 2006)

and/or socio-cultural attitudes towards international openness (Mansfield and Mutz 2009) (see again

below). This critique has, in turn, stimulated rejoinders defending the notion of material self-interest

shaping trade policy preferences (Fordham and Kleinberg 2012). The question whether and how

economic self-interest matters for trade policy preferences appears not definitely settled yet, despite rising

skepticism (see also some further recent contributions: Hicks et al. 2014; Rho and Tomz 2015; Urbatsch

2013).

Apart from economic self-interest effects along distributive divides on the individual level, so called socio-

tropic gains or losses that concern the nation as a whole could be of relevance. Mansfield and Mutz (2009)

show that perceived effects of trade on the US economy are strongly correlated with support for free

trade. While the idea that expected welfare gains or losses on the national level matter for trade policy

preferences is plausible, it is unclear whether such a correlation reflects a causal effect of perceived socio-

tropic effects on trade preferences: individual survey responses on the perceived socio-tropic economic

consequences of trade are likely to be endogenous to an individual’s general stance towards free trade

(Fordham and Kleinberg 2012). The role of expected aggregate welfare gains should thus be reconsidered

through more objective measures of aggregate welfare effects.

A potential second source of divergent preferences over economic openness are socio-cultural attitudes

towards openness and international integration. Margalit (2012), for example, argues that individuals view

economic integration as being part of a broader “openness package”. He shows that opposition towards

economic globalization does not only reflect economic concerns, but also social and cultural ones, like

fear of foreign influences and culture or concern over “Americanization” specifically, that individuals

attach to economic globalization. This view is actually in line with findings from earlier studies which

focused on the economic self-interest argument, but found that socio-cultural attitudes towards

internationalism – like patriotism and ethnic chauvinism (O’Rourke and Sinnott 2001), nationalism (Hays

et al. 2005) and cosmopolitanism (Mayda and Rodrik 2005) – matter as well. The main idea of this line of

thought is that individuals do not neatly distinguish between economic and socio-cultural dimensions of

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openness and internationalization. This implies, in turn, that a strong attachment to the national

community and an opposition to the erosion of national borders in the social, cultural and political realm

can affect preferences towards internationalization on the economic dimension.5 Moreover, if higher

educated individuals differ from lower-skilled individuals systematically on socio-cultural attitudes towards

openness and international integration with regard to such factors as ethnocentrism, nationalism and

isolationism, then a skill-gap in trade policy preferences might arise without being caused by economic self-

interest (Mansfield and Mutz 2009).

A third set of explanations of individual’s preferences over international economic integration which I

subsume under the umbrella “cues from and attitudes towards political elites” has only recently gained traction

(see: Hicks et al. 2014; Jensen and Shin 2014; Naoi and Urata 2013; Urbatsch 2013). Under this rubric I

summarize somewhat heterogeneous theoretical arguments that start from the common idea that trade

policy preferences are not formed in a political vacuum and emphasize influences of the broader political

processes surrounding the dispute over a particular trade policy. More specifically, trade policy preferences

are thought to be powerfully influenced by elite cues. On the level of individual attitudes, orientations

towards political elites and general political orientations that influence an individual’s susceptibility to

different elite messages and framing strategies are thus likely to be influential. Moreover, citizen’s general

ideological orientations might give them heuristic reasons, i.e. act as information short-cuts, to support or

oppose specific trade policy proposals. A plethora of studies on party identification, for example, has

shown that individuals often adopt the issue positions advocated by their party (e.g. Achen and Bartels

2006). It is more than likely that similar effects of elite cues exist for a rather complex and abstract

political issue as trade policy preferences; at least in circumstances were elites send clear messages. This

conjecture is borne out by recent empirical evidence. In a study on Costa Rica’s referendum on the

Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), for example, Hicks et al.

(2014) find strong partisan divides. In their verdict, it was in the end “the political cueing and framing

done by the leading party, the PLN” (Hicks et al. 2014: 115) that helped to tilt the balance in favor of the

approval of CAFTA-DR in the referendum (see also Urbatsch 2013). Other studies have also documented

robust effects of party attachment on citizens’ attitudes towards rather complex questions of international

economic policy like preferences towards international bail-outs in the Eurozone crisis (Bechtel et al.

2014) or voting behavior in Iceland’s second “Icesafe” referendum on sovereign debt resettlement (Curtis

et al. 2014). Going beyond party attachments, research on voting behavior in EU referenda has identified

satisfaction with the national government as an important predictor (e.g. Hobolt 2015). In addition to

attitudes towards political elites, like party attachments or orientations towards the national government,

general ideological orientations like placements on the left-right scale might also help citizens to form

preferences on such specific and relatively complex issues (Bechtel et al. 2014: 839; Urbatsch 2013: 202).

5 Note that this is not to say that this bundling is necessarily irrational or wrong. It is quite plausibly that increased economic openness leads to increased exposure to foreign cultural influences.

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3. The correlates of support for TTIP: Theoretical expectations

In this section, I discuss expectations on the determinants of support for TTIP on the individual and

aggregate level. Drawing on the distinction from the previous section, I consider expectations that might

follow from an economic self-interest perspective (3.1), socio-cultural attitudes towards openness and

international integration (3.2) and cues from and attitudes towards political elites (3.3). I complement

these perspectives with a discussion of specific additional factors potentially relevant for TTIP (3.4) that

cannot be classified as belonging to one of these three groups of explanations.

3.1 The economic self-interest perspective

In the context of TTIP, preference divides related to material self-interest might enter at the individual

level and the country level. I consider both perspectives in turn.

Following the literature on trade policy preferences reviewed above, distributive divides on the individual

level can potentially take place along sectoral lines or divide different factors of production. In case of

TTIP and the EU countries, predictions on which individuals should gain (and which lose) are

complicated by the fact that comparative advantages of sectors as compared to the US and factor

endowments potentially differ between EU member states. Therefore, the individual divides might differ

in a complex way across countries. Here, I focus on the general effects of potential divides along factoral

lines6 – that are not obvious either. The typical prediction (and finding, see above) in studies on general

preferences towards international economic openness is that, in the developed countries, higher-skilled

workers tend to prefer more openness. Recall that this is argued to be the case, because in global

comparison, in the developed countries high-skilled workers are the relatively abundant factors; and the

relatively abundant factors are those predicted to gain from economic integration. Therefore, the reverse

pattern should hold in developing countries, at least from the logic of the Heckscher-Ohlin model.

Interestingly, for the relatively developed countries of the European Union the effects of skill-level with

regard to specific trade agreements should also differ depending on the factor endowment of the partner

countries. This nuance is lost in studies that examine general support for free trade, although such

variation seems highly useful to test additional implications on how economic self-interest should shape

preferences towards economic integration from the factor endowment perspective. With regard to the

distributional consequences of a potential trade deal between the US and the EU, Felbermayr et al. (2014:

40f.) argue that “the structure of factor endowments across the Atlantic is not too different. This leaves

little scope for Stolper-Samuelson type effects. So, there are reasons to believe that distributional

consequences from a TTIP should be limited, too.” From the Heckscher-Ohlin perspective, we would

therefore expect no meaningful differences in support for TTIP across individuals with different 6 Note right away that the survey data used below contain no sufficiently detailed information on sector of employment such that a detailed discussion on sectoral divides would proof rather moot in the context of this study in any case.

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educational attainments and skill-levels. The new new trade theory would, however, expect relatively larger

gains for higher skilled-individuals. Available economic estimates on the potential impacts of TTIP in the

EU across different skill-levels point to largely similar gains across skill-levels. In Eggert et al.’s (2015)

estimates the income gains are even marginally higher for lower skilled workers; while they are “marginally

lower for skilled workers” according to Francois et al. (2013: 71). While there is uncertainty as to the

relative gains across workers with different skill-levels, there is at least no clear expectation of relatively

more gains for high-skilled labor. From the self-interest perspective, no significant differences across

people with different educational attainments and skill-levels are, therefore, to be expected in the case of

TTIP. Interestingly, this contrasts clearly with theoretical expectations and empirical findings on general

preferences towards trade (in relatively developed countries).

With regard to the country-level it should first be noted that major studies on the economic impact of a

transatlantic free trade and investment agreement point to meaningful overall aggregate welfare gains

(Eggert et al. 2015; Felbermayr et al. 2015; Fontagné et al. 2013; Francois et al. 2013). Partly a natural

consequence of the fact that the particular content of a potential future TTIP is as yet unclear, but also

reflecting different methodological approaches to estimating the effects (for short discussions, see:

Felbermayr and Larch 2013: 16f; Rodrik 2015), the particular estimates of potential long-run gains vary

widely: While Francois et al. (2013) estimate a potential increase in real GDP per capita of 0.48% for the

EU, Felbermayr et al. (2015) predict a long-run increase of 3.9%. Despite giving rise to overall welfare

gains, the particular magnitude of these gains will likely differ across countries. The economic self-interest

argument would hold that across-country variation in support for TTIP is associated with expected

economic welfare gains at the country level. One could in principle, i.e. if such measures were available,

capture this by measuring citizens’ subjective expectations on overall gains or losses for their country. Yet

such self-assessment would introduce strong endogeneity concerns (see above). The approach taken in

this contribution is to explore whether cross-country differences in support for TTIP are related to a

number of factors that proxy for whether publics might expect gains from TTIP. One might expect that

support is higher in countries with higher degrees of economic openness to begin with as these tend to be

more dependent on and accustomed to international economic openness. In a similar vein, economic ties

to the US specifically could matter. Publics in countries that have profited from FDI from the US in the

past might expect to profit in the future as well, for example. Another approach is to draw on existing

measuring of expected gains at the country-level from economic studies on the impact of TTIP (Aichele

et al. 2014; Felbermayr et al. 2015). Taking the economic self-interest argument seriously, the empirical

analysis below explores how support for TTIP at the country-level is related to such variables.

3.2 Socio-cultural attitudes towards openness and international integration

With regard to socio-cultural attitudes towards openness and international integration in general, there is

little reason to suggest any specific patterns originating from the particular features of TTIP. In

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accordance with the previous studies discussed above on preferences toward economic openness in

general, we would thus assume that those who are more strongly attached to their nation and who object

to socio-cultural and political aspects of internationalization are also more likely to oppose TTIP.

3.3 Cues from and attitudes towards political elites

Given the high levels of politicization of TTIP at least in some of the EU member states, there are ample

possibilities for elite cues and, consequently, attitudes towards political elites to influence attitudes toward

TTIP. I focus here on four explanatory factors on the individual level that seem of high relevance and are

largely similarly applicable across all European countries.

The first factor are general attitudes towards the EU. On the European side, TTIP is initiated and

negotiated by EU institutions. Moreover, especially the European Commission is actively advocating

TTIP, emphasizing its advantages and thereby trying to persuade the European public (see e.g. European

Commission 2015a). If there is any single elite-level entity being perceived as being unequivocally in

support of TTIP and similarly so across all member states it is “the” EU. Against this background,

attitudes towards the EU should serve as a powerful force shaping individual’s stances towards TTIP.

Those who generally oppose the EU, should also be more likely to oppose TTIP given that it is an EU

initiative that is clearly advocated by central EU actors. In contrast, those with more positive orientations

towards the EU should from the outset be more sympathetic to the EU initiated TTIP and also more

likely to buy into the framing strategies and persuasion efforts by mainstream EU elites.

Second, a similar argument can be put forward with regard to national governments, although the

connection is less clear than for the EU. The mandate for the TTIP negotiations from June 2013 stems

from the European Council that authorized the Commission to open the negotiations in the first place. At

least at this initial stage, most, if not all, national governments should be classified as being generally

supportive of TTIP, but over time some have taken a more ambiguous public position (also consider that

a number of governments have changed in the meantime). At least in cases where national governments

publicly take a decidedly positive position towards TTIP, those who trust the national government should

be more likely to support TTIP, according to the elite-cueing idea (also see: Sattler/Urpelainen 2012:

1112f.). On average, one might expect a positive relation between trust in the national government and

support for TTIP. This general expectation is tested below. Yet it might hide interesting heterogeneity

between countries. While data on the position of individual governments has not been assembled yet, I

consider heterogeneity in the association between trust in the national government and support for TTIP

below in exploratory analyses that examine the individual correlates of support for TTIP on a country

specific basis.

The third factor are general ideologies in the form of left-right orientations. These could matter in two

related ways: For one thing and in line with the reasoning above, individuals might follow the messages of

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their preferred parties which will differ according to the left-right position of parties.7 Alternatively,

individuals might themselves derive their positions from their general ideological orientations. These

mechanisms are hard to disentangle empirically, but give similarly rise to the expectation of an inverted U-

shaped relation between left-right-orientations and preferences over TTIP: Opposition to TTIP might be

most pronounced on both extremes of the scale, but for different reasons. While parties and individuals

on the left are likely concerned about the economic and environmental consequences of TTIP; those on

the extreme right might oppose further integration out of opposition towards internationalization. In

France, for example, the Front National has by now taken a clear position against TTIP (EurActiv 2015)

alongside opposition from the Greens, from left-wing parts within the Socialist Party and left-wing civil

society groups such as Attac. Similar dividing lines are apparent from the voting records on a motion for

resolution dealing with the TTIP negotiations adopted by the European Parliament on July 8th, 2015

(Votewatch EU 2015). One might expect a similar inverted U-shaped pattern on the individual level.8

Finally, attitudes towards political elites and the political system more broadly might matter at a yet more

fundamental level. To the extent that citizens do not strongly differentiate between what they perceive as

political elites, a rejection of what are perceived to be elite-initiated policy proposals might be fueled by a

general disaffection with the functioning of the political system. Although this specific reasoning seems (to

my knowledge) largely neglected in previous research on the topic, it could be the case that opposition to

TTIP acts as a welcome channel for the expression of latent feelings of political disaffection and anti-

system attitudes. Anecdotal observations on the reasoning Dutch citizens gave for their rejections of the

EU-Ukraine association agreement in the recent referendum, whose outcome is hard to make sense of on

substantial grounds only, for example, supports the view that despite anti-EU orientations, broader

dissatisfaction with the political system played a motivating role (The Guardian 2016). Accordingly, we

might expect that, in addition to attitudes towards specific political elites, broader (dis-)satisfaction with

the functioning of the political system might drive attitudes towards TTIP to some extent.

3.4 Specific additional factors

So far the discussion has concentrated on structural explanations for support and opposition towards

TTIP that draw on previous literature on citizen’s attitudes towards trade openness. This approach allows

us to re-examine existing theories on preferences toward economic integration on a salient case. Yet, as

touched upon in the introduction, the planned TTIP is a preferential trade agreement of extraordinary

scope and depth. The specifics of this agreement and the public controversy surrounding it give rise to a

7 Note that there is no measure in the Eurobarometer survey used below on preferences for specific parties. Left-right orientations is used as a reasonable proxy for partisan divides in this context. 8 As with attitudes towards the national government, there are good reasons to expect heterogeneity across countries in the effect of left-right orientations on support for TTIP. Country specific patterns are likely to result from the fact that party endorsements for TTIP differ across countries with, e.g., opposition to TTIP on the right being present in some party systems, but not in others.

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set of specific additional considerations that are discussed in this section. TTIP proponents and

opponents tend to highlight different aspects of the agreement, framing the discussion over TTIP in

different ways. TTIP proponents tend to emphasize the potential economic benefits of a TTIP. TTIP

opponents (more visibly in some European countries than in others) have focused on specific substantial

concerns like the controversial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) procedure or fears over weakened

consumer or environmental protection as well as on procedural criticisms relating to the allegedly low

transparency of the negotiation process.

Given this specific discussion over TTIP which differ from the usually largely exclusively economically

framed discussions over trade agreements (to the extent that there are strong public controversies at all), it

is debatable to what extent preferences over TTIP are related to general preferences for economic

openness at all. Previous research suggests that they closely are (Dür 2015). Yet, it is important to re-

evaluate this finding in the present study.

No matter whether the different viewpoints – economic benefits on the one hand, concerns over

consumer and environmental protection as well as national sovereignty on the other – in the discussion

over TTIP reflect real trade-offs or merely different framing strategies, they are likely to affect citizen’s

orientations towards TTIP. In the only existing study on attitudes towards TTIP (I know of), Dür (2015)

shows via survey experiments that support for TTIP tends to be higher in the context of positive

economic frames and lower if embedded in negative frames relating to ISDS. Against this background and

with regard to citizens’ preexisting views, we might expect those who prioritize economic issues to be

more supportive of TTIP. In contrast, those who prioritize consumer protection, concerns over the

sovereignty of national democracy and protection of the environment, should be more likely to oppose

TTIP. Such issue priorities might reflect underlying differences in basic value priorities and/or be a

product of considerations that affect issue attention in the short term. Inglehart’s (1977) classic distinction

between materialist and post-materialist values seems like a good approximation to conceptualize

differences in basic value priorities that should matter in this regard. Below, I consider both: issue

priorities (for the economy and the environment, specifically) and post-materialist values as a measure of

underlying basic value priorities.

In addition, previous research on preferences towards economic integration with specific partner countries

(Jensen/Lindstädt 2013; Spilker et al. forthcoming; Strezhnev 2013) shows that characteristics of the

partner countries matter for preference formation as well. With regard to TTIP, opposition might be

related to generally negative opinions of the US. Anti-Americans might be more skeptical with regard to

the US, because they are critical of the US government’s intentions during the negotiations, fearing an

agreement that is disadvantageous for the EU; or due to simpler affective mechanisms.

12

4. Data and estimation

This section introduces the data used in the empirical analysis and describes the empirical methodology. I

first give a brief overview on the public opinion survey(s) used below and discuss the individual-level

measures that are assembled from these survey data (section 4.1). Second (section 4.2), I describe the

macro-level measures that are added to the individual-level data. Finally, I discuss the statistical models

used to analyze the correlates of support for TTIP (section 4.3).

4.1 Individual-level measures

For the empirical analysis, I utilize the data from the Standard Eurobarometer (EB) surveys 82.3

(November 2014), 83.3 (May 2015) and 84.3 (November 2015) (European Commission 2015b, 2015c,

2016) on the 28 EU member countries. These three surveys are pooled for two reasons: they contain

homogenous measures on (almost) all constructs of interest and their combination maximizes precision in

the empirical estimations. Each of the surveys used a multistage random sampling procedure within the

respective countries. The universe consists of the population of the respective countries of age 15 or older

excluding all residents who do not hold a nationality of one of the 28 EU member states. Interviews were

carried out face-to-face. Overall, 83,340 completed interviews are part of the pooled dataset with sample

sizes ranging from about 1,500 cases for Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta and usually about 3,000 cases for

the rest (with equal shares for the three EB waves).9

The dependent variable, support for a free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA, is

part of a broader battery on a number of EU policies or policy proposals. The exact question wording is

as follows:

“What is your opinion on each of the following statements? Please tell me for each statement, whether you are for it or

against it. […] A free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA.”

Answers are coded into the categories “for” (unweighted overall percentage: 58.9%), “against” (26.1%)

and “don’t know” (15.0%). I code this into a binary measure of support for TTIP with “don’t knows”

being coded as missing values and excluded from the analysis. Two further issues are worth discussing:

First, the question does not ask verbatim about support for “TTIP”. It is obvious that the survey

designers intended to measure support for TTIP, but opted for a more general wording in order to avoid

non-responses of those not familiar with the term. It is likely that a clear majority of respondents were

familiar with the ongoing negotiating of a TTIP and understood this question as asking about their 9 Note that the Eurobarometer contains separate regional samples in the case of Germany (West and East) and the UK (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) with an oversampling of the smaller regions. I combine these regional samples at the country level for the purposes of my analysis in order to add macro-level covariates that are measured at the country level (see below). Note further that the regional differences in support for TTIP (pooled over time) are modest in these cases: The (unweighted) fraction of those in favor of TTIP is 36.4% in Eastern Germany (of 1,356 non-missing observations) and 40.3% in Western Germany (n=2,571), and 75.1% in Great Britain (n=2,544) and 79.2% in Northern Ireland (n=678).

13

orientation towards this particular proposal. Others without any knowledge of TTIP presumably just

expressed their general attitude towards such as a measure. While it could matter whether someone

belongs to the first or the second group, the survey contains no item on familiarity with the TTIP

negotiations one could use to take this systematically into account. Second, as said, the question is part of

a battery on EU policies and policy proposals such that respondents were interviewed on their stances

towards the economic and monetary union, a common foreign policy, further EU enlargement, a common

defense and security policy, a common European policy on migration and a common energy policy as well

(in randomized order). This entails the possibility that a general orientation to such EU policies spilled

over to the TTIP question due to the questionnaire design to some extent.

As to the independent variables related to the economic self-interest argument, I measure educational

attainment through the age at which respondents finished their full-time education (or current age for

those still in education). To remove any potential distorting influence of extreme outliers, I set all values

below 13 (the 5th percentile) to 13 and all values above 27 (the 95th percentile) to 27. Additionally, the

resulting measure was rescaled to have a range of one to ease comparison of coefficients. I also make use

of an item on the respondent’s current occupation distinguishing between rather higher-skilled and rather

lower-skilled occupations and different inactive categories (see Table A 1 in the appendix for details).10

Concerning socio-cultural attitudes towards openness and international integration, the survey unfortunately contains

no direct measures of relevant latent constructs such as patriotism, nationalism or cosmopolitism. There

are two proxies available: exclusive national identity (though only for EB 83.3 and 84.3) and trust in the

United Nations. Exclusive national identity is based on a question that asks individuals whether they see

themselves as exclusively French, German, etc. or as European, or both. This information is coded into a

dummy variable differentiating those who only identify with their nation from all others. This indicator

gives us information on an individual’s attachment to her nation state, but could only be used in additional

analyses excluding EB 82.3. Trust in the United Nations, as an aspect of internationalization on the

political dimension, is measured through a binary indicator on whether respondents tend to trust (1) or

tend not to trust (0) the United Nations.

As to cues from and attitudes towards political elites, I draw on an item recording the respondent’s image of the

EU thereby capturing a general orientation towards the EU as a whole. The exact question wording reads

as follows: “In general, does the EU conjure[s] up for you a very positive, fairly positive, neutral, fairly

negative or very negative image” (recoded to range from zero for “very negative” to one for “very

positive”). Trust in the national government comes from the same item battery as trust in the UN and is,

accordingly, measured through a binary indicator on whether respondents tend to trust (1) or tend not to

trust (0) the national government. In addition, I draw on self-reported positions on the left-right scale (1-

10) as a measure of the general ideological orientation. To ease interpretation, this information is recoded

10 Unfortunately, the survey does not contain information on the industry of employment which would make it possible to test for sectoral divides. Information on income is also unavailable.

14

in two dummy variables separating those on the left (positions 1 to 3) and those in the center (positions 4

to 7) from those on the right (positions 8 to 10).11 General satisfaction “with the way democracy works”

in the respondent’s country is measured on a four point scale (“not at all satisfied”, “not very satisfied”,

“fairly satisfied” and “very satisfied” ) that has been recoded to range from zero to one and introduced as

a general measure of political (dis-)satisfaction.

The specific additional factors that could be measured on the individual level12 are operationalized in the

following way: Issue priorities, or problem attentions, are measured with a question on “the two most

important issues facing” the respective country “at the moment”. Respondents could choose maximally

two items from the following categories: “crime”, “economic situation”, “rising prices/inflation/cost of

living”, “taxation”, “unemployment”, “terrorism”, “housing”, “government debt”, “immigration”, “health

and social security”, “the education system”, “pensions” and “the environment, climate and energy

issues”. Problem attention directed at the environment is measured via a dummy variable marking

respondents that picked the last category. Attention for the economic situation is considered to be high

(=1) if respondents chose two of the three issues that deal with aspects of the economic situation, i.e.

“economic situation”, “rising prices/inflation/cost of living” and “unemployment”, and moderate (=0.5)

if they picked (only) one of these. For general attitudes towards economic openness, we can draw on

agreement with the statement “globalization is an opportunity for economic growth” on a four-point

scale. Again, this variable has been recoded to range from zero to one to allow for a rough comparison of

coefficient sizes.

In addition to these theoretically motivated variables, the statistical models control for gender (see e.g.

Mansfield et al. 2015) and age in life years (divided by 10).

4.2 Macro-level data

Beyond country-level differences that arise from individual level correlates, i.e. so called “composition

effects”, differences in support for TTIP might also be caused by macro-level phenomena. Specifically, I

introduce a number of measures of economic aggregates to test for the idea that support for TTIP might

correlate with general levels of economic openness and specific estimates of economic gains from TTIP.

In addition to that, I use aggregate information on individual attitudes that I would prefer to have on the

individual level, but that are not included in the surveys.

As to economic aggregates, I add the index of economic globalization from the KOF globalization index data

(Dreher 2006) as a summary measure of a country’s level of economic openness, and FDI instocks and

outstocks (UNCTAD 2016a) as well as flows of international trade (World Bank 2016) as more 11 Additional analyses with a linear and squared term for left-right position included led to similar results as those presented below. 12 I return to measures for post-materialism and anti-Americanism below for which only aggregate-level measures are available.

15

disaggregated measures of economic integration. From the World Development Indicators, I also take

information on GDP per capita (in PPP) as well as GDP as a measure of a country’s economic size.13

Economic ties specifically to the US are measured via data on bilateral trade volumes (International

Monetary Fund 2016) and inward and outward FDI stocks (UNCTAD 2016b). Note that information for

2015 is not yet available for any of these measures. In all cases, I made use of the most recent data which I

added as country-level information (rather than on the country-time level).14 This shouldn’t be

problematic, however, given that I am interested in differences across countries rather than time and as

the patterns of cross-country differences in these measures are quite stable relative to short-run changes in

these series. Country-level estimates on the effects of TTIP on real income are available from Aichele et

al. (2014) and Felbermayr et al. (2015).15

In addition to these economic data, I consider aggregate measures of attitudes that could not be measured via

the EB survey data. As discussed in section 3, general attitudes towards the US and post-materialist values

might affect individual attitudes towards TTIP. To allow for an initial exploration of these factors, I add

external information from previous EBs: The share of anti-Americans in European countries in 2006 as

reported in Lawson and Hudson (2015);16 and the number of post-materialists in 2008 as listed in

European Commission (2008).17 These variables need to be used cautiously as some shifts might have

occurred in the meantime (more recent data are not available) and because these are aggregate measures of

constructs that we want to ideally measure on the level of individuals.

4.3 Estimation

The dataset resulting from this combination of EB survey data with macro-level measures is of a

hierarchical multilevel structure. Overall, the dataset contains 83,340 individuals (level 1) which are nested

in 84 country-survey/time combinations (level 2) which are themselves nested in 28 countries (level 3).18

The proper analysis of such data requires multilevel models that contain random intercepts for the higher 13 Note that smaller countries tend to more dependent on and used to international economic openness. 14 The data from UNCTAD (2016a), the World Bank (2016) and the IMF (2016) are for 2014. In the case of Malta, some values for 2014 are not yet available from the WDI. In these cases, I took the most recent estimates available in the WDI (for 2013 and, for, trade openness, for 2011). The most recent KOF data refer to 2013. The data on bilateral FDI stocks (UNCTAD 2016b) are generally for 2012 though contained some missing values for this year (especially in cases of very low FDI volumes). In these cases, I took the most recent available information instead. 15 I make use of their preferred estimates without spill-over effects, i.e. the “deep” TTIP estimate from Aichele et al. (2014) and the “benchmark” estimate from Felbermayr et al. (2015). 16 According to Lawson and Hudson’s (2015) measure an anti-American is someone who holds a negative view on the United States’ role with regard to world peace, the fight against terrorism, the fight against world poverty, protecting the world environment and the growth of the world economy. 17 This measure of post-materialism draws on the classic scale proposed by Inglehart (1977). 18 Alternatively, the country-survey/time combinations could be modeled as nested in a cross-classified structure of countries and the three points in time/survey waves. In the present case, this setting would make the estimation much more difficult (considering the very small number of survey waves) without any need. Note that the analysis is not interested in explaining the rather modest changes over time (see below), but mainly in the associations between individual level predictors and support for TTIP and, on a subordinate level, in the differences across countries (that are largely stable over time).

16

level units in the individual-level model together with the individual-level predictors (see Gelman/Hill

2007 for an introduction to multilevel modeling).

The analysis below proceeds in two steps: In the first, I concentrate on the individual level correlates of

support for TTIP. In this step, I estimate a simplified multilevel random-intercept regression model with

two levels only: individuals are nested in 84 country-survey/time combinations that each receive a

random-intercept. Given the binary response variable, I estimate binary logistic multilevel models as

carried out through Stata’s “melogit” command. The simplified structure on the higher levels doesn’t

make any recognizable difference for results on the individual level part of the model (see below), but

leads to a more time-efficient estimation that is, moreover, less susceptible to problems of model

convergence. In the second step, I explore the association between country-level measures and support

for TTIP. Here, it is more important to take the nested structure on the higher levels properly into

account. (Note again that all macro-level information are measured on the country level, not the country-

time level.) Accordingly, I estimate multilevel logistic regression model with random-intercepts at the

country and country-time level. In order to test for an association of macro-level measures, the intercepts

are modeled as a function of macro-level predictors (and a random component with variance to be

estimated from the data). Observations with missing values are listwise excluded.

5. Results

The results are discussed in three parts. I begin with a brief descriptive look on the dependent variable

(section 5.1). As mentioned above, the regression analyses first concentrates on the individual level

(section 5.2) before turning to aggregate-level correlates of support for TTIP (section 5.3).

5.1. Descriptive findings: Support for TTIP in European comparison

In a first step, consider how attitudes toward TTIP vary across countries and over time. Figure 1 below

shows that support for TTIP varies strongly across the EU. Overall, a clear majority is (as of November

2015) in favor of a free trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA. The supporters

outnumber the opponents in 24 of the 28 EU member states with the four exceptions being Austria,

Germany, Luxembourg and Slovenia. At one extreme, only 22% of Austrians in November 2015 are in

favor of TTIP, while 70% are opposed. At the other extreme, in May 2015 79% of Lithuanians and

Maltese approve of a TTIP with a minuscule opposition of about 7% in both countries. The share of

don’t know responses is well below a quarter in most cases (the mean across country-time observations is

14.5%) and exhibits no trend over time. Between November 2014 and 2015 (country mean) support has

modestly decreased from 62% to 56%. Some countries show very stable figures (e.g. Lithuania, Italy,

Spain and the UK) and others pronounced declines in support (e.g. Austria, Germany, the Netherlands

and Slovenia). Overall, variation between countries is, however, much more pronounced than variation

within countries over time.

17

Figure 1: Support for TTIP across EU member states over time

Note: Post-stratification weighted.

18

5.2. Individual-level correlates of support for TTIP

Figure 2 below plots average marginal effects (alongside their confidence intervals) on the probability of

supporting TTIP from random-intercept models with only the individual-level predictors included. The

plotted estimates show how the probability of approving TTIP shifts with a one-unit increase on average

over the observed data. These plots are based on models 1 and 2 which are shown in detail in Table A 2

in the appendix. Model 1 on which the upper panel is based does not include attitudes towards economic

globalization in general; these are included in model 2 from which the lower panel of Figure 2 is

constructed. General attitudes towards globalization are excluded in a first step, as these are conceptually

close to the response of interest and likely endogenous to some of the individual-level predictors: e.g.,

considerations of economic self-interests might shape attitudes on whether globalization is economically

beneficial. Recall that all variables (except for age) are scaled to vary between zero and one to allow for

some comparison of strength of associations between the predictors.

The empirical analysis supports most of the theoretical expectations. As to skill-level divides on the

individual level, there are overall no consistent effects in either direction: There are zero discernable

differences between those in rather low-skilled and rather high-skilled occupations. As regards education,

we observe a negative coefficient showing that those with more years of education tend to be less likely to

approve of TTIP. These results are interesting as they run counter to the usual result on skill-level divides

in general trade policy preferences in the developed countries that high-skilled workers are less

protectionist. This pattern clearly does not hold when it comes to the specific preferences over TTIP.

Turning to socio-cultural attitudes towards openness and internationalization, we find the proxy variable

trust in the UN to be positively related with support for TTIP. Separate analysis of EB 83.3 and 84.3 (see

Figure A 2 in the appendix) shows that having an exclusive national identity tends to be negatively

associated with support for TTIP as well (though this is clearer for EB 83.3 than EB 84.3). As to attitudes

towards political elites, positive images of the EU are strongly associated with support for TTIP. Trust in

the national government is positively, but only weakly related to support for TTIP. With regard to left-

right positions, there is no evidence supporting an inverted U-shaped association: Opposition to TTIP is

clearly most pronounced among those who position themselves on the left, but those in the center are

somewhat less likely to approve of TTIP than those on the right, on average.19 Satisfaction with the

working of democracy shows a strikingly strong association with attitudes towards TTIP. There is also

support for the expectation that those who think of an environmental problem as being most pressing on

the country’s agenda are, on average, less supportive, while those who think of issues relating to the

country’s economic situation are more likely to be in favor of TTIP.

19 One might think that this pattern reflects post-treatment bias, i.e. that it only holds in a model including covariates (e.g. EU image, trust in the UN) that might lead to higher opposition on the right. This is not the case, however. In a model that includes only demographics and left-right orientations, we obtain the same pattern.

19

Figure 2: Average marginal effects on the probability of supporting TTIP from multilevel models

Note: Detailed estimation results for the statistical models on which these estimates are based are shown in Table A 2 in the appendix. Both models are two-level (individuals nested in survey-country combinations) random-intercept models with only individual level predictors included. The upper panel is based on model 1 from Table A 2. The lower panel is based on model 2 that differs from model 1 in additionally including attitudes towards globalization being an opportunity for economic growth. The lower panel of Figure 2 additionally includes attitudes towards potential economic benefits from

globalization in general and shows that these views are strongly related to support for TTIP potentially

shifting the probability of supporting TTIP by about 30 percentage points, on average. While some of the

other effects of the other variables are reduced in size, the basic patterns remain unaffected by the

inclusion of this predictor. Overall, support for TTIP is most strongly related to general attitudes on the

economic benefits of globalization, followed by orientations towards the EU, satisfaction with democracy,

trust in the UN and a position on the left of the left-right scale.

20

The pooled models presented in Figure 2 may hide interesting variation across countries. One could

suspect that (some of) the determinants of support for TTIP are shaped by contextual factors at the

country level, e.g. differences in patterns of elite-level support for TTIP (see the arguments above with

regard to trust in the national government and left-right positions) or the frames that dominate the

national discussions over TTIP. In order to explore such heterogeneity, I estimated a series of simple

logistic regression models by country (including dummy variables for the survey waves) thereby relaxing

the assumption of common slopes. Analogous to Figure 2, I present average marginal effects from two

sets of models: without (Figure 3) and with (Figure A 2 in the appendix) the inclusion of general

attitudes towards globalization. With regard to the strongest correlates of TTIP identified above, we

observe a high degree of homogeneity across countries: Attitudes towards the EU and globalization are

virtually always significantly positively related to support for TTIP. Likewise, trust in the UN and

satisfaction with democracy exhibit statistically significant positive effects on support for TTIP in most of

the cases, albeit with a few more exceptions. With regard to the main correlates of support for TTIP,

individual variation in support for TTIP thus follows a common pattern across countries.

There is more heterogeneity across countries where we would expect it: with regard to trust in the national

government and left-right positions. Trust in the national government is estimated to have statistically

significant (p<0.05) positive effects in support for TTIP in (only) five countries (Austria, Belgium,

Estonia, Germany, Greece; with respect to the models presented in Figure 3), though never a (statistically

significant) negative effect. Heterogeneity in the effect of left-right orientations is even more pronounced.

There are countries with a strong divide similar to the one found of the pooled model, i.e. those on the

left being least supportive of TTIP and those on the right being most supportive, on average (e.g. Finland,

Germany, Netherlands, Spain). In other countries, there is no discernible divide along left-right positions

whatsoever (e.g. Lithuania, Hungary, Portugal). In still other cases, those on the left are less supportive

than those in the center and right, but there’s no difference between the latter two (e.g. Belgium,

Denmark, France). Finally, some countries support my initial expectation of an inverted U-shaped pattern

with those in the center of the left-right scale being most likely to support TTIP (most clearly Malta, and

in tendency also and Italy and the UK).

21

Figure 3: Average marginal effects on the probability of supporting TTIP from logit models estimated separately by country: General attitudes toward economic globalization not included

Note: Pseudo-R² is based on McKelvey/Zavoina.

22

The effects of education and skill-level are also heterogeneous, but with no obvious pattern (e.g. a skill-

gap varying according to a country’s income level). Heterogeneity is also observed with regard to problem

prioritization of environmental issues and economic issues. Also note that these two variables are seldom

significant in the expected direction in the individual country models. One likely explanation is that much

of the (interesting) variation in these variables is between countries rather than within. The country mean

of problem attention to economic issues is as high as 0.73 for Cyprus and as low as 0.17 for Germany and

even 0.15 in the case of Malta. Problem attention to environmental issues is almost non-existent in a few

countries: At one extreme, in Greece only about 0.5% of respondents chose environmental issues as being

most important for the country, for example.20 At the other extreme, about 22% of Danes name

environmental issues. In this context, it is noteworthy, that we tend to find a statistically significant

negative effect of issue attention to the environment in richer and older EU member states where

prioritization of environmental issues is relatively widespread to begin with (i.e. in Belgium, Denmark,

Finland, France, Sweden).

5.3. Macro-level correlates of support for TTIP

So far we have looked at individual-level covariates of support for TTIP. In section 5.3 we have seen that

support for TTIP varies strongly across EU members. The individual-level variables considered above

explain part of this across-country variation, statistically speaking. In this section, I consider macro-level

variables that might contribute to the explanation of country-level differences. Given the relatively small

country-level n, i.e. 28, and the limitations to studying country effects via multilevel models with limited

numbers of level-two observations, especially in non-linear models (e.g. Bryan/Jenkins 2016; Stegmueller

2013), I proceed cautiously introducing predictors individually or in small batches – rather than trying to

estimate one model with more than ten predictors and 28 level-two observations. Against this

background, this analysis is of an exploratory nature and will reject some explanations of cross-country

variation in support for TTIP and suggest that others might be more helpful.

Table 1 shows results from overall ten different random-intercept models with three levels (as explained

above). The first thing to note is that the findings on the individual-level predictors of support for TTIP

are similar to those from the simpler model discussed above. The following discussion will concentrate on

the macro-level predictors.

20 Due to this limited variation problem attention to environmental issues had to be dropped (because of perfect prediction) from one estimation entirely (Cyprus) and has huge confidence intervals in others (e.g. Latvia and Lithuania).

23

Table 1: Multilevel binary logistic regression models for support for a free-trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA – country level predictors (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Individual level Occupation (ref: low-skill)

High-skill occupation 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.0091 -0.00046 0.00024 0.00067 -0.021 0.00033 (0.034) (0.034) (0.034) (0.034) (0.036) (0.035) (0.035) (0.035) (0.036) (0.035)

Student 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.010 0.0091 -0.00046 0.00024 0.00067 -0.021 0.00033 (0.034) (0.034) (0.034) (0.034) (0.036) (0.035) (0.035) (0.035) (0.036) (0.035)

Retired 0.065+ 0.065+ 0.065+ 0.065+ 0.046 0.047 0.047 0.047 0.032 0.047 (0.036) (0.036) (0.036) (0.036) (0.038) (0.038) (0.038) (0.038) (0.039) (0.038)

Homemaker -0.041 -0.042 -0.041 -0.041 -0.046 -0.049 -0.048 -0.047 -0.057 -0.048 (0.057) (0.057) (0.057) (0.057) (0.062) (0.061) (0.061) (0.061) (0.062) (0.061)

Unemployed -0.044 -0.044 -0.044 -0.044 -0.073+ -0.064 -0.063 -0.063 -0.066 -0.063 (0.041) (0.041) (0.041) (0.041) (0.043) (0.043) (0.043) (0.043) (0.045) (0.043) Education -0.22*** -0.22*** -0.22*** -0.22*** -0.21*** -0.22*** -0.22*** -0.22*** -0.22*** -0.22*** (0.044) (0.044) (0.044) (0.044) (0.047) (0.047) (0.047) (0.047) (0.048) (0.047) Trust in UN 0.47*** 0.47*** 0.47*** 0.47*** 0.41*** 0.41*** 0.41*** 0.41*** 0.41*** 0.41*** (0.024) (0.024) (0.024) (0.024) (0.026) (0.026) (0.026) (0.026) (0.026) (0.026) EU image 1.59*** 1.59*** 1.59*** 1.59*** 1.15*** 1.13*** 1.13*** 1.12*** 1.12*** 1.13*** (0.052) (0.052) (0.052) (0.051) (0.056) (0.055) (0.055) (0.055) (0.057) (0.055) Trust in national government 0.10*** 0.10*** 0.10*** 0.10*** 0.068* 0.068* 0.068* 0.069* 0.071* 0.068* (0.026) (0.026) (0.026) (0.026) (0.028) (0.027) (0.027) (0.027) (0.028) (0.027) Left -0.57*** -0.57*** -0.57*** -0.57*** -0.53*** -0.53*** -0.53*** -0.53*** -0.55*** -0.53*** (0.036) (0.036) (0.036) (0.036) (0.038) (0.038) (0.038) (0.038) (0.039) (0.038) Center -0.19*** -0.19*** -0.19*** -0.19*** -0.18*** -0.18*** -0.17*** -0.17*** -0.17*** -0.17*** (0.031) (0.031) (0.031) (0.031) (0.033) (0.033) (0.033) (0.033) (0.034) (0.033) Satisfaction with national democracy 0.69*** 0.69*** 0.69*** 0.69*** 0.51*** 0.50*** 0.50*** 0.50*** 0.52*** 0.50*** (0.045) (0.045) (0.045) (0.045) (0.049) (0.048) (0.048) (0.048) (0.050) (0.048) Most important problem: economic 0.17*** 0.17*** 0.17*** 0.17*** 0.18*** 0.19*** 0.19*** 0.19*** 0.19*** 0.19*** (0.034) (0.034) (0.034) (0.034) (0.037) (0.036) (0.036) (0.036) (0.037) (0.036) Most important problem: environment -0.34*** -0.34*** -0.34*** -0.34*** -0.36*** -0.35*** -0.35*** -0.35*** -0.35*** -0.35*** (0.044) (0.044) (0.044) (0.044) (0.046) (0.046) (0.046) (0.046) (0.046) (0.046) Globalization 1.73*** 1.74*** 1.74*** 1.75*** 1.76*** 1.75*** (0.044) (0.044) (0.044) (0.044) (0.045) (0.044) Age/10 -0.038*** -0.038*** -0.038*** -0.038*** -0.020+ -0.021* -0.021* -0.021* -0.021* -0.021* (0.0097) (0.0097) (0.0097) (0.0097) (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) (0.011) (0.010) Female -0.049* -0.049* -0.049* -0.049* -0.037 -0.037 -0.038+ -0.038+ -0.056* -0.038+ (0.022) (0.022) (0.022) (0.022) (0.023) (0.023) (0.023) (0.023) (0.023) (0.023)

24

Note: Results from random-intercept models; standard errors in parentheses; model 5 excludes Luxembourg as it constitutes an extreme outlier with regard to FDI in and from the US; model 9 omits Croatia due to missing data on the prevalence of anti-Americanism; + p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Intercept -0.41 -0.67 0.092 2.93 -0.53 -2.73*** -0.93*** 10.2** -0.36 -0.49* (1.22) (0.54) (0.30) (2.23) (0.37) (0.53) (0.24) (3.17) (0.28) (0.22) Country level KOF economic globalization 0.0029 (0.015) FDI stock inward (log) 0.12 (0.13) FDI stock outward (log) -0.083 (0.081) GDP (log) -0.12 (0.085) Trade with US (% of GDP, log) -0.28 (0.31) FDI in and from US, stocks (% of GDP, log) 0.58 (0.89) Estimated gains from TTIP 0.48***

– Felbermayr et al. (2015) (0.14) Estimated gains from TTIP 0.026

– Aichele et al. (2014) (0.079) GDP per capita (log) -1.07*** (0.30) Percent of post-materialists -0.050* -0.048*

(Lawson/Hudson 2015) (0.023) (0.023) Percent of anti-Americans -0.0058

(EB 69, 2006) (0.0082) Random effect variances Intercept (country level) 0.42*** 0.41*** 0.40*** 0.39*** 0.36*** 0.28*** 0.42*** 0.29*** 0.37*** 0.36*** (0.12) (0.12) (0.12) (0.11) (0.11) (0.083) (0.12) (0.084) (0.11) (0.10) Intercept (countryXtime level) 0.065*** 0.065*** 0.065*** 0.065*** 0.071*** 0.069*** 0.069*** 0.069*** 0.067*** 0.069*** (0.014) (0.014) (0.014) (0.014) (0.016) (0.016) (0.015) (0.015) (0.015) (0.016) Model statistics Residual intraclass corr. (ICC) 0.13 0.13 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.097 0.13 0.098 0.12 0.12 Bayesian inf. crit. (BIC) 54477.6 54476.7 54476.6 54475.7 48064.0 49099.8 49110.3 49100.2 46901.3 49106.2 Country-time-combinations (level 3) 84 84 84 84 81 84 84 84 81 84 Countries (level 2) 28 28 28 28 27 28 28 28 27 28 Individuals (level 1) 50366 50366 50366 50366 45945 46741 46741 46741 44840 46741

25

The first eight models test various ideas on how support for TTIP might be related to economic

aggregates. First, one might think that support is higher in countries with higher degrees of economic

openness to begin with as publics in these countries are more accustomed to international economic

openness.21 This is not the case. Support is not higher in the more economically “globalized” countries

(model 1), in those that have attracted a larger share of FDI (model 2) or own more FDI abroad (model

3). Nor is support systematically higher in countries with smaller economies (model 4). In this regard,

economically open Luxembourg, which is one of the four countries in which TTIP opponents outnumber

supporters (see above), is not an outlier from a general association. Second, it could be the case that it is

not general economic openness that matters, but rather economic ties to the US specifically. This is not

the case either: publics in countries with stronger economic ties to the US, as operationalized by bilateral

trade volumes and FDI stocks, are not generally more supportive of TTIP (model 5). Perhaps existing

economic ties are not decisive, but rather the “expected” gains from TTIP. We indeed find a statistically

significant positive association between the quasi-objective measure of gains as estimated by Felbermayr et

al. (2015) (model 6), but the coefficient is essentially zero when using the alternative estimates from

Aichele et al. (2014) instead (model 7). These inconsistent findings make it hard to believe that support is

driven by quasi-objectively “expected” gains and illustrate fundamental problems with this argument given

that even experts are unsure about and do not agree on the pattern of relative gains across countries.22

Model 8 probes how support for TTIP is related to GDP per capita and shows that support for TTIP

tends to decrease with rising levels of GDP per capita. This is an intriguing pattern. Yet, it is unclear

which mechanism is behind this association. One possibility is that it reflects differences in values across

countries that are related to income levels. This idea is taken up by model 9 which includes the aggregate

measures of anti-American and post-materialist attitudes. According to the model findings, the percent of

post-materialists in a society is negatively related to cross-country variation in support for TTIP, while the

share of anti-Americans is not.23 The final model 10 shows that the negative effect of post-materialism

holds up once we exclude the measure for prevalence of anti-Americanism. This suggestive findings on

the effect of the prevalence of post-materialist values complement some related findings from the

individual-level analysis above: those who name issues related to the economic situation as the country’s

most pressing ones are more likely to support TTIP; those who chose the environment are less likely to

support TTIP; issue attention to the environment is consequential especially in richer and older EU

member states where prioritization of environmental issues is relatively widespread in the first place.

Potentially then, differences in materialist vs. post-materialist values might to some extent account for the

21 Note that this reasoning suggest that a country’s economic openness might affect support for TTIP via citizens’ general attitudes towards economic globalization. In order to properly test this idea, the first four models do not include attitudes towards economic globalization. 22 The correlation between the two measures is 0.03. 23 Again, given the measurement problems this nil finding should not be considered as definitely rejecting the idea that orientations towards the US are influential.

26

negative association between per capita GDP and support for TTIP observed across EU member states.24

In contrast, it is difficult to account for cross-country differences in support for TTIP with economic

aggregates related to a logic of (expected) economic gains and losses.

6. Conclusion

This paper has sought to re-examine the determinants of preferences towards international economic

integration on an unusually salient and controversial case: the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment

Partnership. In addition to being of interest in itself, analyzing attitudes towards TTIP is of more general

theoretical relevance as it allows us to re-examine the determinants of preferences towards international

economic openness within a salient real-world context. Such a setting gives us the chance to study specific

and, potentially, more consolidated preferences towards international economic openness. Moreover, a

more detailed look at attitudes towards specific and salient controversial trade policy proposals opens the

eye for ways in which the surrounding political processes might shape attitudes on specific trade policies.

In this regard, studying preferences for real-world trade policy proposals is a useful complement to

research that analyzes survey data on general preferences towards international economic openness.

Analyzing three recent rounds of Eurobarometer surveys conducted in the 28 EU member, this study has

identified a number of robust correlates of support for TTIP. At the individual level, attitudes towards

TTIP are most strongly related to general attitudes towards economic globalization and the European

Union as well as satisfaction with the functioning of (national) democracy. It seems particularly

noteworthy that support for TTIP correlates strongly with different measures of attitudes towards political

elites. Insofar, the findings add to growing skepticism that attitudes towards economic openness can

primarily be explained by economic self-interest and point to politically richer explanations that reserve a

role not only for socio-cultural attitudes towards international openness, but also for the broader political

processes surrounding the dispute over a particular trade policy. At the aggregate level, support for TTIP

is unrelated to a number of a priori likely correlates such as general levels of economic openness and

economic ties to the US. Suggestive evidence is obtained that the prevalence of post-materialist values in a

society might to some extent account for cross-country variation in opposition to TTIP. This latter

finding complements findings on the individual-level effects of problem priorities according to which

those who name issues related to the economic situation as the country’s most pressing ones are more

likely to support TTIP and those who chose the environment are less likely to support TTIP.

Interestingly, we observe no skill-level divide with regard to preferences over TTIP. This contrasts with

earlier findings on preferences towards economic openness in general. Yet, it makes sense from the

perspective of economic self-interest. While it is difficult to ultimately know whether this reflects the

24 The country-level correlation between the number of post-materialists and GDP per capita is 0.42. Post-materialism correlates with (weighted country mean) problem attention for economic issues with r=-0.56 and with r=0.66 with problem attention for environmental issues.

27

absence of dividing lines in individual self-interest or the absence of economic self-interest considerations

in the case of TTIP, it illustrates the value of studying the economic self-interest via specific real-world

trade policy proposals. It might seem reasonable to expect that there would be strong skill-level divides in

the case of salient free trade agreements with other parts of the world that clearly differ in factor

endowment levels. China and the EU are currently negotiating over a future investment agreement, for

example, and it would be interesting to contrast attitudes towards such an agreement with attitudes

towards TTIP, especially once the EU-China deal has increased in political salience. Studying such cases

when they appear on the political agenda will enhance our understanding of what drives individual

preferences towards international economic openness in specific empirical cases going beyond what we

already know from work on general preferences towards international economic integration.

The present study has a number of noteworthy limitations. For one thing, it has focused on structural

explanations for support for TTIP and insofar largely ignored agency. The campaigns of interest groups

and their success surely additionally affects support for TTIP and might lead to differences in support for

TTIP across countries that appear idiosyncratic from the structural perspective adopted here; though the

cross-national differences in issue priorities investigated in this study might affect the success of such

campaigns. Moreover, the usual caveats attached to an observational study when it comes to establishing

causality apply. Insofar, it would be prudent to add (survey-)experimental evidence to some of the findings

presented here. Finally, future work could follow-up on the analysis of effect heterogeneity across

countries that was of a merely exploratory nature in this study, but revealed interesting variation.

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Appendix

Table A 1: Recoding of current occupation

Categories in Eurobarometer Category in occupation variable NON-ACTIVE Responsible for ordinary shopping and looking after the home, or without any current occupation, not working

Homemaker

Student Student Unemployed or temporarily not working Unemployed Retired or unable to work through illness Retired SELF EMPLOYED Farmer Low-skill occupation Fisherman Low-skill occupation Professional (lawyer, medical practitioner, accountant, architect, etc.)

High-skill occupation

Owner of a shop, craftsmen, other self-employed person Low-skill occupation Business proprietors, owner (full or partner) of a company High-skill occupation EMPLOYED Employed professional (employed doctor, lawyer, accountant, architect)

High-skill occupation

General management, director or top management (managing directors, director general, other director)

High-skill occupation

Middle management, other management (department head, junior manager, teacher, technician)

High-skill occupation

Employed position, working mainly at a desk Low-skill occupation Employed position, not at a desk but travelling (salesmen, driver, etc.)

Low-skill occupation

Employed position, not at a desk, but in a service job (hospital, restaurant, police, fireman, etc.)

Low-skill occupation

Supervisor Low-skill occupation Skilled manual worker Low-skill occupation Other (unskilled) manual worker, servant Low-skill occupation

32

Table A 2: Multilevel binary logistic regression models for support for a free-trade and investment agreement between the EU and the USA – individual level predictors only

Note: Results from random-intercept models; standard errors in parentheses; + p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

(1) (2) Individual level Occupation (ref: low-skill)

High-skill occupation 0.0098 -0.00054 (0.034) (0.035)

Student -0.12* -0.21*** (0.052) (0.054)

Retired 0.063+ 0.045 (0.036) (0.038)

Homemaker -0.038 -0.045 (0.057) (0.061)

Unemployed -0.044 -0.063 (0.041) (0.043) Education -0.22*** -0.22*** (0.044) (0.047) Trust in UN 0.47*** 0.41*** (0.024) (0.026) EU image 1.60*** 1.13*** (0.051) (0.055) Trust in national government 0.10*** 0.067* (0.026) (0.027) Left -0.57*** -0.53*** (0.036) (0.038) Center -0.19*** -0.18*** (0.031) (0.033) Satisfaction with national democracy 0.69*** 0.50*** (0.045) (0.048) Most important problem: economic 0.17*** 0.19*** (0.034) (0.036) Most important problem: environment -0.35*** -0.35*** (0.044) (0.046) Globalization 1.74*** (0.044) Age/10 -0.038*** -0.021* (0.0097) (0.010) Female -0.049* -0.038+ (0.022) (0.023) Intercept -0.18+ -0.87*** (0.099) (0.10) Random effect variances Intercept 0.48*** 0.50*** (0.077) (0.079) Model statistics Residual intraclass corr. (ICC) 0.13 0.13 Bayesian inf. crit. (BIC) 54533.1 49162.9 CountryXsurvey wave (level 2) 84 84 Individuals (level 1) 50366 46741

33

Figure A 1: Average marginal effects on the probability of supporting TTIP from logit models estimated separately by country: General attitudes toward economic globalization included

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Figure A 2: Average marginal effects on the probability of supporting TTIP from multilevel models estimated separately for the three different waves of the Eurobarometer

Note: The graph displays average marginal effects calculated from two-level (individuals nested in countries) random-intercept models estimated separately for the three waves of the Eurobarometer data. Only individual level predictors are included in these models. The models on which the lower panel is based additionally include attitudes towards globalization being an opportunity for economic growth (in contrast to the upper panel).