Americans' attitudes about European Union divide along ideological lines
(PDF version is available too)

Alec Gallup - Robert Manchin
Gallup Organisation Europe,
Brussels, June 7th, 2004

AWARENESS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Americans are surprisingly uninformed about the European Union. Only about two in ten or 22% say they know either a "great deal" or a "fair amount" about the European Union or the EU, with only 3% claiming to know a great deal about it.

Almost eight in ten (77%) say they know very little or nothing at all about the EU, roughly divided between those who claim very little knowledge (37%) and those who claim none at all (40%).

KNOWLEDGE OF EU

A question used to test Americans' basic knowledge about the European Union, namely, whether the EU had a larger population, smaller, or about the same population as the USA, reveals how uninformed Americans are about even the most rudimentary facts about the European Union.

For example, only two in ten correctly say that the EU is larger than the USA, whereas about three in ten, incorrectly in both instances, say that the EU is smaller than the US (29%) or that the US is about the same size (29%).

ATTITUDES ABOUT THE EU

To elicit Americans' general attitudes about the European Union, they were first asked how likely or unlikely they thought it was that the EU would ever become a superpower such as the USA.

In response to this question, about four in ten (44%) of the American public, think this is very or somewhat likely to occur, with the same percentages saying it is not very or not at all likely.

The public was next asked whether they felt the EU played a positive or a negative role regarding five key global policy objectives. These were peace in the world, the war against terrorism, the growth of the world economy, the fight against poverty in the world, and protection of the environment. To provide perspective, the US public was also asked whether they felt the United States played a positive or negative role regarding these same five policy objectives.

In every instance, larger percentages of the American public nationally say the USA plays a positive role than claims the EU plays a positive role.

The US is rated highest positively vis-a-vis the EU for its role in the war against terrorism, 69% to 41%, and for the fight against poverty in the world, 57% to 33%. The US is rated lowest compared to the EU for keeping world peace (59% to 45%) and for protecting the environment. In the latter case, the US receives a 46% positive whereas the EU scores a 40% positive.

Evidence of an ideological divide: perceptions of the European Union differ by political affiliation

Analysis of these findings by various groups in the US population reveals that although there are relatively few differences based on the public's socio-economic or demographic background, there are major differences in terms of political ideology. In fact, the differences revealed in the current findings are among the most striking seen in recent Gallup surveys.

Pointing out these differences are the contrast in the findings for four groups self-identified as politically conservative and four groups identified as politically liberal. The former group consists of conservatives, Republicans, those who approve of Bush's job performance, and those who think the war in Iraq is worth the effort. In the latter group are liberal/moderates, Democrats, those who disapprove of Bush's job performance, and those who think the Iraq war is not worth it.

To clarify the analysis, the findings for Republicans and Democrats have been selected as representative of these ideological groups on the left and on the right.

In response to the question regarding whether the EU will ever become a superpower such as the USA, forty percent of Republicans think this is either very or somewhat likely, while 40% think it is not very likely or not at all likely. Democrats, on the other hand, are slightly more optimistic saying they believe this is likely to occur by a margin of 49% to 42%.

The differences between the conservative groups and their liberal counterparts are much more pronounced in terms of their perceptions of the roles played by the EU and the US regarding the five global policy issues.

Republicans give the US wide leads over the EU in terms of positive grades for all five policy areas with the largest margins in the case of the war against terrorism (89% to 39%), and fighting world poverty (74% to 29%). The smallest leads for the USA among Republicans occur in the case of protecting the environment (67% to 37%).

Slightly larger percentages of Democrats, on the other hand, award more positive marks to the EU in the case or promoting peace in the world 51% to 44% and for protecting the environment, and slightly lower grades compared to the US for the war against terrorism, growth of the world economy, and the fight against poverty in the world.

The findings reported below show that the wide positive margins Democrats give the EU compared to the US are due not so much to awarding very high marks to the EU as to giving relatively low marks to their own country - at least at this point in history. Democrats are somewhat more positive about the role of the EU in four of the five areas. For example, whereas Republicans rate the EU's role for keeping world peace as 39% to 19% positive, Democrats rate it as 51% positive to 10% negative.

For protection of the environment by the EU, Republicans vote 37% to 12% positive to negative while Democrats are 44% to 14%.

For the war against terrorism, the vote is 39% positive to 24% negative among Republicans and 45% to 11% positive to negative among Democrats.

In the fight against poverty in the world, Republicans score the EU role as 29% positive to 14% negative and Democrats 37% to 19%.

For the growth of the world economy, Republicans say the EU role is 48% to 16% positive to negative, while Democrats vote roughly the same, 49% positive to 12% negative.

In the case of the role of the United States, however, much larger differences are noted in the way Democrats view the US's role in all five measurement areas compared to their Republican counterparts.

For keeping world peace, for example, while Republicans rate the USA's role as 83% positive to only 9% negative, Democrats rate their nation's role as only 44% positive to 30% negative.

For protecting the environment, Republicans rate the US as 67% to 14% positive-negative, while Democrats grade it as only 31% positive- 48% negative.

For the war against terrorism, the US score is 89% positive and 6% negative for Republicans and 51% positive to 27% negative for Democrats.

For growing the economy, the US receives 85% to 4% positive-negative by Republicans and 53% to 27% positive to negative by Democrats.

The current findings point out the importance of political ideology in determining how favorable or unfavorably Americans view the European Union. In the polarized atmosphere of the presidential election year, even Europe has become a partisan issue for the American public.

ROLE OF THE EU / USA

Q: In your opinion, would you say that the European Union / United States tends to play a positive role, a negative role, or neither a positive or negative role regarding…

			Nat.	Rep.	Dem.	Cons.	Mod. /Lib.	Bush- Appr.	Bush-Disappr.	Iraq War Worth it	Iraq War Not  Worth
Peace in the World			45 15 29	39 19 34	51 10 26	40 21 28	47 11 31	38 21 31	52 9 28	40 21 32	50 11 27
	EU
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
	USA		59 22 18	83 9 8	44 30 25	78 8 13	43 32 21	85 4 10	37 38 24	83 7 9	38 36 25
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
Protection of the Environment			40 14 30	37 12 38	44 14 25	40 13 31	42 14 30	35 16 36	46 11 24	37 10 36	45 14 24
	EU
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
	USA		46 31 21	67 14 19	31 48 21	62 15 22	34 46 18	69 12 17	25 51 23	64 15 19	31 45 23
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
The War Against Terrorism			41 18 30	39 24 29	45 11 32	35 23 22	45 14 31	37 24 30	47 11 31	40 24 28	44 13 33
	EU
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
	USA		69 17 12	89 6 4	51 27 20	87 8 4	52 26 18	94 2 3	44 33 19	98 * 1	42 33 21
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
Growth of the World Economy			48 15 24	48 16 24	49 12 25	48 19 18	49 12 29	48 17 24	49 13 24	49 16 25	48 13 23
	EU
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
	USA		66 17 14	85 4 9	53 27 18	76 10 12	60 23 15	79 6 13	53 28 16	80 7 11	54 26 18
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
The Fight Against Poverty in the World			33 18 33	29 14 42	37 19 28	31 18 32	35 19 33	30 17 37	36 20 30	32 16 38	36 20 30
	EU
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.
	USA		57 22 20	74 10 15	44 30 24	66 12 19	47 29 20	74 12 13	41 33 25	72 13 14	45 30 24
		Positive  Negative  Neither pos. nor neg.

Note: For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls. The questions on the global role played in different domains were asked from a random half of the sample. The corresponding errors there are +- 4.5 percentage points.