Our study describes European attitudes toward energy using a harmonized dataset comprising 46 waves of the Eurobarometer (2006-2024). This tracking survey covers all European Union member states; hence, our data accumulates 1,286 individual country surveys. We focus on attitudes relevant to energy transition through three complementary lenses: energy issue salience, policy priorities, and opinions on renewable energy sources. This study documents cross-national and temporal variation in attitudes without estimating the causal effects of specific energy-related European policies or contextual events. We record a marked increase in the salience of energy during crisis periods, especially Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which rapidly elevated energy's importance in the hierarchy of public concerns. We also show that support for renewables, in the context of energy transition, coexists with affordability and security concerns in some regions of the EU, particularly in Central-Eastern and Southern Europe. To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically harmonize such a large collection of Eurobarometer waves into a single comparable dataset, enabling long-term tracking of energy attitudes across all EU member states. In addition to the substantive results, our study also points to several difficulties the Eurobarometer project faces in providing long-term monitoring of public opinion across the highly diverse member states of the European Union.
Abstract Research on attitudes toward transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals lags behind research on opinion on the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) population, leaving open questions about public opinion on these two LGBTQ+ subgroups, in general and in particular in the Global South. While a sizeable gap exists in US public opinion toward TGD and LGB rights, we do not know whether that finding is generalizable to other contexts. With a focus on Latin America, we draw on a range of scholarship to identify factors that could result in a similar divergence of attitudes toward these subgroups or, instead, relative convergence. Our analyses focus primarily on novel survey data from representative surveys across thirteen Latin American countries. Our results demonstrate a fair amount of convergence in mean levels, item nonresponse rates, and predictors of views on LGB versus TGD rights. We present some notable differences across countries and issues, with results for the former (countries) varying by socio-political context and the latter (issues) varying across political and nonpolitical domains. We identify these patterns as constituting a future agenda for researchers of opinion on LGBTQ+ topics. We conclude that, in the contemporary period, the Latin American public holds fairly similar mental schemas toward LGB and TGD groups.
Abstract How do ordinary citizens make sense of gender politics? While research has examined public support for feminism and gender equality either separately or as interchangeable concepts, far less is known about the meanings citizens attach to these labels and whether they evoke distinct political meanings. This article compares the textual, emotional, and symbolic associations of three related but distinct framings of gender politics: feminism, gender equality, and equality between men and women. Drawing on an original pre-registered survey experiment in Spain, respondents were randomly assigned to define and evaluate one of the three labels, allowing us to analyze their meanings across textual, emotional, and visual dimensions. We find that while most respondents express sympathy toward all three labels, feminism stands as the most contested. Feminism also has the sharpest sociopolitical profile, eliciting greater support from young, highly educated, progressive women. Text analyses reveal that the public frames feminism in terms of collective action, conflict, and women’s identity, drawing heavily on political language, while the other two labels emphasize policy and material concerns. Emotionally, gender politics elicits more positive than negative responses across all three labels, though men report slightly higher negative emotions toward feminism. Feminism is also the only label consistently associated with images of women’s mobilization and protest, reinforcing its distinctively political resonance. These findings show that feminism and gender equality tap related but meaningfully distinct constructs in the public mind, with implications for how scholars measure attitudes toward gender politics and interpret public support for equality-related policies.
Democratic backsliding continues to pose a clear danger to contemporary democracies. While a growing literature shows that voters often tolerate antidemocratic candidates when partisan or ideological incentives pull in that direction, we know less about whether support for democracy, institutional trust, political tolerance, and other democratic orientations ameliorate such temptations. We address this question with a systematic comparison of six measures of political culture as predictors of electoral resistance to antidemocratic candidates. Using candidate-choice conjoint experiments fielded in three democracies facing backsliding pressures-the United States, Poland, and South Korea-we find that several democratic orientations are associated with greater resistance to antidemocratic candidates. Among them, support for the core institutions and processes of liberal democracy stands out as the most consistent predictor. Its relationship with prodemocratic choice remains meaningful even in "cross-pressured" choices where partisan or ideological incentives pull voters away from the prodemocratic option. These findings suggest that political culture matters for democratic resilience, though some components of it matter much more consistently than others.
