Rallying around the EU flag: Russia's invasion of Ukraine and attitudes toward European integration

Abstract

This paper uses a survey among students at European universities to explore whether Russia's invasion of Ukraine has affected attitudes toward European integration. Some respondents completed the survey just before Russia's assault on February 24, 2022, and some did so just afterwards, thus delivering a quasi-experimental design situation, which we exploit. Our results suggest that the ominous news about the Russian attack increased the participants' interest in EU politics, consolidated their attachment to the EU, and made them more mindful and appreciative of the benefits of deeper European integration. In effect, the war so close to the EU Eastern border provoked a rally around the supranational EU flag, with convergence of public opinion toward shared European values.

Has the Russian invasion of Ukraine reinforced anti-globalization sentiment in Austria?

“…The average marginal effects reported in Table 3 indicate, in line with the descriptive statistics in Table 1, that agreement with the statement that economic globalization is bad for Austria has not increased after Russia invaded Ukraine. This is in line with findings of Steiner et al (2023) who study the attitudes of exchange students from six European countries before and after the invasion. At the same time, Austrians have become significantly more concerned about Austria's dependency on imports.…”

“…The general public, however, needs more time to update its expectations (see also Ropele and Tagliabracci 2022). Steiner et al (2023) study whether the invasion has affected attitudes toward European integration among exchange students from six European countries. One of their indicators also measures globalization attitudes.…”

The (null) effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Europeans’ attitudes toward democracy

“…5 Another relevant aspect for our identification strategy is the salience of the event and its unexpected nature. As described by Steiner et al (2023), during the final months of 2021, Russia started accumulating troops along the Russian and Belorussian borders with Ukraine. However, at the time, Russia firmly denied the accusations of its intention to invade Ukraine.…”

“…In line with this presumption, support for democracy has increased substantially among Ukrainians after the outbreak of war (Onuch, 2022). Similarly, a study conducted among students of Western European universities indicates that the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to greater attachment to the EU (Steiner et al, 2023). Hence, Europeans may not only become more satisfied with their democratic regimes, but also more supportive of this political system and its core principles, which became increasingly under threat after the Russian invasion.…”

“…However, at the time, Russia firmly denied the accusations of its intention to invade Ukraine. Hence, the invasion and massive attack against Kyiv on February 24 took many by surprise (see Steiner et al, 2023). Our analysis of Google trends, summarized in Appendix B, reveals that this seems to be the case among the general public of most countries, and that this was, in fact, a very salient event.…”