Does the way we talk affect what we think about how the state should provide public policies? Language carries with it a history and tradition of a certain territorial scale and communty, not stopping at borders and thought to matter for political culture, too. Yet the notion of political culture is as elusive as it seems important to explain public attitudes. Knowing the extent and import of deep-seated, widely shared attitudes appears all the more urgent for multicultural societies with territorially delimited communities, where cultural differences may fuel inter-governmental conflicts. This paper presents the results of an original survey run in October 2020 in Switzerland, Belgium, Canada and France to better understand inter- and intra-state differences in political attitudes towards multilevel governance. We also included a conjoint experiment to trace cultural preferences for particular forms of multilevel governance, notably with regards to de/centralisation and the involvement of health experts vs. ordinary citizens in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.