A vast literature documents that citizens form foreign policy preferences based on normative, economic, and strategic considerations. Attitudinal change is less explored. Prominent accounts propose aggregate preference stability unless changes in incentives or dispositions affect preference formation.
We study a foreign policy issue where such a change is plausible: preferences regarding arms transfers before and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To date, systematic cross-country and cross-temporal research on public support for arms transfers is lacking, however. We hence inquire: Do European publics’ perceptions of armaments transfers change over time? Did Russia's invasion of Ukraine change preferences toward general arms export policy and if so, in what way?
We investigate these questions by implementing a repeated conjoint experiment, assessing nuanced trade-offs of respondents. Our focus is on the case of two of NATO’s top-5 arms exporting countries: France and Germany. Concretely, we draw on two original, cross-sectional quota-representative surveys in both countries with nearly identically embedded experiments, fielded in 2020 (N~6,600) and 2023 (N~4000). To make both samples as comparable as possible, we employ entropy balancing. Furthermore, we investigate possible changes in effect heterogeneity.
For both countries, we pre-registered the expectation of reductions in fundamental opposition to arms transfers, as well as an increased weight of normative and security, but not economy-related considerations when forming preferences regarding general arms trade policy. Our results will inform both relevant policy debate on common European defense policy, as well as theoretical debates on preconditions for attitudinal change regarding foreign policy issues.