Do Citizens Get It Right? How Individuals Perceive Party Positions on the European Union

Do citizens correctly perceive party positions? Voters’ understanding of party stances is central to democratic representation. Parties play a key role in translating complex political issues, and voters often rely on them to connect everyday experiences with politics. Yet this mechanism assumes that citizens correctly perceive parties’ positions, a premise that may not hold, given that many voters are politically ill-informed and parties do not always articulate clear stances. The study examines how voters perceive party positions on the European Union, a complex issue where party ideology may serve as a poor heuristic, given the inverted U-shaped relationship between ideology and EU stances. Mainstream centrist parties often downplay Europe through vague, positive rhetoric, whereas Eurosceptic parties at both ideological extremes politicize the EU articulating economic or cultural grievances. We field a survey experiment in spring 2026 to understand how voters assign EU party positions—that is, which positions they associate with which parties (descriptive component)—and why they make these associations (experimental component). This study contributes to broader debates about political communication, voter competence, and party responsiveness.