Attitudes towards the European Union among Chinese Citizens, and Their Origins

Transcription

1 Attitudes towards the European Union among Chinese Citizens, and Their Origins Paper for the XXII nd World Congress of Political Science, Session RC21 Political Socialization and Education, Panel 4 International Political Socialization and Its Effects, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, July 8 to 12, Henk Dekker and Jolanda van der Noll 1 Abstract How can we explain the attitudes towards the European Union among Chinese citizens? That is the intriguing question we want to answer in this paper. The predictive model is based on the theories that have been successful in explaining attitudes towards out-groups in general: direct contact, knowledge, image, conflict perception, social identity, trust and political socialization theory. We used data from the 2010 Chinese Views of EU research project (N = 2.410). The analyses show that the attitude towards the EU correlates most with the perception that EU citizens are trustworthy. Image theory has most empirical evidence. Because only a few respondents have ever been to EU countries or are in touch with people from EU countries the attitude towards the EU of most respondents cannot be influenced by personal experiences with the EU. Their attitudes and the perceptions that underlie this attitude must be mainly based on informative and affective messages from relevant others and media channels. The respondents themselves say that television - which is heavily controlled by political leaders - is their most important source of information about EU countries. 1 Mail address: Prof. Henk Dekker, Leiden University, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands, dekkerh@fsw.leidenuniv.nl. Jolanda van der Noll, Jacobs University, Bremen, j.vandernoll@jacobs-university.de. 1

2 1. Introduction International political attitudes are important to study for several reasons. Attitudes towards foreign countries and international organizations function as a heuristic to form international policy preferences (Holsti 1962, Powlick 1995, Sinnott 1995, Foyle 1997, Brewer et al. 2004). The more positive the attitudes, the higher is the willingness to cooperate politically, both bilaterally and within the context of international organizations (e.g., Ajzen and Madden 1986, Dekker, Dijkgraaf and Meijerink 2007). 'Public opinion' may constrain foreign policy options available to political elites. If international political attitudes have an important effect on mass opinion about foreign policy, then a logical next step to ask is what their genesis is. This paper focusses on the attitudes towards the European Union. These attitudes have been studied mainly among citizens of the European Union. The European Commission has commissioned an empirical study of the European orientations of EU-citizens aged fifteen years and over in each member-state twice a year since Our focus is on the attitudes towards the European Union among citizens in China. China is Europe s biggest trade partner after the United States and is growing in global power and influence. Policy papers say that China and the EU are committed to a comprehensive strategic partnership. The European Commission is active in implementing a public diplomacy policy towards China aiming among others at a better picture of the EU in China over the long term (Commission 1995: E2; see also Commission 1998, 2001, 2003, 2006, and Council of the European Union 2010 and 2012). The data that we present in this paper are the result of a research project that a group of researchers from six academic institutions in China and Europe have conducted in China. 2 The starting point for our research project was great curiosity. We asked ourselves What do Chinese citizens feel, think and know about the EU and how much do they differ in their attitudes, perceptions and knowledge with respect to the EU? Besides this factual curiosity, we were interested in more theoretical issues: How can we explain the different attitudes towards the EU among Chinese, and which theories previously developed by Western scholars to explain orientations towards foreign countries and international organisations have empirical evidence in China and which explanations are nearer to 'the truth' than others? 2. Theory Theoretically we distinguish three processes of political attitude development: processing one s own experiences (direct contact), processing information from relevant others and media (socialization), and one s own thinking (inference) (see Mackie and Hamilton 1993). The first two processes are represented by the direct contact and socialization theories. The third process is represented by theories which focus on cognitive explanations such as knowledge, image, and conflict perception theories, and theories focusing on affective explanations, such as social identity and trust theories. These theories provide the key explanatory variables for our predictive model. 2 The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (China), Renmin University (China), the China Policy Institute (CPI) of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), Leiden University (The Netherlands), Jacobs University Bremen (Germany), and the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London (United Kingdom) were the consortium members. The coordination was done by Lisheng Dong (Professor of Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) and Zhengxu Wang (Associate Professor, China Policy Institute, Faculty of Social Sciences, the University of Nottingham). Website: The European Commission included the study in its Seventh Framework Programme under the title Disaggregating Chinese Perceptions of the EU and the Implications for the EU s China Policy, and supported the study financially. 2

3 Direct contact theory (Allport 1954, Pettigrew 1998, Brown and Hewstone 2005, Pettigrew and Tropp 2006) predicts an induction of positive attitudes. The explanatory variables are quantity and quality of contact. We hypothesize that direct contact with EU countries and citizens is positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. Political socialization theory (Lasswell 1977, Dekker 1991, Sears 2003, Jennings 2007, Jennings, Stoker and Bowers 2009, Van der Noll and Dekker 2010) predicts that an attitude is the result of receiving, accepting, and processing positive or negative informative and affective messages from relevant others. Theoretically the most influential messengers of political information and emotions are the people who first exert influence on the subject with respect to the issue under investigation (parents), who exert influence for the longest period of time (parents, best friend, partner), whose credibility the subject believes to be highest (parents, teachers, television news), who have the most power over the subject (parents, teachers, employers, political elites), and who have the most resources and skills to influence cognitions and emotions (political elites in cooperation with public relations and marketing experts). The explanatory variables are the frequency of communication (e.g., how often the EU is discussed with relevant others, as well as mass media use) and the perceived contents of the communication (the perceived attitudes towards the EU on the part of the various socializers). Positive or negative messages about the EU from parents, teachers, the mass media, peers, colleagues, and/or politicians are expected to influence the socialisee to the point of acquiring positive or negative cognitions, emotions, and hence a positive or negative attitude towards the EU. We hypothesize that receiving positive messages about the EU from the various socialization agencies is positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. Knowledge theory (Jervis 1976, Hamilton 1981, Grant 1990, Popkin and Dimock 2000, McGraw 2000) predicts that the more knowledge people have, the more positive their attitude will be. Two types of knowledge are distinguished: objective and subjective knowledge. People have objective knowledge if they are able to answer a number of factual questions about an object correctly, without any aid or assistance. Subjective knowledge is self-assessed knowledge, i.e., the self-perception that one has not any, a little, or considerable knowledge. We hypothesize that objective and subjective knowledge of the EU are positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. Knowledge is restricted to the truth, i.e., what has been or can be proven to be true and differs from beliefs. A belief is something that one believes to be true but cannot be proven to be true. The proof cannot be given because, among other reasons, data are missing or the concept has more than one meaning. Beliefs or perceptions, including images and stereotypes, may take over the role of knowledge. Image theory (Boulding 1959, Hamilton and Trolier 1986, Cottam 1986 and 1994, Hermann 2003, Alexander, Levin and Henry 2005, Liqun 2008, Guan, Deng and Bond 2010) predicts that the more positive perceptions people have, the more positive their attitude will be., we learn to like (or have favourable attitudes toward) objects we believe have positive characteristics, and we acquire unfavourable attitudes toward objects we associate with negative characteristics (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980: 63). We hypothesize that positive perceptions of the EU, European ideas of democracy, European ways of doing business, and EU citizens are positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. Conflict perception theory (Stephan and Stephan 2000, Chen 2001, Stephan et al. 2005, Riek, Mania and Gaertner 2006, Brewer 2006) predicts that negative attitudes result from perceptions of a conflict of interests regarding scarce resources, and a conflict of values. We hypothesize that perceptions of a positive EU-China relation, common interests, shared values, and a positive role of the EU in the world are positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. Social identity theory (Turner, Brown and Tajfel 1979, Tajfel and Turner 1986; see also Huddy 2003) argues that people have a fundamental need for a positive self-identity and that 3

4 this identity is to a large extent derived from membership of a social group. People compare their own group with others and evaluate the group to which they belong positively, whereas they evaluate other groups less positively or even negatively. An important in-group is the national group, i.e., one s own country and people (Bloom 1990), and several studies have shown that strong positive attitudes towards one s own country and people (nationalism) have an impact on the attitudes towards ethnic out-groups living within the country (Coenders and Scheepers 2004; Hagendoorn and Poppe 2004) and towards foreign countries and peoples (Dekker, Aspeslagh and Meijerink 1998, Dekker, Malová and Hoogendoorn 2003). We hypothesize that a moderately positive attitude towards one s own country (patriotism) is not related to the attitude towards the EU, whereas a very positive attitude towards one s own country (nationalism) is negatively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. It is especially people who suffer from a low self-esteem who, more than others, can be inclined to strengthen their positive attitude towards their own group and develop a more negative attitude towards out-groups. We hypothesize that a higher self-esteem is related to a more positive attitude towards the EU. Trust theory (Niedermayer 1995, Larson 1997, Brewer and Steenbergen 2002, Brewer, Gross, Aday and Willnat 2004, Brewer 2004, Brewer, Aday and Gross 2005) predicts that the more trust people have, the more positive their attitude towards other people and groups will be. According to this theory, trust is a central requirement for all relationships between individuals, groups, and societies; trust contributes to a positive attitude and distrust to a negative attitude. Trust is the expectation that another s behaviour will be predictably friendly, while distrust is the expectation that another s behaviour will be harmful or unpredictable (Inglehart 1991: 146). We hypothesize that trust is positively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. 3. Survey The data were collected through a survey developed in several meetings of the Chinese Views of EU research project team (see Introduction). All English items used in our study were translated into Chinese by a local bilingual translator, and a native English speaker with good Chinese proficiency was then asked to back-translate these items. Back-translation was compared with the original English version, and some minor modifications were made to produce the final Chinese version. The survey was carried out in six cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi an, Chengdu and Nanning) in July and August These cities were chosen to cover differences across regions, levels of economic development, and integration into international markets. In each city 500 respondents, subdivided according to the various districts, were asked to participate in the study. They were selected by probability proportionate to size (pps) random sampling using lists of registered residence, excluding migrant workers and rural population. The samples were drawn separately for each city. Data were collected by the Chinese Academy of Social Science and the People s University of China in collaboration with local partner institutions. The study was presented to the respondents as a public opinion survey about Chinese people s views of Europe and the European Union. Across the six cities in China 3,019 urban residents participated in the survey. For our study we used those 2,410 respondents who answered the two questions regarding the dependent variable (attitude towards the EU). In this sample age varied from 18 to 70 (M = 41, SD = 14). The gender distribution was almost even (53 percent male). The majority of the respondents were employed (66 percent), and the average income ranged from 10,000 to 30,000 RMB. The average number of years of education was 12.5 (SD = 3.2), and ranged from 0 to 22 years. One fifth of the respondents had junior secondary education or below (21 4

5 percent), one third had senior secondary education (36 percent), one fifth college education (21 percent), and almost one fourth had university education or higher (23 percent). Most respondents position themselves fairly low on the social status continuum. Attitude towards the EU was measured by two questions. The first was: Please tell me if you have a very unfavourable, somewhat unfavourable, somewhat favourable or a very favourable impression of the EU? The second question was: Please tell me if you have a very unfavourable, somewhat unfavourable, somewhat favourable or a very favourable impression of EU citizens? The Chinese word for impression has a stronger affective dimension than the English word. This is important because an attitude is also in our view the amount of affect for or against some object (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975: 11), and simply a person's general feeling of favourableness or un-favourableness (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980: 54, Fishbein and Ajzen 1973). Direct contact with the EU was measured by three questions. The first question was Have you ever been to EU countries? ( yes or no ). The second and third were Are you in touch with foreigners in your life/work? ( yes or no ) and Do they include people from EU countries? ( yes or no ). We constructed one quantity of direct contact variable based on these questions distinguishing between people with and without direct contact with the EU and its citizens. We also asked two questions about the quality of direct contact. The first question was Were your experiences while being in the EU countries in general very negative, very positive, or something in between, using this scale? (1 very negative to 10 very positive ). The second question was Are your contacts with people of EU countries in general very negative, very positive, or something in between, using this scale? (1 very negative to 10 very positive ). We constructed one quality of direct contact variable based on these questions by averaging the evaluation of the experiences. Socialization about the EU was measured by one question about the socialization agencies, and one question about the perceived positive or negative contents of the socialization. First, the respondents were asked What is your most important source of information about EU countries? Choose three. The sources presented on a card were Family and relatives, Teachers and text books, Television, Newspaper, Radio, Internet, Books, Friends, Work and colleagues, and Party. The next question was Is the information you received from this source generally very negative, negative, positive, or very positive about EU countries? Answers were given on a 10-point scale ranging from very negative to very positive. Objective knowledge of the EU was measured by eleven factual questions. The first question was a multiple-choice question: Where are the headquarters of the EU located? In Frankfurt, Luxemburg, Brussels, or Strasburg? The second question was an open question: How many member states does the EU have? The next five questions were Which of these countries is or are part of the EU? Turkey, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Norway. The last four questions concerned the use of the euro: Which one of the following countries does not use the euro? France, Germany, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The responses to the eleven factual questions form an acceptable objective knowledge scale (Cronbach s alpha (α) =.66, M = 4.98, SD = 2.32, N = 2410). In addition, the following question measuring subjective knowledge of the EU was asked: How much do you feel you know about the European Union? The respondents could indicate their self-assessed knowledge on a scale ranging from 1 ( nothing at all ) to 10 ( a great deal ). The correlation between the objective and subjective knowledge measures is low (r =.24, p <.001). Perception of the EU was measured by asking the respondents to compare their perceptions of the EU with their perceptions of their own country. The question was formulated as follows: For each of the following domains, would you say that the situation in the EU area is better or worse than in China? What about, followed by the domains the 5

6 prospects for the economy in the EU area, the employment situation in the EU area, the situation of the environment in the EU area, the social welfare situation in the EU area, family relations in the EU area, and quality of life in the EU area. The answer options were: better than in China, worse than in China, and roughly the same. The answers regarding the five social domains, excluding the family relations, form a reliable scale of the perception of the EU (α =.63, M = 2.72, SD =.37; a 3-point scale ranging from (1) worse to (3) better than in China ). In addition, we measured perceptions of two important elements of the EU democracy and economy. The first question was about the respondent s perception of European ideas of democracy: Which of the following phrase comes closer to your view? : I like European ideas about democracy, or I dislike European ideas about democracy. The second question was about the respondent s perception of European ways of doing business: I like European ways of doing business, or I dislike European ways of doing business. The answer options were the same as those mentioned in the question text, plus It s hard to tell. Perception of EU citizens was measured by two questions. The first was Do you think that in general the EU citizens are peaceful or aggressive? Please select a value on the 7-point scale below that expresses your view ( very peaceful, quite peaceful, somewhat peaceful, neutral, somewhat aggressive, quite aggressive, and very aggressive ). The second question was Do you think that in general the EU citizens are trustworthy or that they cannot be trusted? ( very trustworthy, quite trustworthy, somewhat trustworthy, neutral, somewhat untrustworthy, quite untrustworthy, and very untrustworthy ). Perception of the China-EU relationship was measured by two questions. The first question was Do you think that in general the China-EU relationship is good or bad at the moment? Please select a value on the 7-point scale below that expresses your view. The scale consisted of the following answer options: very good, quite good, somewhat good, neutral, somewhat bad, quite bad, and very bad. The second question was Please could you indicate how friendly or unfriendly the China-EU relationship is? 1 means very unfriendly, 10 means very friendly. The answers to the two questions were averaged into one scale (α =.42, acceptable for two items, M =.57, SD =.15, 0-1 scale). Perception of common interests between China and the EU was measured by the following question: Some people say that China and the European Union have enough common interests to be able to cooperate on international problems. Others say that China and the European Union have such different interests that cooperating on international problems is impossible. Which statement comes closer to your opinion? The answer options were enough common interest to cooperate on international problems, such different interests that cooperating on international problems is impossible, and they don t have many common interests, but can still work together. The respondents were also asked to what extent they perceive that the EU takes the interests of China into account (answer categories ranging from not at all to a great deal ). Perception of a conflict of values between China and the EU was measured by the following question: In your opinion, in terms of values, are China and the EU countries very close to each other, close to each other, fairly distant from each other, very distant from each other? In addition, we asked whether respondents perceive that China and the EU had enough in common to cooperate on international problems (the answer categories being enough common, not many common values, but can cooperate, and such different values that cooperation is impossible ). Perception of the EU role in the world was measured by asking In your opinion, would you say that the EU tends to play a positive or a negative role regarding? Six domains were presented: peace in the world, the international economy, protection of the environment, scientific progress, fighting poverty in the world and fighting 6

7 international terrorism. The answers to these six questions formed a reliable scale (α =.72) and were averaged into one indicator of the perceived role of the EU in the world. Two attitudes towards one s own country China were included in the survey: patriotism and satisfaction. Patriotism was measured by three questions asking, respectively How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements? : I am proud of being Chinese, I have a good feeling about what the Chinese people have done, and China can be proud of what it represents ( strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree ). The three items formed a reliable patriotism scale (α =.76, M = 3.42, SD =.54, 4- point scale) and the answers were averaged into one measure. Satisfaction with one s own country was measured by asking How satisfied are you with the following aspects of Chinese society? The aspects were the economy, the employment situation, the situation of the environment, the social welfare situation, and public safety. The answer options were very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not so satisfied, and not satisfied at all. The five items formed a reliable satisfaction with one s own country scale (α =.78; M = 2.39, SD =.51, 4-point scale) and were averaged into one scale. Self-esteem was measured by asking for a reaction to one of Rosenberg s (1965) selfesteem scale items: On the whole, I am satisfied with myself ( strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree ). Trust was measured by two questions. The first question was whether the respondents agreed or disagreed with the following statement: Most people are trustworthy ( strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, and strongly disagree ). The second question was whether the respondents agreed or disagreed with Generally speaking, China can trust other nations ( strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree ). The two items formed a reliable trust scale (α =.40, acceptable for a two-item scale, M = 2.8, SD =.52, 4-point scale) and were averaged into one construct. All measures relating to the EU, EU citizens, and the relation between China and the EU were coded in such a way that a higher score reflected a positive orientation. 4. Findings Most respondents had a positive to very positive attitude towards the European Union (85 percent), only 6 percent of the respondents had a negative attitude towards the EU, and the remaining 9 percent took a neutral stance. The attitude towards the EU was based on two variables the impression of the EU, and the impression of EU citizens. Almost nine out of ten respondents indicated having a somewhat or very favourable impression of the EU (77 percent and 10 percent, respectively), and more than nine out of ten respondents indicated having a somewhat or very favourable impression of EU citizens (81 percent and 11 percent, respectively). The correlation between the two questions is moderate (r =.43, p <.001). The answers form an acceptable scale (α =.60) and were averaged to construct our dependent variable, the attitude towards the EU. We conducted regression analyses in order to understand the relationships hypothesized in this study. Our first model includes only demographic variables, and shows that age, gender and years of education have significant effects on attitude towards the EU, while social status does not have a significant effect. The demographic characteristics do not contribute much to the explanation of the variation in attitudes towards the EU (2 percent). Next, separate models were tested to examine the effects of the various theories discussed above. Taking into account the effects of the demographic characteristics we see that all theories significantly contribute to the explanation of the attitude towards the EU, although their explanatory powers are weak. The direct contact model including the variable has had direct contact with the EU or its citizens hardly adds to the explained variance (0.1 percent). 7

8 Also the socialization model including the variable having received information about the EU hardly adds to the explained variance (0.2 percent). 3 The affective inference model including variables from social identity theory patriotism, satisfaction with one s own country and self-esteem - and trust theory trust in people and nations in general - does also not add very much to the explained variance (1.4 percent). Most explanatory power has the cognitive inference model including variables from knowledge, image and conflict perception theories objective knowledge of the EU, subjective knowledge of the EU, perception of the EU, perception of European ideas about democracy, perception of European ways of doing business, perception that EU citizens are peaceful, perception that EU citizens are trustworthy, perception of a positive relationship between China and the EU, perception of common interest China and EU, perception EU takes Chinese s interests into account, perception of conflict of values between China and the EU, and perception of EU role in the world (14 percent). To test how the individual theories and their variables perform when they are analysed in combination, we conducted a regression analysis including all predictors from the various theoretical models. The strongest predictor of the attitude towards the EU is the perception that EU citizens are trustworthy (ß =.18), followed by the perception of a positive relationship between China and the EU (ß =.10), and the perception that EU citizens are peaceful (ß =.08). This sixth model, including all the predictors from the various theories, explains a total of 17 percent of the variance in the attitude towards the EU. The theory that contributes substantially to the explanation of the attitude towards the EU is image theory. 5. Discussion The data do not justify a rejection of our hypotheses that the attitude towards the EU is related to direct contact with the EU and EU citizens, to the perceived messages about the EU from mass media and relevant others, to trust in people and nations in general, to objective and subjective knowledge of the EU, and to perceptions of the EU, EU citizens, EU-China relationship and the EU role in the world. However, we found no support for the hypothesis that the attitude towards the EU is related to perceptions of European ideas of democracy and perceptions of China-EU common interests and shared values. All theories presented in the theory section contribute by one or more variables to the explanation. There is most empirical evidence for the image theory. Because only few respondents had ever been to EU countries or were in touch with people from EU countries, for most respondents the attitude towards the EU and the key underlying perceptions - perception that EU citizens are trustworthy and peaceful and the perception of a positive relationship between China and the EU - cannot have been influenced by direct contact with the EU. These perceptions must be mainly based on second-hand information, i.e. messages from media channels and relevant others. The respondents themselves say that television is their most important source of information about EU countries. Because Chinese 3 Almost half of the respondents watched television news daily (47%), a third read newspapers on a daily basis (33%), almost three out of ten respondents daily searched the Internet for news (29%), and only one out of ten daily listened to the radio (10%). The most important sources of information about the EU are, according to the respondents self-reports, television (most important: 72%), newspaper (second most important: 49%) and internet (third most important: 26%). All other socialization agencies, including radio, family members, relatives, teachers and school, books, friends, work and colleagues, and political party, were rarely named. The fact that political party was seldom named as a socialization agency in this field may have to do with the fact that most respondents had no political or party affiliation (59%), while only a quarter of the respondents indicated they were CCP members, and only between one and two respondents said they were members of the Communist Youth League. The majority of the respondents viewed the information received from television news, newspapers and Internet positive about EU countries (62%), a quarter perceived this information both positive and negative (23%) and only one out of ten perceived this information negative (10%). 8

9 television is heavily controlled by political leaders we may consider these leaders as the key influencers or socializers of the Chinese citizens perceptions and hence their attitudes towards the EU (see Stockmann 2009 and 2010). Although our study has yielded relevant results, two limitations should be mentioned specifically. First, the percentage of explained variance is not very high. Some scholars have doubts whether theories developed outside China can be sufficiently applicable to the Chinese context. However, it is a fact that all theories presented in the theory section contributed to the explanation. The reason why their explanatory powers are weak is probably that we were not able to include all relevant variables in the questionnaire. For example, we could not include our whole set of items measuring the attitude towards one s own country and people (Dekker, Malová and Hoogendoorn 2003). A future study should include not only patriotism but also nationalism items. Our hypothesis was that a moderately positive attitude towards one s own country (patriotism) is not related to the attitude towards the EU, whereas a very positive attitude towards one s own country (nationalism) is negatively related to a positive attitude towards the EU. It was not possible either to include the whole set of ten items measuring self-esteem (only one item was included). Neither could emotions that we wanted to measure be incorporated in the questionnaire, although we know from brain research that rationality and emotion are closely intertwined (Marcus 2000), and that emotions have a strong effect on attitudes towards out-groups and foreign countries and peoples (Crawford 2000). A second limitation is that the research design was cross-sectional, making any interpretations of causal direction tentative. The likely causal order of the variables has been reconstructed within a correlational design. Although this reconstruction was based on findings from previous studies and seems fairly plausible, we cannot be certain that the relations proposed are correct in terms of causality. In a future study a panel design should be adopted. 6 References Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. (1980) Understanding attitudes and predicting social behaviour, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Ajzen, I. and Madden, T.J. (1986) Prediction of goal-directed behaviour: attitudes, intentions and perceived behavioural control, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 22: Alexander, M.G., Levin, S. and Henry, P.J. (2005) Image theory, social identity, and social dominance: structural characteristics and individual motives underlying international images, Political Psychology, 26 (1): Allport, G. W. (1954, 1958) The nature of prejudice, Reading, MA: Addison Wesley and Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Bloom, W. (1990) Personal identity, national identity and international relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boulding, K. E. (1959) National images and international systems, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3 (2): Brewer, P. R. and Steenbergen, M. R. (2002) All against all: How beliefs about human nature shape foreign policy opinions, Political Psychology, 23 (1): Brewer, P. R. (2004) Public trust in (or cynicism about) other nations across time, Political Behaviour, 26 (4): Brewer P. J., Gross, K., Aday, S. and Willnat, L. (2004) International trust and public opinion about world affairs, American Journal of Political Science, 48 (1): Brewer, P.R., Aday, S. and Gross, K. (2005) Do Americans trust other nations? A panel study, Social Science Quarterly, 86 (1): Brewer, P.R. (2006) National interest frames and public opinion about world affairs, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 11 (4): Brown, R., and Hewstone, M. (2005) An integrative theory of intergroup contact, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 37: Chen J. (2001) Urban Chinese perceptions of threats from the United States and Japan, Public Opinion Quarterly, 65 (2):

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