Are voters under Euroskeptic leaders turning Euroskeptic: Leadership cues and anti-EU views in Italy

A well-established literature has emphasised the influence of party cues on voters’ views vis-à-vis the EU and EU-related issues. We expand this literature by looking at the role of leadership cues received from elected officials, regardless of their political/ideological affiliation. We drive our empirics from a 2013 survey in Italy, and we focus on a highly salient issue at the time, the EU-imposed structural reform. These structural reforms were heavily criticised by the centre-right coalition of Silvio Berlusconi. Using a regression discontinuity design we find respondents in localities led by the centre-right coalition to have a more negative view of the structural reforms, but this effect is contingent on the length of exposure to the centre-right leadership. Furthermore, the average effect of being in power is driven by a strong effect on party supporters, with no effect on non-supporters.