ABSTRACT

This chapter connects our research to the literature (1) on Arab and Muslim public opinion to (2) public opinion toward the European Union, and toward international attitudes, more generally. In contrast to a religion-based argument such as the one by Huntington, we argue that Muslim citizens across the globe develop their attitudes toward the European Union by the same mechanisms like other global citizens. We derive a theoretical framework that proposes a causal two-step process explaining how citizens in general should come to their attitudes toward the international level. This model which we termed the “Two-Step Model of Using Heuristics (TSMUH)” has the benefit of combining approaches that have so far been thought of as rivaling each other, the socio-psychological and the utilitarian model of explaining attitudes. As such, Muslim public opinion toward the EU seems to be shaped by more rational considerations than has been shown for other groups of citizens in previous literature.