Is There No European Opinion?

Abstract

The public's lack of information and dearth of opinion on political and economic matters, well known to pollsters in the United States, are also common in Europe. Nearly fifty polls and surveys conducted in various European countries between 1948 and 1958 are summarized, most of them dealing with supra-national bodies such as the Council of Europe and the European Common Market. The principle of European unification had strong public support, but there was wide-spread public ignorance of specific institutions, as well as ignorance of internal politics; on the average, 40% to 50% of those polled would express no opinion on the desirability of a given supra-national institution.