Comparing elite and citizen attitudes towards the differentiated implementation of EU law: Evidence from a large-N survey of citizens, politicians and bureaucrats

We know that elites and citizens trust international organizations to different degrees. However, little is known about how differently they think about one of the key building blocks of the international legal order: the implementation of international rules at the national level. Using data from a Norwegian survey from 2023 I find a distinct elite-citizen gap in the views of whether national policymakers should prioritize international coherence or national preferences when implementing international rules at the national level. However, the direction of this gap varies depending on the elite in question: Whereas citizens are more positive towards legal harmonization than politicians, they are more critical than civil servants. These results call into question whether there is one “elite-citizen gap” or many, depending both on configurations of groups and whether these gaps differ across policies.