Measuring attitudes toward regional organizations outside Europe

What shapes public attitudes toward regional organizations (ROs)? Although a number of articles have focused on the causes, design, and effectiveness of ROs in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, research so far has neglected to study the factors influencing public opinion regarding these bodies. This exploratory article argues that public attitudes toward organizations in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America are shaped by citizens’ fundamental economic and ideational perceptions and by their trust in domestic actors. These hypotheses are tested by employing data from the Afrobarometer and Latinobarometro surveys. The findings lend more credibility to the assumption that citizens outside Europe use heuristics instead of utilitarian cost-benefit analyses when asked for their attitudes toward regional integration and its organizations. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015