merely a “soft” issue of public opinion. While citizens do not believe their vote to matter, they are free to use it carelessly, which in this case stands to usher truly anti-democratic parties – including fascists, anarchists, and ultra-nationalists – into positions of power. Furthermore, if voter turnout drops for the eighth consecutive election, the European Parliament and the EU as a whole will lack a democratic mandate; if only a third of Europeans participate in European governance, who can the EU claim to represent? If these democratic catastrophes are to be avoided, or at least mitigated, two barriers must be overcome. Firstly, citizens must understand how the EU works to a sufficient level where they recognize the validity of its democratic structures, including the upcoming election. Secondly, they must trust the EU to act in their best interest, or at least in the interest of the majority. Public Diplomacy and Democratic Legitimacy Considering these parameters, it makes sense to approach the EU’s ongoing crisis of democratic legitimacy through a public diplomacy framework. Defined by Nicholas Cull as “an international actor’s attempt to manage the international environment through engagement with a foreign public,” public diplomacy is generally employed with the dual purpose of promoting mutual understanding between foreign publics and influencing these publics to adopt a particular opinion or action. Because the EU is a multinational entity, when it communicates with any public, internally or externally, it is useful to conceive of that action as one of public diplomacy. Brussels’ engagement with its own citizens is characterized by the same cross-cultural and multilinguistic challenges as traditional states’ foreign engagement initiatives. Furthermore, the importance of overcoming inherent distrust of the “foreign” actor is central to internal EU communications. There is only a very weak imagined community between Germany and Greece, and almost none between the United Kingdom (UK) and any continental state. Only 10% of
respond “don’t know” concerning whether they “tend to trust” the institution, instead responding negatively. Those who did not know the institutions but did trust them were almost negligible, though the European Parliament fared somewhat better in this circumstance at 16%, presumably because respondents were familiar with the term “parliament” in a national context. The relationship between knowledge and trust deficits suggests the importance of working to correct gaps in understanding. In doing so, people would not only become more knowledgeable, but they would also become more trusting. Conversely, while citizens continue to know very little about Brussels, any sort of trust-based messaging will likely be ineffective. Alternatively, many critics consider European trust deficits to be inevitable as long as the European economy remains weak. But it is inaccurate to assume that citizens automatically lose faith in the EU or its institutions following unfortunate events, as we can see by examining public opinion following the 2009 eurocrisis. Currently, 46% of Europeans are dissatisfied with “the way democracy works in the EU,” while 43% are satisfied. This measure has grown increasingly negative since peaking at 54% approval and 32% disapproval in late 2009, several months into the crisis. This is contrasted with satisfaction “with the way democracy works in (OUR COUNTRY),” which revealed 53% satisfaction and 45% dissatisfaction following the 2009 economic collapse – significantly worse than the EU measure, and a dramatic drop from the pre-crisis measures of 58% satisfaction and 39% dissatisfaction. Whereas national governments suffered a large drop in democratic legitimacy following the 2009 crisis – 58% to 53% satisfaction and 39% to 45% dissatisfaction – the EU’s measures actually rose. This indicates that distrust of European democracy is not a function of economic troubles being automatically blamed on faults of the EU, but instead of citizens’ understanding or misunderstanding of how the crisis was handled at the European level. In fact, Europeans who