Which arguments convince Germans and Danes to keep supporting Ukraine?

This article was originally published in German in Ukraine-Analysen No. 278 (15 February 2023) and is republished here in an English translation with permission. Co-authored with Troels Bøggild, Sascha Göbel, and Jacob Nyrup.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was not only an attack on the country itself. It can also be understood as an attack on the democratic and international order. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted in his opening speech at the Aspen–GMF Bucharest Forum in late November 2022, there can be no lasting peace if oppression and autocracy prevail over freedom and democracy.

Beyond the political consequences of the invasion, the war has also had economic effects. The European Union has been hit particularly hard. Rising energy prices and general inflation can partly be traced to the halt in Russian gas deliveries.

In a study now published in Research & Politics, we ask to what extent Danish and German citizens can be persuaded by arguments commonly raised for and against continued support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

The arguments we tested

Arguments in favor of continued support fall into two broad camps. The first draws on the importance of democracy and Western values, and on Russia’s human rights violations. The second is a security-based argument. War is generally unacceptable, and there is deep uncertainty about whether Russia would actually honor any peace agreement.

As a counter-argument, we drew on the claim that a compromise between the two warring parties would ease the economic problems currently affecting many Germans and Danes. All of these arguments featured prominently in German and Danish daily and weekly newspapers in 2022.

Two survey experiments

To test the persuasive power of these arguments, we ran two online surveys. The Danish survey ran in the first half of October 2022, and the German survey ran in late November 2022. Germany was of particular interest because it had until recently been highly dependent on Russian gas, so we expected the economic argument to be especially persuasive there. Denmark served as a comparison case: most Danish citizens support Ukraine, and the country is less dependent on Russia. Each survey targeted roughly 2,000 respondents, representative of the general population by age, gender, and region.

The central element of the surveys was a simple choice experiment. Respondents were randomly presented with one of two statements, with or without one of the arguments above. The two statements were, in essence, that we should continue supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia, or that we should encourage Ukraine to seek a compromise with Russia.

What we found

The results show a clear pattern. The economic counter-argument, that a compromise with Russia would relieve economic pressure, did not convince respondents to encourage Ukraine toward a compromise. Arguments explaining why continued support for Ukraine matters, in contrast, raised support for Ukraine by between five and twelve percentage points.

Democratic-normative and security-based arguments convinced Danes and Germans to keep supporting Ukraine. The economic argument, surprisingly, did not affect respondents' views on Ukraine support despite the ongoing economic difficulties. In our paper we also show that explicitly mentioning higher electricity costs directly before the choice experiment did not reduce support for Ukraine either.

What this means

Our findings matter for two reasons. First, they suggest that Russia’s attempts to pressure Western populations through economic means have limited prospects of success. Second, citizens in Western Europe appear willing to be persuaded by democratic-normative and security-based arguments for continued support of Ukraine. That, in turn, is an encouraging sign for democracies worldwide.

An open question in the current debate is how far politicians can use democratic-normative and security-based arguments to build support for tank deliveries and other concrete measures. Since our study asked about general support for Ukraine rather than about specific policies such as arms or tank deliveries, we cannot say with certainty whether the same arguments would carry over to those decisions.

---

The full paper is available as Bøggild, Göbel, Lutscher, and Nyrup (2024), “Standing with Ukraine? How citizens trade off self-interest and principles in supporting war-torn international partners”, Research & Politics.