compares cosmopolitan versus communitarian issue positions by mass publics and elites across our study. We investigate whether there is an attitude gap between elites, who tend to adhere to cosmopolitan positions, and mass publics with more communitarian leanings. Contrasting mass opinion surveys with results from our own elite survey, we show that the mass-elite divide on globalization issues is indeed pervasive and found in all five countries of study. We consider both economic causes in the shape of diverging material interests and cultural ones, the latter pointing towards cultural capital and symbolic boundaries defining transnational cosmopolitan class consciousness. The results align more with the cultural than with the economic explanation. Political elites in the five countries display convergent cosmopolitan positions across issues as varied as international trade, climate change, migration and supranational integration. Mass publics are much more divided on these issues. Also, education alone does not explain the mass-elite gap because the elites are still significantly more cosmopolitan than highly educated members of mass publics, even within the same country.

compares cosmopolitan vs communitarian issue positions of national, European and global elites. It is important to go beyond the national elite focus since the prototypical members of a cosmopolitan elite are thought to be no longer attached to one national context but to have an entire region or even the ‘global village’ as their point of reference. Our empirical analysis supports this expectation: The positions of European-level elites turn out to be even more strongly cosmopolitan than those of national elites, which indicates that a particularly large gap exists between the cosmopolitanism of European elites and the more communitarian orientation of mass publics. Cultural explanations - measured by embeddedness in transnational networks - have the greatest explanatory power. Those elites who have more transnational contacts and travel experience are more cosmopolitan with regard to trade, immigration and supranational integration. However, economic explanations help us to explain within-elite variance in cosmopolitanism. In particular, we find that business and labour union elites diverge strongly in their positions on international trade and supranational integration.

compares cosmopolitan vs communitarian issue positions of national, European and global elites. It is important to go beyond the national elite focus since the prototypical members of a cosmopolitan elite are thought to be no longer attached to one national context but to have an entire region or even the ‘global village’ as their point of reference. Our empirical analysis supports this expectation: The positions of European-level elites turn out to be even more strongly cosmopolitan than those of national elites, which indicates that a particularly large gap exists between the cosmopolitanism of European elites and the more communitarian orientation of mass publics. Cultural explanations - measured by embeddedness in transnational networks - have the greatest explanatory power. Those elites who have more transnational contacts and travel experience are more cosmopolitan with regard to trade, immigration and supranational integration. However, economic explanations help us to explain within-elite variance in cosmopolitanism. In particular, we find that business and labour union elites diverge strongly in their positions on international trade and supranational integration.

compares cosmopolitan versus communitarian issue positions by mass publics and elites across our study. We investigate whether there is an attitude gap between elites, who tend to adhere to cosmopolitan positions, and mass publics with more communitarian leanings. Contrasting mass opinion surveys with results from our own elite survey, we show that the mass-elite divide on globalization issues is indeed pervasive and found in all five countries of study. We consider both economic causes in the shape of diverging material interests and cultural ones, the latter pointing towards cultural capital and symbolic boundaries defining transnational cosmopolitan class consciousness. The results align more with the cultural than with the economic explanation. Political elites in the five countries display convergent cosmopolitan positions across issues as varied as international trade, climate change, migration and supranational integration. Mass publics are much more divided on these issues. Also, education alone does not explain the mass-elite gap because the elites are still significantly more cosmopolitan than highly educated members of mass publics, even within the same country.