Brexit Domino? The Political Contagion Effects of Voter-endorsed Withdrawals from International Institutions

Stefanie Walter

doi:10.1177/0010414021997169

Abstract

This article examines the systemic implications of the growing popular backlash against international cooperation and analyzes how voter-endorsed attempts to withdraw from international institutions reverberate abroad. Observing other countries’ disintegration experiences allows voters to better assess the feasibility and desirability of such withdrawals. More positive withdrawal experiences encourage exit-support abroad, whereas negative experiences are likely to have a deterring effect. These contagion effects will be conditioned by the availability of information and voters’ willingness to learn. The article empirically examines this argument for the case of Brexit. It leverages original survey data from 58,959 EU-27 Europeans collected in six survey waves during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations and from a two-wave survey of 2,241 Swiss voters conducted around the first Brexit extension in spring 2019. It finds both encouragement and deterrence effects, which are bigger when respondents pay attention to Brexit and are dampened by motivated reasoning.

Highlights

International institutions have become increasingly contested in the past years
A second set of analyses focuses on the effects of Brexit on public opinion in Switzerland, a third country with close ties to the European Union (EU), and a country with strong direct democratic institutions in which voters were voting on concrete disintegration proposals in referendums during and shortly after the Brexit withdrawal negotiations
What does the increase in instances of voter-endorsed withdrawals from international institutions mean for the stability of international cooperation? Are such instances likely to spread, as voters abroad are encouraged to push for similar paths for their own countries? Or do these instances deter voters in other countries from pursuing such strategies because they highlight the difficulties and trade-offs associated with disintegration?

Summary

Introduction

International institutions have become increasingly contested in the past years. Institutions as diverse as the EU, the Paris Climate Agreement, or international courts have become salient and polarizing issues in national public debates. A second set of analyses focuses on the effects of Brexit on public opinion in Switzerland, a third country with close ties to the EU, and a country with strong direct democratic institutions in which voters were voting on concrete disintegration proposals in referendums during and shortly after the Brexit withdrawal negotiations These analyses explore how dramatic disintegration-related events matter for contagion processes by leveraging a two-wave survey design. Contagion effects will be shaped not just by the availability of information, and by the extent to which the withdrawing country’s experience squares with voters’ pre-existing attitudes and their priors about the likely consequences of leaving an international institution To explore this aspect in more detail, I interact respondents’ subjective assessment of the UK’s Brexit experience with their general views on the EU.. Beyond an international institution’s member states, affect vote intentions in actual upcoming referendums, and are enhanced by informational effects but dampened by motivated reasoning

Conclusion

Findings

15. Supplemental