Cross-National Social Influence: How Foreign Votes Can Affect Domestic Public Opinion

• Author: Giorgio Malet
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140221088846
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140221088846

Comparative Political Studies

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140221088846

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Article

Cross-National Social

Influence: How Foreign

Votes Can Affect

Domestic Public Opinion

Giorgio Malet1

Abstract

Do voters follow the preferences of foreign mass collectives? Despite

the growing research on policy diffusion and theoretical debates on the

emergence of transnational public spheres, we know little about the impact

of foreign votes on domestic public opinion. Yet, the results of elections

and referendums may provide a signal to people in other countries and

trigger a process of contagion. This study leverages the coincidence of the

2005 French referendum on the European Constitution and the fieldwork

of two surveys to analyze the causal effect of cross-national social influence.

Results show that the French rejection increased public opposition to

the Constitution abroad. A process of cognitive activation explains why

knowledgeable voters also grew Eurosceptic after the vote. These findings

attest to the interdependence of national publics and contribute to our

understanding of mechanisms of social contagion.

Keywords

social influence, contagion, referendum, public opinion formation

Introduction

With the virtual erasing of costs of worldwide communications, the results of

elections and referendums are increasingly reported abroad. Thus, the possibility

1University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Corresponding Author:

Giorgio Malet, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, Zurich, 8050, Switzerland.

Email: malet@ipz.uzh.ch.

1088846

CPSXXX10.1177/00104140221088846Comparative Political StudiesMalet

research-article2022

2022, Vol. 55(14) 2416–2446

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that voters could follow the lead of foreign citizens has attracted considerable

interest in the public debate and has gained some attention in social science

research. In the last years, for example, the Brexit vote and the election of Donald

Trump sparked fear of contagion among both pundits and political elites. In an

interview released before the British referendum, the German finance minister

expressed concerns that a British exit from the European Union could trigger a

domino effect in other member states.1 Similarly, many reporters suggested that

the two electoral events that shook the United States and Britain in 2016 could

activate a process of international contagion.2

There is some evidence that collective opinions and behaviors can be imi-

tated abroad. Studies on revolution waves, for example, show that certain

“iconic events” represent powerful lessons for subsequent democratization

episodes in neighboring countries (Beissinger, 2002; Capoccia & Ziblatt,

2010; Weyland, 2010). Similarly, previous studies have shown that public

support for a policy increases when that policy is adopted in other countries

(Linos, 2011; Pacheco, 2012). Individual interests, as measured in internet

searches, have also been found to diffuse albeit more rarely (Bail et al., 2019).

Given these findings, we may expect that election and referendum results

could also influence the opinions of citizens abroad. The increased policy

interdependence among countries, especially in the context of institutional-

ized forms of cooperation, makes foreign votes an important source of infor-

mation for voters who have to make up their minds on similar issues. Indeed,

scholars of international cooperation have suggested that referendums that

reject international agreements may resonate among the public in other coun-

tries and bolster integration-skeptics abroad (Walter, 2020; Walter et al.,

2018). However, most empirical studies have so far documented deterrence

effects rather than contagion processes (Delis et al., 2018; De Vries, 2017;

Minkus et al., 2018). It is, thus, still unclear under what conditions people

follow the opinion of foreign mass collectives and what mechanism can

account for it.

Combining theories of social influence with studies on transnational pub-

lic spheres, this study offers a theoretical framework to understand when and

how foreign popular votes can affect public opinion. It proposes three condi-

tions under which election and referendum results can influence the opinions

of citizens in other countries—proximity, newsworthiness, and scope—and

three mechanisms that can explain why citizens follow the opinions of people

abroad: a bandwagon effect, a cognitive response, or a legitimization process.

This framework is then tested in the case of the 2005 French referendum that

rejected the European constitution.

The coincidence of the French referendum and the fieldworks of two sur-

veys, the Eurobarometer and the British election panel study, provides a