Learning from precedent: how the British Brexit experience shapes nationalist rhetoric outside the UK

Abstract

The liberal international order has recently come under increasing nationalist pressure, evidenced by a rise in nationalist demands to withdraw from international institutions. A growing literature examines the domestic economic, social, and political origins of this nationalist backlash against international institutions. However, less is known about the extent to which precedents of withdrawals of one country affect nationalist pressures for future withdrawals elsewhere. In this paper, we argue that initial withdrawal episodes provide new information about the feasibility and desirability of withdrawals to nationalist elites in other countries. Hence, we expect nationalists abroad to be either encouraged or deterred to follow a similar path – depending on the success of these precedents. We explore this argument in the context of the British withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit), which arguably marks the most significant withdrawal from an international institution to date. Based on a quantitative analyses of media reports in ten European countries, we show we show that nationalist parties in Europe increased or moderated the aggressiveness about their EU-related rhetoric as the ups and downs of the Brexit-drama unfolded. Our results suggest that precedents of nationalist withdrawals shape domestic politics well beyond the concerned countries themselves.

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

“…These ups and downs are reflected in the value of the British Pound over the course of the withdrawal negotiations (Martini & Walter, 2020). The lefthand panel in Figure 1 shows the monthly changes in the GBP's average nominal exchange rate with a basket of four major currencies (EUR, USD, CHF, and JPY) relative to the beginning of the withdrawal negotiations in July 2017.…”

The reverberations of British Brexit politics abroad

“…Brexit is a case where the actual consequences of leaving the EU will take time to materialize. At the same time, the fact that several Eurosceptic parties called for their countries to follow the British example and leave the EU as well (Chopin and Lequesne, 2021; Martini and Walter, 2023) turned the question on whether to follow the British lead or not into an important question for voters across many European countries. In this context, the political ups and downs of the Brexit process represented a clear source of information for citizens of remaining member states.…”

“…For example, national electoral victories of radical right parties seem to signal the acceptability of previously stigmatized positions to voters (Bischof and Wagner, 2019). Finally, political events abroad can influence the political discourse of both political elites (Van Kessel et al, 2020; Chopin and Lequesne, 2021; Martini and Walter, 2023) and media reporting, which may change the tone and the frequency with which a certain policy is talked about. These different channels are not mutually exclusive but can operate at the same time.…”

“…Studies that have so far analyzed the international reverberations of Brexit report mixed findings in this regard. A number of studies point to a deterrence effect of Brexit on support for leaving the EU among voters (De Vries, 2017) and political parties (Van Kessel et al, 2020;Chopin and Lequesne, 2021;Martini and Walter, 2023) in remaining member states. Others document both deterrence and encouragement effects among voters in the EU-27 and in third countries such as Switzerland (Walter, 2021a;Malet and Walter, 2023).…”

Brexit Dilemma and the Future of Euroscepticism

“…Thus, exit policies are yet not considered as an alternative to EU membership. As Martini and Walter (2023) states Eurosceptic rhetoric shifted from exit policies towards reforming the EU. In this framework, it can be stated that there has been a shift from "hard Eurosceptic" rhetoric to "soft Eurosceptic" rhetoric.…”