Periodic Reporting for period 4 - DISINTEGRATION (The Mass Politics of Disintegration)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-11-01 al 2025-04-30
The past decade has been marked by a growing popular backlash against international institutions. Examples include the 2015 Greek bailout referendum, the 2016 Brexit referendum, or more recent decisions from the new US administration to withdraw from various international treaties and organizations. The implications of these challenges to international institutions, in which countries unilaterally try to renegotiate the terms of or withdraw from existing international agreements, reach far beyond the countries in which they originate. Not only do the success and consequences of such disintegration bids depend on how the international institution’s other member states respond to a unilateral bid to unilaterally change or terminate the terms of an existing international agreement. Such challenges also pose considerable political contagion risks by encouraging disintegrative tendencies in other countries.
Because our theoretical tools to understand such international disintegration processes are underdeveloped, DISINTEGRATION therefore conducted a broad, systematic, and comparative inquiry into the mass politics of disintegration to better understand these challenges and their reverberations abroad. The project explored when and how one country’s voter-endorsed disintegration experience encourages or deters demands for disintegration in other countries, how these contagion effects are transmitted through domestic elites and domestic discourse, and how the remaining member states respond during disintegration negotiations. Moreover, it put these challenges into the wider context of the popular backlash against globalization and studied how such disintegration bids compare to other challenges faced by international institutions.
To answer these questions, DISINTEGRATION engaged in large-scale data collection designed to capture the evolution of public opinion, elite discourse, and negotiation positions both across and within countries. The project had a strong comparative focus, and paid particular attention to Brexit and Swiss-EU relations, which have been heavily contested in recent years. The project studied these two ongoing processes and their reverberations abroad in real time.
DISINTEGRATION has develop a theory that helps us understand the transnational dynamics and interactions that unfold between governments, elites and the public when one member state seeks to change the membership terms of or to withdraw from an international institution on the basis of widespread popular support, making both theoretical and empirical contributions to an area of both academic and real-world significance.
Because our theoretical tools to understand such international disintegration processes are underdeveloped, DISINTEGRATION therefore conducted a broad, systematic, and comparative inquiry into the mass politics of disintegration to better understand these challenges and their reverberations abroad. The project explored when and how one country’s voter-endorsed disintegration experience encourages or deters demands for disintegration in other countries, how these contagion effects are transmitted through domestic elites and domestic discourse, and how the remaining member states respond during disintegration negotiations. Moreover, it put these challenges into the wider context of the popular backlash against globalization and studied how such disintegration bids compare to other challenges faced by international institutions.
To answer these questions, DISINTEGRATION engaged in large-scale data collection designed to capture the evolution of public opinion, elite discourse, and negotiation positions both across and within countries. The project had a strong comparative focus, and paid particular attention to Brexit and Swiss-EU relations, which have been heavily contested in recent years. The project studied these two ongoing processes and their reverberations abroad in real time.
DISINTEGRATION has develop a theory that helps us understand the transnational dynamics and interactions that unfold between governments, elites and the public when one member state seeks to change the membership terms of or to withdraw from an international institution on the basis of widespread popular support, making both theoretical and empirical contributions to an area of both academic and real-world significance.
The DISINTEGRATION project was divided into several work packages, each of which investigated a different aspect of the questions outlined above.
Work package 1 (WP1) focused on public opinion across countries, a central aspect of investigating “mass-based” disintegration. Here, we completed six waves of the cross-national tracking surve, fielded a six-wave panel survey in Switzerland and several national-level surveys. On this basis, we analyzed contagion dynamics b), the importance of expectations more generally and how voters want their governments to respond when another country unilaterally withdraws from an international institution.
Work package 2 (WP2) focused on elite discourse, both with regard to national politicians and parties, as well as national media discourse.We collected social media data, created a database of IO-related statements in parliamentary speeches from six parliament, and a major corpus of news texts on European integration and Brexit, which have been published since 2012 in over a dozen European countries. One important finding is that nationalists in Europe have significantly moderated their demands to leave the EU over the course of the Brexit negotiations.
Work package 3 (WP3) examined the international negotiations that follow unilateral challenges to international institutions in a comparative perspective. A comparative case study of fourteen instances in which disintegration bids were endorsed by referendum analyzed how the respective international institution and its member states reacted to this challenge and how it played out.
Work package (WP4) developed an encompassing comparative theoretical framework of the dynamics and contagion effects between public opinion, elite discourse, and international negotiations that characterize processes of international non-cooperation. This WP also generated highly-cited review pieces on the backlash against globalization, the politicization of international cooperation, and the contestation of international organizations.
Work package 1 (WP1) focused on public opinion across countries, a central aspect of investigating “mass-based” disintegration. Here, we completed six waves of the cross-national tracking surve, fielded a six-wave panel survey in Switzerland and several national-level surveys. On this basis, we analyzed contagion dynamics b), the importance of expectations more generally and how voters want their governments to respond when another country unilaterally withdraws from an international institution.
Work package 2 (WP2) focused on elite discourse, both with regard to national politicians and parties, as well as national media discourse.We collected social media data, created a database of IO-related statements in parliamentary speeches from six parliament, and a major corpus of news texts on European integration and Brexit, which have been published since 2012 in over a dozen European countries. One important finding is that nationalists in Europe have significantly moderated their demands to leave the EU over the course of the Brexit negotiations.
Work package 3 (WP3) examined the international negotiations that follow unilateral challenges to international institutions in a comparative perspective. A comparative case study of fourteen instances in which disintegration bids were endorsed by referendum analyzed how the respective international institution and its member states reacted to this challenge and how it played out.
Work package (WP4) developed an encompassing comparative theoretical framework of the dynamics and contagion effects between public opinion, elite discourse, and international negotiations that characterize processes of international non-cooperation. This WP also generated highly-cited review pieces on the backlash against globalization, the politicization of international cooperation, and the contestation of international organizations.
DISINTEGRATION broke new theoretical ground, engaged in large-scale data collection, and provided insights into an issue that is not just of academic importance, but is also politically relevant – the declining popular support for the institutions that underpin the contemporary global liberal world order.
Theoretically, the project developed the ‘accommodation dilemma’ to understand the challenges international institutions and other member states face when responding to non-cooperative behavior. The accommodation dilemma emerges because non-accommodation is costly but accommodation may encourage further non-cooperation. The project also generated a better understanding of the trade-offs and dilemmas that unilateral challenges to international organizations pose for international institutions. It bridged strands of research that so far often existed in isolation from each other – such as research on Euroscepticism and international organizations– and thus contributed to theory-building relevant for both European Union and International Relations research. The project also broadened its focus to explore broader phenomena such as understanding the contestation of international organizations and the backlash against globalization.
DISINTEGRATION made empirical contributions through large-scale data collection efforts that captured the dynamic evolution of public opinion, elite discourse, and negotiation positions in Europe and beyond in the face of growing popular opposition to international cooperation. Altogether, the project produced six datasets on the evolution of public opinion, domestic discourse, and the Brexit negotiations. This includes survey data, qualitative data of case studies of international negotiations, and text data. The datasets have been made available to the public and other researchers at SWISSUBASE and Harvard Dataverse.
Finally, DISINTEGRATION provided insights about the rissk and the mechanisms by which current threats to multilateralism may spread, but also about how policymakers at both the domestic and the international level may contain these risks. For example, our work has important implications for the governments of the member states of international institutions facing unilateral withdrawals or renegotiation bids. We show that when negotiating new, post-disintegration arrangements they need to balance the lure of maintaining cooperation gains with the risk of encouraging further disintegration pressure by being too accommodating. This information will be of use to policymakers involved in disintegration negotiations, and could also guide wider strategies to better communicate to the public the benefits and costs involved in international cooperation.
Theoretically, the project developed the ‘accommodation dilemma’ to understand the challenges international institutions and other member states face when responding to non-cooperative behavior. The accommodation dilemma emerges because non-accommodation is costly but accommodation may encourage further non-cooperation. The project also generated a better understanding of the trade-offs and dilemmas that unilateral challenges to international organizations pose for international institutions. It bridged strands of research that so far often existed in isolation from each other – such as research on Euroscepticism and international organizations– and thus contributed to theory-building relevant for both European Union and International Relations research. The project also broadened its focus to explore broader phenomena such as understanding the contestation of international organizations and the backlash against globalization.
DISINTEGRATION made empirical contributions through large-scale data collection efforts that captured the dynamic evolution of public opinion, elite discourse, and negotiation positions in Europe and beyond in the face of growing popular opposition to international cooperation. Altogether, the project produced six datasets on the evolution of public opinion, domestic discourse, and the Brexit negotiations. This includes survey data, qualitative data of case studies of international negotiations, and text data. The datasets have been made available to the public and other researchers at SWISSUBASE and Harvard Dataverse.
Finally, DISINTEGRATION provided insights about the rissk and the mechanisms by which current threats to multilateralism may spread, but also about how policymakers at both the domestic and the international level may contain these risks. For example, our work has important implications for the governments of the member states of international institutions facing unilateral withdrawals or renegotiation bids. We show that when negotiating new, post-disintegration arrangements they need to balance the lure of maintaining cooperation gains with the risk of encouraging further disintegration pressure by being too accommodating. This information will be of use to policymakers involved in disintegration negotiations, and could also guide wider strategies to better communicate to the public the benefits and costs involved in international cooperation.