Survey evidence: Europeans support the EU's hard line in the Brexit negotiations

The British government has been frustrated by the hard negotiating line pursued by the EU under the lead of Michel Barnier, and the unusual degree of unity in supporting the EU's Brexit negotiation strategy has surprised quite a few observers. Drawing on recent survey evidence, Stefanie Walter reflects on the Brexit process through EU-27 eyes, and concludes that by and large Europeans support the EU’s negotiating strategy

A New Approach for Determining Exchange-Rate Level Preferences

In research on the political economy of exchange rates, a good understanding of who will endorse and who will oppose certain exchange-rate policies is central to understanding how actual exchange-rate policies are made and how the global exchange-rate system changes over time. Since existing classifications of exchange-rate level preferences have several shortcomings, this article proposes a new and more nuanced strategy for identifying preferences on exchange-rate valuation. This approach takes into account the complex interrelationship between exchange-rate and monetary policy, and the effects of these policies on balance sheets. In addition, the approach accounts for the dynamics of preference formation and change. Comparative case studies of currency crises in Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan show that considering actors' vulnerabilities to exchange-rate and interest-rate changes enhances understanding of their exchange-rate level preferences. The case studies also indicate that societal preferences affect policy outcomes. Exchange-rate stability was maintained in countries where private actors' vulnerabilities to depreciation were high. However, when pressure intensified, exchange rates were subsequently depreciated in countries where vulnerabilities to a monetary tightening exceeded the potential costs of depreciatio

Europeans support the EU's hard line in the Brexit negotiations

The British government has been frustrated by the hard negotiating line pursued by the EU under the lead of Michel Barnier, and the unusual degree of unity in supporting the EU's Brexit negotiation strategy has surprised quite a few observers. Stefanie Walter (University of Zurich) reflects on the Brexit process through EU-27 eyes, and concludes that by and large Europeans support EU's negotiating ..

Why austerity is easier to implement in some countries than others – and why this was not the case for Greece

It is now roughly seven years since the Greek economic crisis first emerged, but why has the crisis in Greece proven so difficult to address in comparison to other Eurozone countries? Based on an analysis of crisis management in several European states, Stefanie Walter writes that because internal reform and a euro exit were particularly costly options for Greece, it opted for a path of reforming only as much as is necessary to retain outside funding. As this strategy is unlikely to be viable indefinitely, the crisis will remain unresolved for the foreseeable future

Brexit spillovers: how British domestic politics affected support for European integration in remaining member states

A large body of research investigates the diffusion of policies and political developments across countries, and analyzes its consequences for mass preference formation and electoral accountability. While we know that voters look at policy outcomes abroad to assess domestic performance, the politics through which policies emerge can also be informative to voters. To understand whether voters learn from observing other countries’ domestic political struggles, we analyze the international reverberations of British Brexit politics. We argue that, although it may be too soon to assess the actual consequences of Brexit for the UK, political struggles during the negotiations may have provided information about the political feasibility and desirability of leaving the EU. We analyze three key events in recent British politics that happened during the fieldwork of two surveys, and a natural experiment that leverages random variation in exposure to Brexit-related information. Results confirm both a deterrence and an encouragement effect of Brexit on support for leaving the EU in remaining member states, and provide causal evidence of the benchmarking mechanism. These findings show how news coverage of other countries’ domestic politics can simplify voters’ decision-making by reducing the uncertainty associated with alternative policy choices. They have implications for theories of EU support and for the prospects of the current backlash against political globalization

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

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

Analyzing inter-state negotiations in the Eurozone crisis and beyond

Analyzing international negotiations among the member states of the European Union raises a number of analytical issues, especially in unusual circumstances such as the Eurozone crisis. Our article discusses these issues in the light of existing theory and informed by the empirical analyses assembled in this special issue. ‘National preferences’ or ideal points of the governments involved are driven by their domestic socio-economic and political conditions and institutions, the dimensionality of the negotiations, and strategic considerations. We then discuss how national preferences, states’ bargaining power, the strategic and institutional bargaining context, and the bargaining dynamics jointly influence the bargaining outcome. Examples from European negotiations in the context of the Eurozone crisis illustrate both the complexity of the process and the value of serious, theoretically informed, empirical analysis

Have your cake and eat it, too? Switzerland and the feasibility of differentiated integration after Brexit

A key Eurosceptic argument is that countries can selectively retain only those aspects of European integration from which they benefit, while opting out of those aspects they dislike. How convincing is this “have your cake and eat it, too” argument to voters? This article argues that voters can learn about the feasibility of such a strategy by looking at the experience of countries that pursued a similar path. Positive experiences can strengthen voters’ support for a similar strategy, while negative experiences can deter them. This argument is tested in a study of the effects of the Brexit negotiations on public opinion in Switzerland. Drawing on a panel survey fielded between 2019 and 2021, the article shows that Brexit had a small but non-negligible impact on Swiss voters’ expectations about the EU’s resolve, as well as on vote intentions on two EU-related policy proposals. These findings confirm that voters learn from foreign political developments about the costs of non-cooperation