If Luxembourg had had another referendum before the French, we would have seen a Yes vote of 80%.Footnote 1
The 2005 referendums were held in the following chronological order: Spain (20 February), France (29 May), the Netherlands (1 June), and Luxembourg (10 July). Existing studies have treated these four cases as independent from one another. Yet campaign materials from 2005 provide an interesting illustration of cross-case influences. The three identical posters in Figure 2.1, blaming the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE) for the militarization of Europe, originate from different countries. The slogans read “Europe in a bad constitution.” The first photo is taken in Germany. On 12 May 2005, as German MPs voted on the TCE, demonstrators stood on the steps of the Bundestag holding posters against the treaty. The second poster comes directly from the brochure of the Dutch left-wing civil society No campaigner, presenting the same poster and slogan in Dutch. The third one is a poster used by Luxembourg's left-wing No campaigner, which is the same one, but in German.
Figure 2.1. Identical posters – against the TCE – in different European countries.
Diffusion is a process wherein new ideas, institutions, policies, models, or repertoires of behavior spread geographically from a core site to other sites.Footnote 2 Although referendum campaigns have been studied thoroughly, no work has considered possible cross-case influences among them. Is a referendum held in a state entirely a “domestic” event? In this chapter, I show diffusion effects among the 2005 constitutional referendums and argue that campaign arguments and strategies are not always homegrown. Politicians do not engage in campaigning in a vacuum. They tailor campaign strategies not only to the parameters of public opinion but also to the strategic opportunities offered by the political conditions of their time.Footnote 3 Campaigners can learn from the experience of previous campaigns. I argue that the later a state held its referendum, the more the previous referendum campaigns in other states could influence its campaign dynamics. Therefore all campaigns were not created equal, and the cases were not independent.
Indeed, the fact that Spain held the first referendum was not a coincidence.Footnote 4 Spain's strong pro-EU attitude was envisioned to build a positive momentum. Yet why was Spain's campaign not very much heard in the other cases? Based on interviews with the campaigners in all four countries, I find that the diffusion effect was neither automatic nor sequential. The cases that were connected with diffusion channels – transmission belts such as shared language, common media sources, and collaborative networks – were more influenced by one another. Where these channels were present, it provided the campaigners of second-mover states with additional tools that they could use to amplify the strength of their campaign arguments. Importantly, I find that in 2005, this kind of expertise and resources were more available to some campaigners than others. Among the four countries, only France and Luxembourg were deeply connected by diffusion channels. Therefore, the campaign in France significantly influenced that of Luxembourg.
In the following sections, I identify the specific mechanisms that allow such influence across cases. I do not seek to trace diffusion effects on the referendum results quantitatively, but instead to detail social mechanisms that connect referendum campaigns through interview data. I first discuss why diffusion matters in referendum campaigns. Next I outline its mechanisms, and using extensive interview data, demonstrate how diffusion effects conditioned campaign dynamics in the 2005 EU constitutional referendums.
Why does diffusion matter?
Referendum campaigns are more influential than election campaigns, especially when the issue is unfamiliar to the mass public.Footnote 5 The TCE campaigns were particularly important because the treaty was highly technical and hundreds of pages long. The publics were therefore significantly vulnerable to campaign argumentation. In such campaigns, learning strategies and borrowing arguments from successful campaigns can be particularly beneficial, because campaigners using stronger frames can succeed in swaying public opinion to their side. Indeed, in 2005, politicians redefined the subject through campaign framing. Strategic arguments blamed the treaty for controversial issues such as degradation of the welfare state, loss of national identity, or Turkish accession into the Union. Sequencing of the TCE referendums was thus crucial in bringing new arguments into the debate. However, would borrowed frames work automatically? Framing effect is based on memory-based processes, and in particular on the availability, accessibility, and applicability of frames.Footnote 6 A strong frame touches on familiar and salient issues for the public. Although borrowing frames from the previous successful campaigns is an advantage for the campaigners in second-mover states, these frames should be adapted to the national framework to increase their potential. Even if the borrowing is deliberate and planned, the local conditions supporting diffusion vary. Frames need to be used strategically to improve the chances for adoption.Footnote 7
Diffusion among referendum campaigns is an important yet neglected area of research. In the literature, so far only one study has looked into the sequencing of the 1994 EU membership referendums in Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Jahn and Storsved argue that there was a domino strategy, where the most pro-EU countries (Austria and Finland) started the referendum vote, followed by the two unsure cases (Sweden and Norway).Footnote 8 But the strategy failed in Norway. Austria held its referendum on 12 June (66% Yes), Finland on 16 October (56% Yes), Sweden on 13 November (52% Yes), and Norway on 27 November (47% Yes). The authors suggest that Norway rejected the treaty mainly because the Norwegian Centre Party was able to organize the anti-EU movement, connecting agrarian interests with national independence. Moreover, in a survey, only 56% of Finns showed awareness of the positive results in Austria, whereas the Nordic countries were much more interested in each other's decisions. Opinion polls showed that a No victory in Finland would have brought a 54% No vote in Sweden, and 55% in Norway. These findings not only point to the importance of interconnectedness and diffusion among Nordic countries as opposed to Austria but also provide evidence for the significance of referendum campaigns in shaping public opinion through the example of the Norwegian Centre Party. Yet the specific mechanisms of cross-case influences remain overlooked.
Spotting diffusion's direct, quantitative impact on the vote choice is methodologically problematic. Instead, I am interested in identifying the mechanism through which a campaign in one country took over features from a campaign in another. A close look at networking and learning processes among the campaigns can reveal diffusion effects on the choice of campaign strategies and arguments.
Mechanisms of diffusion
Defined broadly, diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.Footnote 9 It involves a transmitter, an adopter, an innovation that is being diffused, and a channel along which the item may be transmitted.Footnote 10 My focus is the diffusion channels that transmit campaign-related information between campaigners in different countries.
There is an extensive body of work studying diffusion, but it has little internal coherence, as the proposed mechanisms are grounded in different theories.Footnote 11 The literature has so far focused on two main venues: Policy transfer and modular phenomena such as collective action/democratic revolutions. The first focuses on policy transfer and policy diffusion, looking into the temporal and spatial clusters of policy reform.Footnote 12 In this perspective, actors borrow policies developed in one setting to develop policies within another. Modular action, on the other hand, focuses on action that is based significantly on the prior successful example of others.Footnote 13 Even if each case is based on local initiative and local dissatisfaction, these actions draw inspiration and expertise from the previous cases, taking them as a model for action. Most recently, four democratic revolutions – the Bulldozer, Rose, Orange, and Tulip Revolutions – that took place in Eastern Europe between 2000 and 2006 were studied as examples of modular political phenomena.Footnote 14
These literatures highlight several diffusion channels. First, studies show that a sense of interconnectedness across cases – resulting from common institutional characteristics, histories, cultural affinities, and languages – allows agents to make analogies across cases and read relevance into developments in other contexts.Footnote 15 The more similar the sending and receiving units are, and the more social and cultural linkages they share, the more likely it is that the innovation will travel. Monitoring of the activity in other cases is thus promoted by the existence of shared characteristics, such as perception of common needs, contexts, and identities. Such characteristics may be institutional – for example, electoral fraud – as in the postcommunist transition cases.
A second channel of diffusion is media, which is important in exchanging information from one actor to another.Footnote 16 Studies on race riots repeatedly found that the media served as a channel of diffusion by creating a cultural linkage between African Americans in different metropolitan areas. Televised civil rights activism played an important role in creating a black solidarity that transcended boundaries of physical communities.Footnote 17 Tarrow suggests that such channels lead to a common “theorization” across boundaries, where a matter is defined within a cause-effect relationship, leading to a particular reading of it.Footnote 18 Today there is an emerging literature on the impact of new media and communication technologies on collective action, particularly in relation to the Arab Spring.Footnote 19
Finally, collaborative networks crossing national boundaries promote diffusion of the model.Footnote 20 Political entities that are geographically proximate and thus share political networks borrow more from each other. These networks can be provided by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society activists, or other more established institutional frameworks. They can be formal or informal, long-in-place or new. Alternatively, these networks could be based on interpersonal relations. Studying contention in the United Kingdom (UK) and France between 1730 and 1848, Rudé found that information about rebellions diffused through communication networks of travelers along transportation routes, leading to snowball movements.Footnote 21 Hedström et al. showed similarly that between 1894 and 1911, the diffusion of the Swedish Social Democratic Party was an unintended by-product of the political agitators’ traveling.Footnote 22
Both literatures thus emphasize the similarities between the sending and receiving units (including linguistic or ideological closeness), the mass media coverage, and the political, economic, social, and cultural linkages in enabling such transfers. Yet, neither applied these arguments to referendum campaigns. Moreover, demonstrating that borrowing occurred is difficult, because similar strategies may emerge in different settings without clear lines of causality.Footnote 23 James and Lodge criticize the policy transfer approach for not sufficiently distinguishing borrowing from rational policymaking, rendering finding evidence for such transfers problematic.Footnote 24 In the literature, cross-national policy transfer is evidenced through three steps: policymakers searching for a policy, visiting a lender country to examine the policy, and the essential features of the policy being present in the borrower country.Footnote 25 In this research, physical contacts such as participation in each other's campaigns or in joint political events; discussions among the campaigners on campaign themes for instance through specific conferences on the treaty; and the presence of campaign arguments and strategies in borrower campaigns visible in identical leaflets or in the campaign preparation processes, were studied closely as possible indicators of such transfers.
Diffusion in 2005 TCE referendums
My interview data confirms the importance of these three channels.Footnote 26 In 2005, campaigners in the four countries that held referendums on the TCE discussed campaign themes and borrowed arguments from one another. Of 85 campaigners, 73 mentioned that they met with campaigners from the other countries: 18 in Spain, 17 in France, 19 in the Netherlands, and 19 in Luxembourg. Fifty-one of 85 said that their campaign was affected by the other campaigns: 11 in Spain, 4 in France, 15 in the Netherlands, and 21 in Luxembourg. Nevertheless, such diffusion was not automatic. Not every first-mover state influenced every second-mover state; diffusion depended on the existence of channels. Table 2.1 presents the interview data on diffusion.
Table 2.1. Interview data on diffusion in 2005 TCE referendums
| Diffusion channels | States that were connected via this channel | Number of interviewees who mentioned interactions through this channel | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared language/culture | France-Luxembourg | 59 of 85 | |
| Common media channels | France-Luxembourg | 28 of 85 | |
| Collaborative networks | European Parliament (EP) groups | All four states | 73 of 85 |
| Anti-globalization network | All four states | ||
| Ad hoc European networks | All four states | ||
| Mobile communities | France-Luxembourg | ||
The number of interviewees who mentioned interactions through collaborative networks is considerably higher, as this channel is shared by all four states. In contrast, it is primarily French and Luxembourgish interviewees who brought up the transfers through the first two channels. This is not surprising, because Luxembourg speaks French, consumes French media channels, and receives a substantial number of commuters from France every day. Thus, the interaction among France, Spain, and the Netherlands was not as strong as that between France and Luxembourg. This interaction was so dense that the main Luxembourgish No campaigner, the left-wing No Committee, took its lead from the French No campaign.
Detailed interview data shows that collaborative networks lead to “shallow” diffusion between campaigners, by connecting them and enabling them to discuss campaign themes. The addition of a shared language and common media channels, however, generates “deep” diffusion among campaigners and voters, by increasing the presence of campaign arguments in borrower states. Furthermore, diffusion was not sequential. Because the debate in France started very early, themes of the French debate could be traced even in Spanish campaigners’ arguments, whose referendum preceded France's. Figure 2.2 summarizes the connections between campaigns.
Figure 2.2. Diffusion among the 2005 TCE referendums.
In the following sections, I explore how the three prominent channels connected the TCE campaigns in 2005. Where present, diffusion effects were visible in physical contacts, discussions among the campaigners on campaign themes, and presence of campaign arguments in borrower campaigns.
Shared language/culture
This channel primarily helps campaigners in inviting each other to participate in their campaigns, and thereby explains the presence/absence of campaigners from other countries. These invitations not only reinforce the physical contacts and dialogue on campaign themes among the campaigners but also bring in campaign arguments from the other cases. Participating in another campaign goes beyond networking among the campaigners, because it also means communicating with voters. Most of my interviewees mentioned the importance of language and culture in determining their level of contact with campaigners in other states. Among the four cases, it was France and Luxembourg that were closely linked culturally and linguistically. Surveys show French as the language best known in Luxembourg.Footnote 27 French links different communities in Luxembourg, whereas Lëtzebuergesch is used among Luxembourgers.
My Spanish interviewees mentioned the lack of a common language as a problem blocking further cooperation. José Manuel Fernández Fernández of the United Left (IU) explained that from the far-left parties in the other three countries, they invited only a few campaigners who spoke Spanish to contribute to the Spanish campaign.Footnote 28 Similarly, Carlos Girbau Costa, from the Social Forum and the IU, pointed to the different cultures of north and south Europe and mentioned that the Netherlands and Luxembourg were far from Spain, whereas France shared both cultures.Footnote 29 Jaime Pastor, member of the IU and the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC) also mentioned closer ties to France and said: “We did not meet with Dutch. France was more important for us, because we were familiar with their debate.” French campaigners were confirmed as relatively closer partners during most of my interviews.
Similarly, almost all of my Dutch interviewees emphasized language. Most of them were aware that the Luxembourgish campaigners and the public followed the French debate more than the Dutch debate. Willem Bos, president of the left-wing civil society group ConstitutionNo, acknowledged that the connection between the French and Luxembourgish campaigns was more intense than their connection to the Dutch one.Footnote 30 He added that the Luxembourgish campaigners mainly invited French speakers from France. Member of the ConstitutionNo group Erik Wesselius, who visited Luxembourg during their campaign, also confirmed this pattern: “I did not go to France…My French is not that good…In Luxembourg there were people from France going and leafleting at doors. It is easier, they share the language. It would make no sense to get a Frenchman here to campaign, there is too much cultural difference.”Footnote 31 International Secretary of the PvdA Marije Laffeber added: “The relationship between the Netherlands and France is okay…but we are not having the same debates. France has more of a Latin culture, we have been Protestant for centuries, and they have been Catholic. There is a difference between these cultures in Europe. Our orientation is more towards the UK or Scandinavia.”Footnote 32 Michiel van Hulten, Director of the civil society Yes campaign the Foundation for a Better Europe, similarly mentioned that they had relatively more connection with the UK, which did not hold a referendum but wanted to know about the Dutch experience.Footnote 33 He added, “In the EU, they usually discuss with us, it is also the language which makes it easier.”
In France, indeed, this factor was mentioned as a facilitator of cooperation with Luxembourg. Pierre Khalfa from the left-wing No campaigner ATTAC explained that they had invited people from other countries only if they spoke French.Footnote 34 Similarly, Yves Salesse, the co-president of Copernic Foundation, left-wing No campaigner, mentioned that he was invited to Luxembourg but not to the Netherlands because of the language problem.Footnote 35 In turn, Luxembourg was heavily influenced by the French campaign. Both the Yes and No campaigners in Luxembourg stated their preference to invite French speakers. The Yes campaigners invited the former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard and the Franco-German Greens Member of European Parliament (MEP) Daniel Cohn-Bendit. The left-wing No campaigners similarly invited highly influential left-wing French politicians such as Henri Emmanuelli, José Bové, Yves Salesse, Raoul-Marc Jennar, and Francine Bavay. Henri Wehenkel of The Left said: “The Netherlands is far, we don't know what happens there. We only look at France and Germany…The No Committee brought many famous French speakers…Maybe from the Netherlands too but there is the problem of language. French politicians are well known here.”Footnote 36 In fact, Luxembourg's social democrats protested the invitation of these French No campaigners. The Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP)'s chairman Alex Bodry stated that it was “inadmissible for a leader from the French Socialist Party to come to Luxembourg to defend a position that was contrary to that democratically adopted by the Luxembourg Socialists.”Footnote 37 The invited campaigners were therefore highly visible in this campaign, both helping Luxembourgish campaigners in shaping their debate and interacting with voters.
Common media channels
This channel facilitates the transfer of campaign themes across borders, leading to an increased presence of campaign arguments from the other states. Once again, these transfers go beyond the campaigners and reach voters as well. Among the 2005 EU referendums, only Luxembourg and France shared media channels. The campaign in Luxembourg imported the French interpretation of the TCE through this channel as well.
Spain does not have any common television channels or other media outlets such as newspapers with the countries that held referendums after Spain's. This formed an additional impediment to its potential influence on the others. The Netherlands does not share media sources with the other cases either. In contrast, Luxembourgers receive French television channels and newspapers on a daily basis. Regarding television, the local broadcaster Luxembourg Television and Radio (RTL) operates six channels, but only one in Lëtzebuergesch.Footnote 38 The national television channel airs only from 6 pm to 8 pm, whereas the rest of the channels are received directly from France and Germany. Tom Graas, director of the national RTL television news, stressed that not only the results and aftermath of the French referendum but also the French referendum campaign itself was covered remarkably in the media.Footnote 39
In Luxembourg, both the Yes and No campaigners frequently mentioned that Luxembourgers received most of their information and discussion on the subject from other countries because of the limited airtime of the RTL. Abbes Jacoby, Secretary General of The Greens’ Parliamentary Group, said: “In Luxembourg people get informed not only from national news but also from TV stations of France, Germany and Belgium…We also get French newspapers…The background information they get is not from Luxembourg, but from other places.”Footnote 40 François Biltgen, Chairman of the Christian Social People's Party (CSV) and the Minister of Labor and Employment, similarly stated that the referendum debate in Luxembourg became largely run by foreign press because of the French influence.Footnote 41 Thus, the debate in Luxembourg was significantly exposed to the “French reading” of the subject. CSV MP Laurent Mosar highlighted this issue in relation to a particular No campaign theme concerning the liberalization of public services:Footnote 42
Luxembourgers are mostly employed in the public services. That was also an argument here, but perhaps not like in France. It was not a major issue…The problem was that Luxembourgers watch French and German TV, especially French TV. Those arguments used in France were finally also used in Luxembourg. The situations in France and Luxembourg are different but people watch TV, hear something on liberalization of public services and think that this is happening in Luxembourg too.
The campaign debate was thus not limited to arguments originating from Luxembourg. Both the Yes and No campaigners in Luxembourg also underlined the importance of the French media in relation to the shared language. Jacques-Yves Henckes, MP of the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR), said that their No campaign benefited from the French campaign as Luxembourgers followed the French debate, adding that “people did not follow the Dutch debate as there was no language connection.” Charles Goerens, Democratic Party (DP) MP, also explained that although the Netherlands was their first ally after the Second World War, their culture was closer to France and that people watched French television, finding Dutch less understandable. Similarly, LSAP MP Ben Fayot highlighted the importance of the French No campaign websites, which Luxembourgers followed closely. Although such media exposure might be a common problem in a globalizing world, Luxembourg's peculiar media setup has magnified the impact of the foreign press, by bringing in the French analysis of the TCE. Luxembourgish citizens were directly exposed to French argumentation.
Collaborative networks
This last channel, composed of institutional networks and personal connections, leads to physical contacts and discussion of campaign themes among campaigners. Nevertheless, the extent to which arguments were borrowed varies across cases. The existence of a shared language deepens such interactions and leads to a greater degree of adoption in the borrower states.
Institutional networks
The institutional networks were common to all four cases and were mentioned in the interviews as important facilitators. These were namely the European Parliament (EP) groups, the European anti-globalization network, and other ad hoc European networks.Footnote 43 First, both the Yes and No campaigners pointed to the EP groups and parties – of which their parties are members – as platforms to share ideas with other similar European political parties. This formed a regular networking opportunity, where most of the campaigners said they discussed their experiences. However, there is significant variation in the type of experience and advice that was gained, and the extent to which these were influential in shaping the campaigns is not clear. Interestingly, concerning the institutional linkages, the far left and far right took extreme positions. In all four cases, the far left mentioned close contacts with other far-left parties in Europe, whereas far-right parties rejected any links to other such parties.
To take an example, in the Netherlands, both the Yes and No campaigners mentioned the EP groups as common platforms, where they discussed their experiences. Some of them stated the influence of these EP groups while the party was deciding on its position toward the TCE. Some campaigners explained that others warned them not to have a referendum based on their own experience. International Secretary of the Dutch Labor Party (PvdA) Marije Laffeber said: “We exchanged a lot of experience, we had two really experienced parties who dealt with these issues before, from Ireland and Denmark. They tried to convince us not to have a referendum…because it always works against the social democratic parties.”Footnote 44 The Dutch far-left Socialist Party (SP), on the other hand, mentioned close contacts with the French Communist Party in setting the agenda. In striking contrast, the Dutch far-right parties, the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) and the local party Livable Rotterdam, stressed that they were not xenophobic like National Front or other far-right parties in Europe, refusing any such links. Leader of Livable Rotterdam Marco Pastors stressed that it was difficult to align themselves with other countries’ movements because of the suspicion of racism.Footnote 45
Institutional linkages were more visible and prominent in the analysis of the left-wing civil society groups.Footnote 46 The strong anti-globalization network in Europe provided an opportunity for these groups to come together, analyze the new developments, and form positions. The left-wing activists frequently referred to the ATTAC network and the European Social Forum (ESF) as important platforms. The ESF meetings bring together the left-wing social movements with political parties. Particularly, the activists stressed the 2003 ESF meeting in Paris and the 2004 ESF meeting in London as sources, where the TCE was debated intensely. However, they also highlighted the ad hoc nature of these informal networks. There was no structure apart from the ATTAC international network, the annual ESF meetings, and the temporary European No Campaign (ENC) network established by British businessmen at the time.Footnote 47 The ENC was a Europe-wide, independent, cross-party network of political parties and NGOs that brought together both right- and left-wing No campaigners. It was set up to coordinate “anti-EU Constitution” activities and maximize the No vote in every EU referendum on the TCE. Its Director Thomas Rupp explained that its cross-party character meant that it was not very active, especially because the French far left did not want to be part of a broader network that brought in far-right campaigners as well.Footnote 48
Importantly, the anti-globalization network circulated the French analysis of the TCE –not the Spanish one – across Europe. The Spanish, Dutch, and Luxembourgish left-wing activists stated that in preparation for the campaign, they first read about the discussion in France and were inspired by the French debate in their argumentation. The anti-globalization network in Europe opposed the TCE for three reasons: pursuing market-friendly policies, being undemocratic, and militarizing Europe. The Paris ESF meeting and the French campaign tied these arguments closely to the vote on the TCE, and left-wing activists in all four cases echoed these arguments. In Spain, interviewees from the IU and the civil society No campaign mentioned strong links to the European anti-globalization network.Footnote 49 They explained that the ATTAC France was especially a reference point because they had developed theoretical questions and arguments regarding the TCE as early as 2003. Specifically, the book by Yves Salesse, a key left-wing campaigner in France, was mentioned as a resource. This book was translated and published in Spanish. These remarks demonstrate that diffusion was not necessarily sequential. The French No campaign's analysis started earlier despite the fact that their referendum was held later than the Spanish one. Through the anti-globalization network, the French left-wing No campaign debate influenced the Spanish left-wing No campaigners. The French campaigners confirmed that the ATTAC France provided the first and main left-wing analysis of the TCE. Raul Marc Jennar explained that after his book Europe, the Betrayal of Elites – which criticized the TCE among other policies – was published in 2004, he received invitations for many conferences on the subject.Footnote 50 ATTAC campaigners stated that at the 2004 ESF meeting they distributed their analysis and the “Appeal of 200 – Say No to the Constitutional Treaty to build Europe,” signed by 200 representatives of left-wing groups, to all other European left-wing political and social forces.Footnote 51 Their motivation was to show that it was not only a French resistance, “not a Franco-French affair.”Footnote 52 In the Netherlands, Willem Bos, President of the left-wing ConstitutionNo group, said that in preparation for the campaign, they first read on the topic, and that they knew the discussion in France as they were reading their work.Footnote 53 Erik Wesselius, member of the ConstitutionNo group, specifically referred to the ESF in Paris in 2003, which discussed the TCE in detail.Footnote 54 He said that “the No in France and the whole debate in France were very important for the other countries.” He added the legitimization impact of the French debate and results for the Netherlands, explaining how it lent credence to their arguments, strengthened their case, and contributed to their visibility.
In all cases, the French left-wing theoretical analysis of the TCE was an important source. But for Luxembourg, this impact was amplified by the special cultural and linguistic connection between the two countries. Luxembourg's left-wing No campaigners openly acknowledged the support they received from the French left-wing No campaign. This support was both ideational and material. They mentioned the difficulty of organizing the campaign without such support, as Luxembourg has a very small community. Therefore the French campaign was crucial for Luxembourg's main No campaigner, the left-wing No Committee, because this small country did not have the French mobilizing potential in terms of left-wing political parties, civil society structure, or resources. In terms of ideas, André Kremer, coordinator of the Luxembourg No Committee, stated that in formulation of their arguments, they were inspired by their French contacts’ intellectual work.Footnote 55 Henri Wehenkel of The Left added: “The analysis came from France…We were influenced by the arguments of the French activists.”Footnote 56 Adrien Thomas, a member of the No Committee, also explained that this committee was highly inspired by the French debate. He stressed that Luxembourg did not have a custom of following the Dutch and that traditionally French culture was influential. Another No campaigner, the President of the Railways Trade Union Nico Wennmacher, noted that he was following the French trade unionists’ arguments on the subject as they worked together in the “Grande Région.”Footnote 57
This support took a material form as well. Henri Wehenkel of the far-left party The Left said:Footnote 58 “I went to Paris, to bring the propaganda that was unused after the French referendum. I brought 3000 texts of the Constitution with the explanation and examples, from the French Communist Party.” Indeed, the brochures and leaflets developed by the French Communist Party, the ATTAC France, and Raul Marc Jennar were used in Luxembourg's No campaign meetings. Adrien Thomas from the No Committee explained that some ATTAC France members even came to Luxembourg to help distribute flyers in mailboxes.Footnote 59 Anne-Marie Berny from the ATTAC pointed out that with a few exceptions, ATTAC Luxembourg was composed of French people living in Luxembourg.Footnote 60 While she mentioned that the ATTAC France, Germany, and Belgium helped them, she stressed that that they have been in regular contact with the ATTAC France throughout the campaign. Furthermore, the ATTAC France has financially contributed to the ATTAC Luxembourg's campaign to a small extent.Footnote 61 Therefore, shared language between France and Luxembourg intensified the influence of the anti-globalization network on this campaign. Luxembourg's No campaign benefited from the French No campaign in terms of campaigning arguments, materials, and even financial resources. Luxembourgish Yes campaigners referred to this influence openly. Pierre Gramegna, Director-General of the Chamber of Commerce, noted: “They had an anti-Europe network that they have benefited from…They had all the anti-Europe material.”Footnote 62 LSAP MP Ben Fayot added: “I must say that the No campaigners used the French arguments.”Footnote 63 CSV MP Laurent Mosar agreed: “The No arguments in Luxembourg were more or less the same as the No arguments in France.”Footnote 64
Because this channel was common to all four cases, it is particularly important to pay attention to local adaptation of frames. The social movement literature identifies master frames, which are larger frames used by a cluster of movements.Footnote 65 As such, the anti-globalization network in Europe created a master frame, opposing the TCE for its market-friendly policies, for its low democratic standards, and for its militarizing character. Spanish, Dutch, and Luxembourgish left-wing activists echoed these arguments. Yet, frames need to be used strategically to improve the chances for adoption by adapting to the sociocultural values, traditions, and constraints of the targeted host culture. Among the three adopter countries, it was only the Dutch campaigners who paid significant attention to local tailoring of the frames.
The Dutch far-left political party the Socialist Party (SP) strategically linked these anti-globalization arguments to the loss of sovereignty in a European “super-state.”Footnote 66 Despite mentioning close contacts with the French Communist Party, the SP Secretary-General Hans van Heijningen added: “International cooperation is interesting to get new ideas, to exchange information. However, work has to be done with respect to countries. You cannot win with the same arguments, you need to fit them to the national framework.”Footnote 67 He explained the strategic choice of their main argument, the loss of sovereignty in a European federal structure, in order to complement the left-wing critique of the TCE prevalent in Europe, emphasizing that far-left messages would not carry them to 51% in the Netherlands. SP campaigners mentioned that the French had more political knowledge concerning privatization arguments, and that in the Netherlands the Bolkestein Directive on liberalization of services did not become as contentious as it was in France. Accordingly, they adjusted their argumentation. Alain Krivine, from the Revolutionary Communist League of France (LCR), explicitly criticized the SP for this move, for “making too many concessions” to gain the popular vote.Footnote 68 European No Campaign's director Thomas Rupp also pointed out that the French far left and the Dutch/Scandinavian far left were very different in this regard, as the latter did not see problems in tying left-wing argumentation to the “super-state” argument.Footnote 69 The Spanish or the Luxembourgish far-left campaigners did not do the same. In Spain, the far-left IU added its wish to see a federal Union, but this peculiar emphasis was not very visible in their campaign. The Luxembourgish No campaign, on the other hand, chose to keep the master frame intact, not modifying it to incorporate the peculiar contentious issues of the Luxembourgish society. This criticism was voiced by several analysts.Footnote 70
Personal connections.
Among the 2005 EU referendums, only France and Luxembourg shared a personal bond that carried the campaign debate across the border. Luxembourg's peculiar geographic, demographic, and institutional setup created a large mobile community between Luxembourg and France, composed of two groups – cross-border employees and students.
The population of Luxembourg is approximately half a million. As the Luxembourg case chapter discusses in detail, the shift from an industrial to a service-oriented economy in the 1970s necessitated foreign labor, both immigrants and cross-border workers.Footnote 71 Accordingly, over one third of the population is non-Luxembourger. Census data from 2004 shows that among the foreign residents of Luxembourg, the French form the second largest group after the Portuguese.Footnote 72 Furthermore, in 2005, 118,385 cross-border employees came into Luxembourg on a daily basis from France, Germany, and Belgium.Footnote 73 Importantly, more than 50% of these cross-border employees came from France. The cross-border temporary jobs show the same pattern; the majority is once again from France.Footnote 74 The second community contributing to personal connections is the mobile students. Luxembourg's higher education has been embryonic both in structure and objective. As a result, Luxembourgish students had to pursue their studies abroad, mainly in France, Germany, and Belgium.Footnote 75 The first university in Luxembourg, the University of Luxembourg, was founded only in 2003. Frédéric Krier from the National Union of Luxembourgish Students (UNEL) explained that they had members who studied in the neighboring countries and that specifically, during the 2005 campaign, those in France were very important in organizing the Luxembourgish campaign.Footnote 76 Adrien Thomas, a member of the No Committee and the UNEL, who was a doctoral student at the Sorbonne at the time, took part in both campaigns and stated that most students came back to Luxembourg before the July referendum, after their classes were over.Footnote 77 Most Luxembourgish students who were actively involved in the French campaign were also involved in the Luxembourgish campaign. Thomas explained that the No Committee has also learned from the French through the ATTAC Campus network:
The UNEL had its main base in Paris in 2005…We attended the ATTAC Campus meetings, where the Constitution was discussed. We took notes. Building on those notes, and on the articles we read in the left-leaning newspapers, we wrote articles in Luxembourg. We did not take the Constitution and interpret it for ourselves. We were inspired.
Two mobile groups, cross-border employees and students, connected France and Luxembourg on a personal level, carrying the referendum debate back and forth in their daily interactions. Tom Graas, director of RTL television news, stressed that the French commuters had a big influence as the discussions were carried everywhere from offices to restaurants.Footnote 78
Implications for referendum results
In contrast with the assumption in most social scientific analyses, cases are not always independent of each other. I show that the 2005 TCE campaigns were not truly “domestic” events. However, not every first-mover state influenced every second-mover state because diffusion depended on channels. If these channels were present, campaigners had an additional toolkit to amplify the strength of their campaign arguments. Diffusion conditioned campaigns directly and influenced the referendum outcomes indirectly. It is particularly important to pay attention to the borrowing of arguments among the No campaigners, as the political advantage rests with the No side in a referendum campaign. In 2005, because of the exceptional diffusion channels between France and Luxembourg, the main Luxembourgish No campaigner took the French left-wing No campaign as a model. Forty-three percent of Luxembourgers, one of the most Europhile nations in the EU, voted negatively. Chapter 6 explains in detail how diffusion affected Luxembourg's campaign dynamics.
Furthermore, in EU referendum campaigns, far-left and far-right actors come together, forming an unlikely alliance in the No camp.Footnote 79 However, diffusion is highly prominent on the far left and virtually absent on the far right. In a debate on EU policies, anti-globalization groups are relatively stronger than other political forces in networking across Europe. Further research comparing referendums on different topics could elaborate on how diffusion effects travel across the political spectrum in different issue areas.
Direction of diffusion is another important question that requires further research. McAdam distinguishes between initiator movements, which set a protest cycle in motion, and spin-off movements, which are sparked by the initiators.Footnote 80 In the policy diffusion literature as well, research shows that leading countries serve as exemplars and that learning is socially channeled as attention is drawn to highly successful countries or outcomes.Footnote 81 In this project, time appears to be the main factor designating the French campaign as the source. French No campaigners developed their criticism of the TCE as early as 2003, and they began campaigning in October 2004, well before the Spanish vote in February 2005. The Spanish campaign, despite being the first, did not export campaign arguments or resources in the way France did. Campaigners said that they were primarily inspired by the French case – not the Spanish – and the citizens also had relatively lower awareness of the Spanish referendum outcome. For instance, the Dutch post-referendum survey posed several questions about the French referendum.Footnote 82 When asked about the outcome of the French referendum, 99.6% of those who answered knew that the French rejected the TCE. Alternatively, on the outcome of the Spanish referendum, of those who answered the question, 88.5% knew that the Spanish supported the TCE. However, 51.6% did not know and did not answer. The percentage of those who did not know/answer in the French case was as low as 0.6%. Another answer to directionality could be campaign intensity – that is, that high-intensity campaigns affect low-intensity ones. Hobolt measures campaign intensity as a combination of partisan polarization (opposition to the ballot proposal in parliament), the perceived closeness of the race (difference between intended Yes and No campaigners in the polls), and the news coverage (number of daily articles monitoring the referendum issue during the three months leading up to the referendum).Footnote 83 She ranks campaign intensity in the 2005 TCE referendums as: France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain, in decreasing order. According to this scale, Luxembourg shared these strong diffusion channels not just with any case, but with the most intense case. In France, the call center that was set up to answer citizens’ questions during the French campaign recorded 2,500 calls a day and 110,000 calls in total, equivalent to one call for every 380 voters. Hence the French media not only began debating the subject much earlier than the other states did but also discussed the subject in great detail, including nontraditional media sources such as blogs.Footnote 84 Particularly, the left-wing No campaign had astonishing local implantation, having approximately 900–1,000 local committees all over France. A poll showed that the referendum filled 26% of conversations in January, 48% in March, and 83% in May.Footnote 85 Alternatively, one could ask whether size is another important factor in understanding direction of diffusion.Footnote 86 Would Luxembourg be able to serve as the source campaign if it prepared the first analysis on the subject and had the most intense debate? This has crucial policy implications and requires more research.
Finally, is this diffusion effect unique, limited to the Luxembourg-France connection? Europe is full of states that share similar cultures, media sources, and institutional and personal connections. Had Germany or Belgium held their referendums before Luxembourg, these states would likely have had a similar impact as they also share peculiar diffusion channels with Luxembourg. Focus group data shows that Luxembourgers complain about the doubling of prices after the euro in the exact same way as Germans discuss it, referring to “Teuro,” a German term combining “teuer” – expensive – with “euro.”Footnote 87 Jahn and Storsved point to the importance of sequencing at the 1994 EU membership referendums in Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Norway.Footnote 88 Similarly, in the first Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008, Holmes highlights the UK's influence on Ireland via common media channels, as some British newspapers have Irish editions and can occasionally bring in Euroscepticism.Footnote 89 The United Kingdom Independence Party has visited Ireland on several occasions during the Lisbon campaigns, participating actively in the Irish debate and distributing leaflets advising a No vote. My interview data also confirms some collaboration among the Dutch and Irish No campaigners via the EP groups during the same period.Footnote 90 Diffusion effects can be observed across Europe; thus, analyzing cross-case influences is absolutely vital to understanding referendum campaigns and indirectly to understanding the referendum outcomes.
