Government Rhetoric and the Representation of Public Opinion in International Negotiations

The role of domestic public opinion is an important topic in research on international negotiations, yet we know little about how exactly it manifests itself. We focus on government rhetoric during negotiations and develop a conceptual distinction between implicit and explicit manifestations of publ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American political science review 2023-08, Vol.117 (3), p.1105-1122
Main Authors: WRATIL, CHRISTOPHER, WÄCKERLE, JENS, PROKSCH, SVEN-OLIVER
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bargaining
Compromises
Concept Formation
Councils
Euroscepticism
Evidence
Government
Government (Administrative Body)
International Cooperation
International organizations
International relations
Meetings
Negotiation
Negotiations
Political representation
Political science
Politics
Public opinion
Rhetoric
Speeches
Voters
Working groups
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Summary:The role of domestic public opinion is an important topic in research on international negotiations, yet we know little about how exactly it manifests itself. We focus on government rhetoric during negotiations and develop a conceptual distinction between implicit and explicit manifestations of public opinion. Drawing on a database of video recordings of negotiations of the Council of the European Union and a quantitative text analysis of government speeches, we find that public opinion matters implicitly, with the exact pattern depending on governments’ stance toward the EU. Pro-EU governments are responsive to public opinion in their support for compromises and attempts to stall negotiations, whereas Euroskeptic governments tend to remain silent when confronted with a public positively disposed toward the EU. Our results show that although governments implicitly represent public opinion, they do not systematically invoke their voters explicitly, suggesting the public matters but in different ways than often assumed.
ISSN:0003-0554
1537-5943
DOI:10.1017/S0003055422001198