Foreign revolutions can ignite protests abroad and force political elites to respond. Rather than focusing only on policy tools like repression or co-optation, this paper shows that democratic politicians also use speeches strategically: they invoke foreign revolutions to attract voters who fear revolutionary contagion.
🧭 Argument and Contribution
This research argues that communicative signaling by political elites is a distinct and consequential response to revolutions abroad. By centering parliamentary speech, the study reveals how electoral incentives shape elite rhetoric and helps resolve ambiguity about whether co-optation or repression are the primary democratic reactions to revolutionary shocks.
🔎 Parliamentary Speech Evidence From Denmark's 1910s Debates
- Develops a "parliamentary speech signaling" framework grounded in recent legislative debate scholarship.
- Applies that framework to analyze Danish elite responses to revolutions during the 1910s.
- Uses qualitative analysis of parliamentary debates to track how foreign revolutions were framed and deployed for electoral purposes.
📈 Key Findings
- Democratic politicians routinely referenced foreign revolutions in speeches as a way to appeal to revolution-wary voters.
- Such rhetorical signaling offered electoral advantages distinct from policy measures like repression or co-optation.
- Focusing on speech clarifies whether observed policy moves in democracies followed from revolutions or from competitive electoral signaling.
⚖️ Why It Matters
This approach expands understanding of elite responses to revolutionary contagion by adding rhetoric and electoral competition to the usual policy-centered lens. It also provides a practical framework for scholars using legislative debates to study how external crises are converted into domestic political gains.
