It's been a few months in the making, but today we're kicking off our inaugural Emerging Voices symposium. Until late August, we'll bring you a wide variety of posts, all written by graduate students, junior practitioners and junior academics. So watch this space if you want to read more about international law's often forgotten connections with the humanities, expat voting rights under...
I commend Katerina Linos’ book to our readers and echo the many positive comments that others in this book symposium have shared. Her theory of bottom-up democratic diffusion of norms addresses many of the concerns that have been voiced regarding the democracy deficit that occurs when policy elites borrow from abroad. I want to push Katerina a bit on the...
1. US citizens respond much more favorably to governmental policies—including ones that explicitly require tax increases—if they are told that other western states have already adopted the social policy or told that the United Nations recommends it.
2. Republicans respond more favorably than Democrats when informed that the UN recommends a social policy or that most western states have adopted the policy.
Note: This finding appears to compare shifts in support among Republicans who disfavor a social policy with shifts among Democrats who disfavor the policy. This comparison may involve systematic bias. The type of individual who self-identifies as Republican and favors core parts of the Republican Party platform is very different from the type of individual who self-identifies as Democrat and opposes core parts of the Democratic Party platform. Indeed, the former might be considered conformists and the latter non-conformists. And Linos’s findings show that the former are more likely to follow global trends and the international “mainstream.” Accordingly, the key explanation may boil down to a social conformity mechanism.
3. In important cases, individuals who are poorly informed about a social policy respond more favorably than well-informed individuals when told that other western states have already adopted the social policy or that the United Nations has recommended it.
I want to focus in detail on the third finding, and contend that it should be significantly qualified.