weyland the diffusion of revolution 1848 in europe and latin america

8/18/2019 Weyland the Diffusion of Revolution 1848 in Europe and Latin America

1/33

The Diffusion of Revolution: ‘1848’in Europe and Latin America

Kurt Weyland

Abstract What accounts for the spread of political protest and contention across

countries? Analyzing the wildfire of attempted revolutions in 1848, the present arti-

cle assesses four causal mechanisms for explaining diffusion, namely external pres-

sure from a great power ~such as revolutionary France after 1789!; the promotion of

new norms and values—such as liberalism and democracy—by more advanced coun-

tries; rational learning from successful contention in other nations; or boundedly ratio-

nal, potentially distorted inferences from select foreign experiences+ The patterns in

which revolutionary contention spread and eyewitness reports from all sides of the

ensuing conflicts suggest that bounded rationality played a crucial role: cognitive

heuristics that deviate from fully rational procedures drew attention to some experi-

ences but not others and induced both challengers and defenders of the established

order to draw rash conclusions from these experiences, particularly the French

monarchy’s fall in February 1848+ My study also shows, however, that other factors

made important contributions, for instance by preparing the ground for the wave of

regime contention+

Political change often comes in waves+ Pressures for a regime transition in one

country tend to exert demonstration effects on other nations+1 Protest movements

or revolutionary uprisings prove similarly contagious, as the experience of “1968”

suggests+2 In all these cases, a challenge to established authorities inside a nation

provides inspiration across borders; it induces people in neighboring countries to

defy their government as well and seek political or socioeconomic transformation+

Imitation efforts occur even in unpropitious settings, where they may well fail+Thus, the cross-national spread of political contention has been even more com-

mon than the waves of democratization, reverse waves of authoritarian backlash,

and riptides of revolution discussed in the literature+ Yet scholars have rarely ana-

I would like to thank Daniel Brinks, Jonathan Brown, Jason Brownlee, Tulia Faletti, Gary Freeman,Kenneth Greene, Juliet Hooker, Wendy Hunter, Patrick MacDonald, Raúl Madrid, Mitchell Orenstein,Ami Pedahzur, Dora Piroska, Adam Przeworski, Hillel Soifer, Meral Ugur, and Barbara Vis for excel-lent comments on earlier versions of this article+

1+ See Huntington 1991; Markoff 1996; Kurzman 1998, 51–56; Brinks and Coppedge 2006; andGleditsch and Ward 2006+

2+ See McAdam and Rucht 1993; and Katz 1999+

International Organization 63, Summer 2009, pp+ 391–423© 2009 by The IO Foundation+ doi:10+10170S0020818309090146


2/33

lyzed these diffusion processes and the causal mechanisms driving them,3 despite

the flourishing of diffusion studies in other areas of the social sciences+4

Waves of political conflict already occurred in the nineteenth century, espe-

cially the revolutions of 1830 and 1848+5

French King Louis Philippe’s ouster inFebruary 1848 unleashed a torrent of regime contention6 that swept across Europe

and affected Latin America as well+ Within one month, many small states in Cen-

tral and Eastern Europe and even the great powers of Austria and Prussia ceded to

violent protest and instituted unprecedented changes in governing and regime insti-

tutions; Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia narrowly averted this fate

through pre-emptive concessions+ Even in the distant New World, the French prec-

edent had repercussions, reigniting a protest movement in northeast Brazil and

fueling rebellions in Chile+7 What accounts for this tsunami of contention?

This article assesses various theoretical arguments that highlight different causalmechanisms, especially external pressure for regime change by a great power;

promotion of new political principles and values by higher-status countries; care-

ful rational learning from front-runners’ experiences; and rasher inferences via

cognitive short cuts from such precedents+ Drawing on numerous eyewitness

reports, this article shows that normative promotion, which in turn received an

initial impulse from external pressure, was crucial in preparing the ground for

the revolutionary wave of 1848+ Moreover, rational calculations about the likely

success of regime contention set outer limits to diffusion+ With the stage set in

these ways, the main “moving cause” of contention’s spread was boundedly ratio-nal learning, which relies on simplifying heuristics that can entail distortions and

biases+ Due to its dramatic and vivid nature—rather than its inherent relevance—

the downfall of France’s July monarchy grabbed the attention of opposition lead-

ers, citizens, and governments all over Europe and in Latin America+ This singular

event made many people jump to the conclusion that a similar regime change

could occur in their state+ This unthinking belief overwhelmed prudence, inspired

enthusiasm and hope among protesters and fear among defenders of the status

3+ For exceptions, see Tarrow 2005, chap+ 6; and Bunce and Wolchik 2007+

4+ See Rogers 1995; Strang and Soule 1998; Centola and Macy 2007; Chamley 2004; Elkins andSimmons 2005; Braun and Gilardi 2006; Levi-Faur 2005; Henisz, Zelner, and Guillén 2005; Simmons,Dobbin, and Garrett 2006; and Meseguer 2009+

5+ See Bergeron, Furet, and Koselleck 1969, chap+ 9; Church 1983; Kossok and Loch 1985; Sperber1994; and Dowe et al+ 2001+

6+ While the 1848 events are commonly called revolutions , observers agree that political demandsand reforms had highest salience ~see Jessen 1968, 42, 56; Fenske 1996, 51–54; and Rath 1957, 47,60–61, 74–77!, and major theorists ~Skocpol 1979, 144– 47! invoke the absence of profound societaltransformation to stress the difference from the French Revolution of 1789+ Conversely, political regimechange was often more contentious than “transitologists” claim, as in Costa Rica’s 1948 civil war andSwitzerland’s 1847 Sonderbund war+ I therefore follow McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001; and Tilly2004; and include 1848, “a mini-wave of democratization” ~Kurzman 1998, 46, 49, 52–53!, in thebroader category of regime contention ~see also Goldstone 2001, 139, 141, 168!+

7+ See Rock 2002, 125–27; Carvalho 2003, 217, 228; Quintas 1977, 65–83, 128; Collier 2003, 79,84–85; Gazmuri 1992, 108–15; Vicuña Mackenna 1989, 23–24, 32–33; and Rosas and Ragas 2007+

392 International Organization


3/33

quo, and thus triggered a riptide of regime contention that extended far beyond

the settings that rational assessments would regard as propitious+ In fact, the wave

of revolution quickly crested and gave way to a reflux, which brought the grad-

ual restoration of established regimes in many states+ Thus, the cognitive heuris-tics of bounded rationality decisively propelled the dramatic tide of regime

contention in 1848+

The next section shows that this revolutionary wave did not result from com-

mon causes; contagion was crucial+ As explained thereafter, this article seeks to

unearth the causal mechanisms propelling diffusion rather than mapping the pro-

cess and its underlying networks+ The fourth section outlines major theories that

propose different “moving causes,” especially external pressure, normative pro-

motion, rational learning, and cognitive shortcuts+ The subsequent sections—this

article’s core—demonstrate the contributions of these factors+The present study, part of a much larger project, applies qualitative analysis,

drawing inferences from the pattern of the revolutionary wave and from numerous

reports by eyewitnesses and contemporary observers, which range from idealistic

students8 to stodgy military commanders and the mastermind of reaction from

1815–48, Clemens Metternich+9 Research focuses on the two most important states

affected by contention, Austria and Prussia+

Common Causes in the Revolutionary Wave?

In principle, common domestic causes, such as an economic crash, famine, or pop-

ulation pressures,10 could explain the eruption of regime contention across a whole

region+ The decades before 1848 indeed saw an accumulation of economic, social,

and political problems+ Harvests were poor in the mid-1840s, producing rampant

inflation+ Early industrialization brutally exploited workers and destroyed arti-

sans’ livelihoods, creating widespread downward mobility and, in some regions,

desperate poverty+11

While proletarians in the Marxian sense were few and farbetween, discontented, footloose journeymen and ill-paid laborers engaged in fre-

quent unrest, albeit locally+

Political discontent was also increasing+ Advancing education and the exam-

ples of liberal if not democratic England, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United

States led to a gradual spread of reformist ideas and values and a questioning of

the absolutist monarchies restored and confirmed after the Napoleonic wars+ The

international alliance upholding these backward regimes, coordinated by Aus-

trian Chancellor Metternich, was showing increasing cracks and weaknesses+

8+ See Boerner 1920; Frank-Döfering 1988; and Kaiser 1948+

9+ See Prittwitz 1985; and Metternich 1883+10+ Goldstone 1991+11+ Siemann 1985, 28–30, 36, 44–48+

The Diffusion of Revolution 393


4/33

Indeed, Switzerland progressed toward democracy through a civil war in 1847 ,

and a wave of revolutions swept across the Italian states in January 1848+12 The

time seemed ripe for change+

All this discontent constituted a supportive and perhaps necessary conditionfor the revolutionary wave of March 1848+ But domestic problems were not com-

ing to a head to trigger such widespread contention; they were insufficient for

producing the outburst of protest and violence+ In fact, bad harvests were fol-

lowed across Europe by a bumper crop in 1847, which quickly lowered food

prices+13 As basic necessities again claimed a lower income share, social discon-

tent diminished—right before political unrest erupted+ Similarly, the mid- to late

1840s saw neither tighter repression, nor a general move to liberalization and

reform,14 which according to French political thinker and historian, Alexis de Toc-

queville, could have spurred contention+ While counterfactual inferences are ten-tative, no domestic developments seemed acute and widespread enough to account

for the riptide of 1848+

Moreover, domestic causes alone cannot explain political eruptions in so many

different countries at precisely the same time+15 The socioeconomic and political

situation differed markedly in the states that experienced violent contention+ There

was a stark West-East gradient in modernization levels; whereas the Rhine Valley

was quite advanced, backwardness prevailed the farther one moved east and south+

Nevertheless, protests erupted not only in progressive Baden, but even in Walla-

chia, a Danubian principality untouched by industrialization, modern education,and liberal ideas+16 Regime contention in such different settings clearly did not

emerge from common causes+

Indeed, theorists of revolution emphasize how difficult, unlikely, and infrequent

violent challenges to established authorities are+17 Collective action problems hin-

der mass protest, especially where organization is missing+ Governmental repres-

sion provides strong additional discouragement+ Therefore, even regimes that are

loathed by many people and that by any standard are highly illegitimate often

manage to maintain power+18 Given these obstacles, it is implausible that domestic

conditions were conducive to revolution in so many different countries at the samemoment+ A “common cause” argument therefore seems insufficient for explaining

the outburst of regime contention in wide swaths of Europe and some parts of

Latin America+

12+ See McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001, chap+ 9; and Soule and Tarrow 1991, 18–21+13+ See Sperber 1994, 106; Engehausen 2007, 22; and Siemann 1985, 44–48+

14+ Sperber 1994, 108–11, mentions reform movements in the Papal States and Prussia—but sti-fling stagnation prevailed elsewhere, for example, Austria and the German middle states+

15+ Contention’s dramatic upsurge is documented by Godechot 1971, 17–24, 215–20; Soule andTarrow 1991, 13–16; and Tarrow 1998, 150–54+ Goldstone ~1991, 341–42!, for example, does notexplain the spread of the 1830 revolution to German states ~Church 1983, chaps+ 4 and 8!+

16+ Maier 2001, 196–99+17+ For a recent example, see Foran 2005, 6, 17+18+ See Skocpol 1979, xii, 31–32; and Goodwin 2005+



5/33

In fact, the evidence for demonstration and contagion effects is overwhelming+

As numerous eyewitnesses report, discontented people in diverse settings took inspi-

ration from the same external event, namely Louis Philippe’s fall, which was deci-

sive for triggering the revolutionary wave+ Participants of all stripes stressed thecrucial importance of the Parisian events+ Whether they stood on the side of reac-

tion, reform, or revolution, contemporaries uniformly highlighted in their diaries,

letters, or memoirs the impulse arising from the monarchy’s fall in France+19 This

striking event instilled consternation and fear in the established authorities, gave

enormous encouragement to reformists and revolutionaries, and unleashed a ground-

swell of enthusiasm and hope+

“On the morning of February 29,” immediately after “the first news of the

Paris revolution was published in Vienna” that “electrified the Viennese,” “a plac-

ard was posted” in the city center “reading: ‘Within a month Prince Metternichwill be overthrown! Long live constitutional Austria+’” Indeed, “‘Eh bien, mon

cher, tout est fini!’ @Oh well, my dear, everything is over!# exclaimed Metternich

with shock + + + when he was told the news” about the French events+20 Similarly,

a Prussian general who sought to organize international resistance to revolution’s

spread, Josef von Radowitz, wrote his wife on March 3 that the Parisian prec-

edent had brought “a reinforcement by a factor of ten in physical and political

strength among the enemies, and in our camp the discouragement of govern-

ments and the collapse of their authority and popular veneration+”21 Indeed, as

an eyewitness states, “the French Revolution of 1848 produced a powerful echoin Chile,” as well as in Peru and northeastern Brazil22—settings that differed

greatly from Europe+

For empirical and theoretical reasons, the 1848 wave cannot be attributed to

common domestic causes alone+ External factors mattered as well; contagion from

France is obvious+ But what external factors were crucial, and how did they

operate?

Diffusion Studies: Focus on Process or Causal Impulse

Theories of diffusion, which have emerged in various disciplines and reached a

broader audience,23 seek to explain two different aspects, namely how and why

innovations spread+ The much larger body of literature has documented, mapped,

19+ See Bayer 1948, 35–37; Boerner 1920, 67–77; Fenske 1996, 40–45, 50, 58–60, 71, 81; Jessen1968, 39–40, 66, 74, 92–96, 101–5; Metternich 1883, 565–66, 593–601, 624; Prittwitz 1985, 13–17;

Rath 1957, 34–51; Stiles 1852, 96, 102; Streckfuss 1948, 23–24; Varnhagen 1862, 203, 211–20, 250–53, 264–71; Vicuña Mackenna 1989, 23–31; Wolff 1898, 1– 6, 59+

20+ Reported in Rath 1957, 34; and Häusler 1979, 133, respectively+

21+ Reprinted in Jessen 1968, 38+

22+ See Vicuña Mackenna 1989, 23; Rosas and Ragas 2007; and Quintas 1977, 65–83, 128+23+ See Rogers 1995; Strang and Soule 1998; Chamley 2004; Elkins and Simmons 2005; Simmons,

Dobbin, and Garrett 2006; and Gladwell 2000+



6/33

and measured this process and analyzed its temporal, spatial, and sequential unfold-

ing+ Ever more sophisticated theories have, for instance, examined informational

and other cascades+24 Authors have also studied the threshold effects and “tipping

points” that trigger a phase shift from gradual advance to explosive imitation+25

Many scholars have investigated the networks through which diffusion advances,

highlighting “the strength of weak ties” and documenting shrinking “distances”

due to globalization with “small world” models+26 Rich literatures probe various

types of networks, such as epistemic communities+27

These important writings are ill-equipped, however, to account for the 1848

wave, which constituted the most dramatic, rapid, and far-reaching spread of regime

contention in history—but it occurred when networks of communication and trans-

portation were underdeveloped and the world was much less “small” than now-

adays! The “third wave of democratization,” for instance, advanced much moreslowly, despite instantaneous communication and dense transnational networks+

Network approaches cannot account for this puzzle ~especially because “weak

ties” are insufficient for propagating high-risk behavior such as protest against

repressive regimes!+28

Moreover, while the network literature elucidates how innovations spread, it

does not explain why they spread+ Networks are channels that operate through

various mechanisms+ Do professional networks produce convergence via rational

learning, intellectual fads, or social conformity? What propels cascades—new cost-

benefit calculations or morally appealing norms? While providing important hints,process and network analyses cannot settle the crucial “why” question: What causal

mechanisms drive diffusion? As many authors advocate,29 the present article focuses

on this issue+

Arguments on Causal Mechanisms

Analysts of diffusion’s causes propose various factors,30 which align along two

dimensions+ First, innovations can spread via contagion among autonomous units,

or powerful units can promote innovations and push them on weaker units+ Thus,

diffusion can proceed via horizontal emulation or vertical influence+ Second, some

approaches stress the causal force of objective factors whereas others claim that

24+ See Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer, and Welch 1998; Watts 2002; Chamley 2004; Strang and Macy2001; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Kuran and Sunstein 1999; and Lustick and Miodownik 2006+

25+ See Granovetter 1978; Lustick and Miodownik 2006; and Gladwell 2000+

26+ See Granovetter 1973; and Watts and Strogatz 1998+27+ See Haas 1992; and Adler and Haas 1992+28+ Centola and Macy 2007+

29+ See Elkins and Simmons 2005; Dobbin, Simmons, and Garrett 2007; and Meseguer 2009+

30+ See Strang and Soule 1998; Braun and Gilardi 2006, 306–12; Meseguer 2004, 5–11; Henisz,Zelner, and Guillén 2005, 874–78; Elkins and Simmons 2005, 34–45; and Dobbin, Simmons, andGarrett 2007+



7/33

“hard reality” is mediated by subjective factors, such as perceptions, communica-

tion, ideas, or norms+

Accordingly, external impulses for regime contention can arise from four causes,

namely external pressure, normative promotion, rational learning, and cognitiveinferences+ External pressure and normative promotion embody vertical influ-

ence, whereas rational learning and cognitive inferences operate horizontally+ While

external pressure and rational learning transmit incentives and constraints from

objective reality, normative promotion and cognitive inferences stress subjective

mediations+ Other factors invoked by diffusion scholars, such as economic com-

petition, are crucial in political economy, but irrelevant for the wave of regime

contention in 1848+

Classification schemes necessarily simplify the theoretical landscape+ “Split-

ters” prefer finer distinctions with softer boundaries+ But space constraints make

some “lumping” unavoidable+ My coarser-grained distinctions intend to clarify the

exposition, not set up a gladiator fight that only one theory, however bloodied, cansurvive+ In the complexity of the real world, various causal mechanisms come

into play, at different steps of diffusion+

The external pressure argument claims that powerful international actors seek

to determine the political regimes of weaker countries+ Their means of vertical

leverage range from military intervention to economic aid conditioned on having

an “acceptable” institutional framework +31 Such external pressure can overwhelm

domestic veto players or push them to change political arrangements against their

will+ In an unequal world, hard power carries the day according to this objectivist

31+ See Katz 1999, 6, 13, 19–21; and Levitsky and Way 2005+ In 1848, powerful firms with a trans-national reach, such as multinational corporations or banks, did not significantly affect the spread of regime contention+ Space constraints preclude coverage of these political economy forces , which pro-duced external pressures in later time periods+

FIGURE 1. Causal mechanisms in the diffusion of political contention



8/33

view+ External pressure can be exerted by individual great powers or coalitions ,

such as the Concert of Europe after the Napoleonic wars+ Instances of vertical

influence date back to Athenian “imperialism,” chronicled by Thucydides 2,500

years ago+ While often claiming noble goals, great powers apply coercive means,including military force+ Accordingly, the stronger a hegemon is, the more it can

trigger a wave of regime changes among countries that have yet to follow its

example+32

The normative promotion argument also stresses inequality in the world system

but highlights moral advance versus backwardness, not brute power+ In this con-

structivist view, waves of regime change result from new norms, principles, and

ideas that spread through moral suasion from “core” countries to the periphery+33

Important domestic actors in “underdeveloped” nations seek to enhance their legit-

imacy; therefore, they eagerly comply with new international norms and changetheir behavior accordingly+ As modern values spread in international society, old

elites may face new challenges to their rule, or they themselves absorb the novel

norms and start regime transitions out of their own initiative+ The promoters of

new values thus use “soft power,” reshaping the malleable preferences of subordi-

nate actors+ Rather than pushing change on the unwilling, they make them willing

to enact change on their own+34

Whereas external pressure and normative promotion are vertical, top-down mech-

anisms, rational learning and cognitive inference arguments depict diffusion more

as a horizontal process: actors in recipient countries observe foreign events, assessthem in light of their own, largely given interests, and draw lessons to resolve

problems and attain benefits+ The initiative lies with the emulators, who exert an

authentic choice, rather than submitting to external influence or conformity pres-

sures+ Contending political forces have a clear notion of their underlying goals

and pursue them consistently+ Instrumental preferences—the means for pursuing

goals—can shift with contextual parameters, but basic goals are unaffected by these

calculations+

The predominant variant of this interest-based approach is rational choice, which

postulates that actors maximize their utility by pursuing their goals in the bestpossible fashion despite facing environmental uncertainty and imperfect informa-

tion+ Actors derive decisions from fairly systematic, unbiased cost-benefit calcu-

lations, for which they search for the relevant information+ While unimportant

choices may not justify much costly information gathering so that “rational igno-

rance” prevails, high-stakes decisions stimulate considerable reconnaissance+35 Since

participation in regime contention risks injury, even death, potential activists are

32+ Huntington 1982, 25–35+33+ See Meyer and Rowan 1977; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Wiener

2003; and Dobbin, Simmons, and Garrett 2007, 450–54+

34+ Finer-grained classifications combine external promotion and domestic initiative through con-cepts such as localization ~Acharya 2004! or coalition ~Jacoby 2006!+

35+ Tsebelis 1990, 33–34+



9/33

likely to acquire a reasonable grasp of the objective situation with all its uncer-

tainties and dangers+ Although common citizens may lack the information access,

time, experience, and computational capacity to conduct such assessments on their

own, they take cues from the opinion leaders who do+ The careful calculations of a minority that grasps the situation thus guide the mass of citizens, allowing com-

mon people’s “low-information rationality” to approximate the conclusions that

more sophisticated calculations would yield+36

Moreover, individual deviations from rational assessments tend to cancel out in

the aggregate+37 According to the law of large numbers, mistakes compensate for

each other; the average position therefore falls close to the optimal point+ For both

reasons, the mass public, which plays a decisive role in regime contention, man-

ages to approximate rational choices although most individuals are incapable of

performing well-informed rational calculations+ Despite individual frailties, theopportunities and limitations of the real world thus tend to shape actors’ choices

in the aggregate+38

Diffusion occurs in this fairly objectivist view because regime contention is

plagued by tremendous uncertainty and highly imperfect information+39 Political

domination is a bargaining game40 in which the dominant side bluffs to intimi-

date subordinate groups; the subjects in turn avoid revealing their desire for regime

change to avert repression+ Precisely for those reasons, a protest that suddenly

reveals a ruler’s weakness and subjects’ widespread, intense dislike for the estab-

lished regime and willingness to challenge it can serve as a crucial signal forother discontented sectors, which now see a chance for overthrowing the existing

order+ Thus, rational learning from an outburst can quickly trigger spiraling

contestation+41

Such a rebellion also provides useful information to potential leaders of oppressed

sectors in other nations with similar political regimes, inducing them to assess

whether their ruler is equally weak and whether important domestic sectors share

their antiregime preferences and willingness to act+ In this way, rational learning

from the experiences of one country can trigger recalculations of the benefits and

costs of obedience versus contestation in other nations, which—if the situation isripe—can set in motion waves of regime change+42 Since a miscalculation can

inspire a premature challenge that carries serious risk , rational actors are expected

36+ See Popkin 1994; Lupia and McCubbins 1998; and Tsebelis 1990, 34–35+ Fearon and Laitin2000, 846–47, 853–57, 868–74, highlight aspects of rationality in “least likely cases,” the eruption of ethnic violence+

37+ See Page and Shapiro 1992; and Tsebelis 1990, 36–38+

38+ See Levi 1988, 10; and Mercer 2005, 85+ See also the “structuralist” conceptualization of ratio-nal choice in Satz and Ferejohn 1994+

39+ Applying this objectivist approach, Meseguer 2009 assumes Bayesian learning and uses the actualresults of earlier adoptions as predictors of innovations’ further spread +

40+ Knight 1992+41+ See Lohmann 1994; and Bates, de Figueiredo, and Weingast 1998+42+ Boix 2003, 28–30+



10/33

to proceed with prudence, however; when in doubt, they prefer continued submis-

sion+ Opposition leaders are careful in assessing opportunities and threats, and

common people follow their cues+ As excessive boldness and paralyzing fear can-

cel out, proper caution prevails in the aggregate+ Therefore, contagion will be fairlyselective; it will take hold only where the “political opportunity structure”43 is

propitious+

By contrast to the objectivist tendencies of rational choice, cognitive psychol-

ogy finds that people systematically deviate from rational assessments and have a

more problematic grasp on reality+ Confounded by pervasive uncertainty and over-

whelmed by a flood of complex information, humans commonly rely on inferen-

tial shortcuts to cope with the demands of decision making, yet at the risk of

distortions and mistakes+ Given high search costs and time pressures, people do

not thoroughly look for the relevant facts but use information that happens tobecome available to them, due to its vividness and psychological impact rather

than its inherent significance+ Instead of carrying out systematic, balanced cost-

benefit analyses, they draw inferences haphazardly, disregarding essential infor-

mation, such as statistical base rates, and relying instead on superficial similarities

and stereotypical affinities+44

According to cognitive psychology, people do not only confront imperfect ~yet

unbiased! information, as rational choice highlights, but rely on selective percep-

tions and process the skewed information they consider in nonlogical ways+ The

automatic usage of cognitive shortcuts can create important distortions and diver-gences between objective circumstances and people’s subjective assessments+

Whereas rational choice invokes cues to sustain its claim that even people with

low information and limited computational capacity can make reasoned choices

that approximate objective reality,45 cognitive psychology stresses that inferential

heuristics cause common deviations from rational information processing and deci-

sion making+46

The unthinking application of cognitive heuristics and the resulting biases weaken

the arguments advanced by rational choice to support its objectivist position in

spite of individuals’ difficulties to perform rational calculations+ If deviations fromrationality are systematic, they fail to cancel out in the aggregate and the law of

large numbers cannot distill rationality out of a welter of accidental mistakes +47 If

these systematic deviations also affect the opinion leaders from whom common

citizens take cues, then large numbers of people may march off in the wrong direc-

tion+ Even if opinion leaders are less susceptible to cognitive biases, psychologi-

43+ Tarrow 1998, 71–90+44+ See Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982; Gilovich, Griffin, and Kahneman 2002; Kuran 1995,

74, 158–66, 258–60; McDermott 2004b; Bendor 2003; and Jones and Baumgartner 2005+

45+ See Popkin 1994; and Lupia and McCubbins 1998+

46+ Bendor 2003+ To mark this difference, I use “cue” for rational choice and “heuristic” for cogni-tive psychology+

47+ Caplan 2007, 24–90+



11/33

cal factors keep the cues for the mass public from operating as reliably as rational

choice tends to claim+48

Cognitive psychologists highlight two shortcuts, the heuristics of availability

and representativeness+49

The availability heuristic shapes attention and memoryrecall, which are affected disproportionately by drastic, striking, vivid, directly

witnessed events; equally relevant information that is less stunning is neglected+

Car drivers, for instance, commonly slow down when seeing a car crash—

although a single accident should not alter their cost-benefit calculations about

the risks of speeding+ But the shocking view overpowers systematic, rational con-

siderations+ The representativeness heuristic also causes deviations from rational

judgments by basing inferences on apparent similarities while disregarding rele-

vant information, such as statistical base rates+ For instance, people draw improp-

erly firm conclusions from limited data, assuming that patterns found in smallsamples are representative of population trends+ Accordingly, an early success

can imbue an innovation with the aura of inherent quality and trigger an upsurge

of imitation+50

Due to these heuristics, recent events in neighboring countries that make a strik-

ing, vivid impression have a disproportionate impact and grab people’s attention;

and facile judgments of similarity fuel much stronger contagion than cautious ratio-

nal learning justifies+ The bounded-rationality approach thus predicts waves of dif-

fusion that sweep beyond the limited range of similar political-institutional settings+

In fact, cognitive shortcuts inspire fairly rash challenges of established regimes;therefore, aborted efforts and failures should be frequent+ Cognitive psychology’s

observable implications thus differ from rational choice+

In recent years, psychology has complemented its earlier cognitive turn by pay-

ing increasing attention to emotions and their neurophysiological basis in human

brain structure, moving even farther away from the concept of calculating ratio-

nality that originated in economics+51 Although these novel findings have not yet

crystallized into a coherent theory, they reinforce the predictions of excessive bold-

ness and sweeping diffusion suggested by cognitive heuristics+ Drastic, vivid, par-

ticularly “available” events can unleash waves of emotions, such as euphoria,indignation, or anger; and apparent success highlighted by representativeness can

stimulate hope and enthusiasm+ Experiments demonstrate that several of these emo-

tions, such as enthusiasm and anger, turn people risk-acceptant,52 boosting their

willingness to challenge unjust regimes+ The emotions unleashed by other coun-

tries’ experiences thus reinforce people’s tendency to deviate from rational demands

of prudence and engage in dangerous protests, propelling regime contention far-

ther than careful cost-benefit calculations advise+

48+ See Kuklinski and Quirk 2000; Lau and Redlawsk 2001; Kinder 2006; and Gilens 2001+

49+ See Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982; and Gilovich, Griffin, and Kahneman 2002+

50+ Weyland 2007, chap+ 2+51+ See Damasio 2005; and McDermott 2004a+52+ See Druckman and McDermott 2008, 308–17; and Kim 2002, 164, 171–72+



12/33

Yet while cognitive psychology diverges significantly from rational choice, the

boundary between these approaches is fluid: The bounds of rationality can be more

or less tight, and the distortions created by cognitive heuristics vary in severity,

depending, for instance, on collective decision-making procedures and the diver-sity of participants+

In sum, four causal mechanisms—external pressure, normative promotion, ratio-

nal learning, and cognitive heuristics ~cum emotions!—can drive the spread of political contention+ How did these factors operate in the revolutionary wave of

1848? The following sections assess their impact in turn+

External Pressures in the 1848 Revolutions

Did pressure by a powerful foreign actor set in motion the 1848 wave? The “age

of revolutions” after 1789 indeed saw many externally propelled regime changes+

Revolutionary France quickly started to export its new constitutional principles

and institutions+ Military victories allowed Napoleon to install satellite regimes in

conquered territories, such as the Kingdom of Westphalia in Northwestern Germa-

ny+53 Napoleon also shaped the constitutional design of nominally independent states

in France’s sphere of influence+ These efforts had lasting effects by spreading lib-

eral, republican

, and democratic ideas

, values

, and sentiments in the regions clos-est to France, such as the German territories along the Rhine+54 In more distant

regions, however, they triggered fierce resistance, such as the Spanish guerrilla

war immortalized in Francisco Goya’s disturbing prints+ Moreover, they fell with

Napoleon’s defeat in 1813–15+

The Concert of Europe sought to suppress precisely these principles and ideas

imported from France and guarantee monarchical, if not absolutist rule+ Thus,

the counter-revolution also resorted to external pressure, coordinated by Austrian

éminence grise Metternich+ The pentarchy of Austria, Britain, France, Prussia,

and Russia enforced political stagnation during three stifling decades+55

But theseexternal pressures were not always successful+ While the smaller German states

had little room to maneuver, great powers were less vulnerable, as the ouster of

France’s “legitimate” king and the installation of a constitutional monarchy in

1830 showed+

Although external pressures were common in the early nineteenth century, they

played virtually no role during the 1848 revolution+ The spark of rebellion spread

through demonstration and contagion, not the exercise of power+ Discontented sec-

tors all over Europe and parts of Latin America took inspiration from the surpris-

ingly easy overthrow of the French king+ The wave of uprisings it triggered resulted

53+ Lademacher 2001, 263+54+ See Botzenhart 1985, 27–32, 37–38, 44–65, 69–75; and Fehrenbach 1981, 42–45, 66–88, 175–78+55+ Botzenhart 1985, 84–95+



13/33

from spontaneous domestic initiatives, not French arms+ The provisional govern-

ment in Paris did not foment revolution in other countries+56 Remembering the

1790s, contemporaries expected France again to export its revolution via a major

war—but this conflagration never materialized+ France’s second republic did noteven intervene in areas where revolutionary principles coincided with geopolitical

interests, such as the regions of northern Italy that sought independence from

France’s old rival Austria+ The fear that international war would cause domestic

radicalization, as during the run-up to Jacobin terror in 1792–93, induced the new

government in Paris to refrain from military adventures57 and forestalled the force-

ful promotion of revolution+

Similarly, there were no French agents or advisors who stimulated uprisings in

other countries, contrary to reactionary charges+58 The only direct link between

events in Paris and other contentious episodes were liberal or democratic exilesfrom Central or Eastern Europe who had fled from domestic repression to France

and then, when revolution erupted, went home to help spread the gospel there+59

But even this return of exiles had a significant impact only in a few cases , such as

the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and the republic of Chile+60 In the

two most important sites to which revolution spread in 1848, the great powers of

Austria and Prussia, this return migration played virtually no role+ Instead, auton-

omous domestic uprisings, which the news of Louis Philippe’s fall triggered spon-

taneously, shook the established monarchs and forced concessions, such as political

liberalization and the appointment of reformist ministers+Rather than furthering the spread of regime contention, external force was used

in the final defeat of revolutionary efforts in 1849+ After established dynasties

had managed to take back many of the initial concessions, reassert autocratic

rule, and suppress mass politics in Prussia, large parts of the Habsburg Empire,

and most small states in Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe, the Roman Repub-

lic in the Papal States, and radical reformers in Hungary continued to hold out

against the wave of counter-revolution+ French forces sent by conservative

new president Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte to help the embattled Pope and Rus-

sian army units requested by the Austrian Emperor squashed these remainingislands of contentious fervor+ But these military interventions reflected reaction-

ary solidarity; solicited by the formal authorities, they did not arise from external

initiatives+

In sum, external pressure, which has played a role throughout history, espe-

cially since the French Revolution of 1789, was not the moving cause for the wave

of regime contention in 1848+ It did not trigger the revolutionary tsunami in Europe,

not to speak of the ripples that lapped the distant shores of Latin America+

56+ Ellis 2000, 50+

57+ Namier 1992, 34+

58+ See Streckfuss 1948, 42, 45, 50–51, 58; Hachtmann 1997, 170–72+59+ Metternich 1883, 624–25+60+ See Maier 2001; Collier 2003, 84–85; and Gazmuri 1992, 63, 69+



14/33

The Spread of Ideas, Norms, and Principles

Did normative promotion propel the rapid diffusion of regime contention in 1848?

According to sociological institutionalists and constructivists, novel ideas, values,and principles developed in the center of the international system can raise the

standards of appropriateness and quickly win adherents+ In this way, new moral

concerns and commitments set in motion a norm cascade+61

This causal mechanism created the preconditions for the 1848 wave but did not

directly propel it+ Regime contention spread much more explosively than a norm

cascade+ Conversion to new ideas and values may be quick but cannot be instan-

taneous+ It did not trigger the dramatic contagion in March 1848, when masses of

people, immediately upon hearing about the monarchy’s overthrow in Paris, poured

into the streets and challenged their repressive governments all over Europe+62

Newideas and values are not embraced that fast+ Instead, due to a gradual norm cas-

cade during earlier decades, important sectors of the urban population already held

liberal or democratic values but had refrained for years from expressing them in

public to avoid governmental sanctions+ When Louis Philippe’s downfall made

other regimes suddenly look weak , citizens finally felt confident to act on these

values+ While “preference falsification”63 evaporated instantaneously, the underly-

ing preferences had spread more gradually, propelled by the French Revolution of

1789 and diffusing throughout the pre-1848 decades+64

In fact, the 1848 revolution did not significantly change the content of the ideasand values held in Central and Eastern Europe+ Analyses of the prevailing politi-

cal discourse demonstrate that political movements, associations, and leaders voiced

the viewpoints they had held before the uprisings and expressed in small circles ;65

few new values emerged+ There was no substantial normative shift right before

and during the rash of uprisings; the revolutionary wave was not unleashed by

new ideas+

Moreover, 1848 did not see the same values diffuse from a source of normative

innovation to a range of emulators, as constructivists claim+ Political movements

in Central and Eastern Europe pressed different demands and adhered to differentvalues than the French revolutionaries who inspired their actions+66 Whereas Pari-

sians overthrew the monarchy and installed a republic, the majority of revolution-

aries in the rest of Europe had more moderate goals, namely to transform absolutism

into constitutional monarchy+67 They wanted to enhance citizen participation, make

princes more responsive and accountable, and limit their latitude through consti-

61+ See Meyer and Rowan 1977; and Finnemore and Sikkink 1998+

62+ Hürlimann 1948, 30–31, 35–37+63+ Kuran 1995+64+ See Botzenhart 1985, 73–75, 92, 121; Sheehan 1995, 8–18; and Fenske 1996, 60+

65+ See especially Steinmetz 2001+

66+ Schieder 1979, 20+67+ In Hungary and the Balkans, nationalist fervor made revolutionary efforts more radical, but it

played a minimal role in the regime overthrow in France , a consolidated nation state+



15/33

tutions+ But they did not push for radical popular sovereignty and the installation

of republics; instead, many of them wanted to retain hereditary monarchy+ Thus,

most emulators of the Paris revolution wanted to institute precisely the regime

type that the French had just toppled!68

This moderation resulted less from a prudent, realistic assessment of prevailing

opportunities and constraints, especially the continued power of established dynas-

ties+ Instead, it reflected principled reasoning, namely the fear that a democratic

republic would degenerate into mob rule and terror, as in France from 1792–94+

While the French Revolution of 1789 had inspired a rejection of absolutist rule,

its radicalization served as a deterrent in most of Europe and induced a wide-

spread preference for moderate political liberalism+69 This goal differed greatly

from the democratic radicalism that surfaced again with the proclamation of a

republic in Paris in February 1848+70

The protagonists did not see these liberal values as a transitional stage in the

long march toward democracy but as an alternative designed to pre-empt full

democracy+ In their view, democratic republicans merely wanted to transfer

unrestrained, undivided sovereignty from absolutist kings to “the people+” But this

simple transmission threatened to replace monarchical despotism with the tyranny

of the majority+ To prevent this risk , political liberals sought to tame royal author-

ity through a constitution that guaranteed basic rights and a separation of powers +

Mid-nineteenth-century liberalism saw itself as fundamentally different from both

absolutism and democracy, not as a transitional compromise+71

Thus, the goalsinspiring the majority of European revolutionaries did not reproduce the ideas and

values driving their forerunners in Paris+ Constructivist arguments about the dif-

fusion of the same norms do not apply in this case + As regards constitutional prin-

ciples and institutional forms, Britain, Belgium, and the United States served more

as an inspiration for European liberals than the new French republic+ For these

reasons, the 1848 wave of revolutions did not result from a norm cascade unleashed

by the installation of a democratic republic in Paris+

Certainly, however, the gradual spread of antiabsolutist, liberal values during

the pre-March decades, which was inspired dialectically by the French Revolu-tion of 1789, prepared the ground for this striking surge of regime contention+ As

more and more people regarded undivided monarchical rule as illegitimate, advo-

cated a constitution guaranteeing the separation of powers, and yearned for free-

dom of speech and association, the preference for challenging established dynasties

spread—in case the opportunity arose+ When Louis Philippe’s fall seemed to sig-

nal such an opening, this accumulated value shift burst into the public sphere+

Thus, while a norm cascade did not produce the wildfire of 1848, it constituted a

68+ Namier 1992, 10–11+

69+ See Botzenhart 1985, 42; and Sheehan 1995+70+ Kaiser 1948, 29+71+ See Sheehan 1995; and Botzenhart 1985, 126–39+



16/33

crucial underlying cause that made such a drastic wave possible+ It provided the

tinder that the spark from Paris set on fire+

Tinder, however, does not combust on its own+ The repressive Metternich sys-

tem was designed to forestall this outcome and had successfully done so for decades +Thus, the outbreak of revolution and its wavelike spread were not foreordained by

gradual value change+ Contrary to culturalism,72 political power plays a crucial

role in regime contention and its results+ Louis Philippe’s overthrow suggested

that seemingly powerful monarchies were surprisingly weak and could be chal-

lenged at limited risk + Rather than inspiring new ideas and norms, the French

monarchy’s fall offered instrumental information about the chances of regime

contention+

Rational Learning in the 1848 Revolution

Given the importance of the February events in Paris as a signal , did the revolu-

tionary wave result from the transmission of new information that reshaped the

calculation of opportunities and risks by hidden opponents of absolutist regimes?

Rational learning predicts that the unexpected ease of Louis Philippe’s ouster led

potential revolutionaries in other countries to update their assessments of the chances

of forcing change+ It demonstrated the striking fragility of an established regime,the extensiveness of discontent, and the willingness of many people to act on this

dissatisfaction through collective protest+ While censorship and repression can make

opposition invisible and create a false sense of governments’ strengths, the sudden

fall of a typical government rectifies this misinformation, reveals governments’

weaknesses, and induces the opposition to overcome “preference falsification”73

and join forces to remove existing regimes+

This explanation has two observable implications, however, that do not seem to

apply fully in 1848+ First, given the dangers inherent in challenging a repressive

regime, opponents—especially opinion leaders with reasonable access to informa-tion, but also mass actors displaying “low-information rationality”—should be fairly

cautious+ Obvious collective action dilemmas, which are especially severe where

the opposition lacks disciplined, broad-based organizations, should inspire further

prudence+ Therefore, people should be careful before spearheading or joining an

uprising+

The spread of revolution in 1848, however, was not based on careful assess-

ments of opportunities and constraints+ Rather than gathering a reasonable amount

of information and weighing their options in a balanced fashion, oppositionists

72+ For a recent example, see Inglehart and Welzel 2005+

73+ See Lohmann 1994; Bates, de Figueiredo, and Weingast 1998; and Boix 2003+ The term wascoined by Kuran 1995, 74, 166, 180, 258–60, whose basic model is rationalist, but takes cognitiveheuristics into account+



17/33

jumped to conclusions at the first news received from Paris+ In fact, rumors ran

wild, and people often acted on them, rather than on minimally solid informa-

tion+74 For instance, the worst and decisive outbreak of violence occurred in Ber-

lin as a result of two accidental gunshots, which protesters saw—mistakenly, itseems—as the deliberate start of a crackdown+75 All eyewitnesses and historians

stress that the prevailing mood among elites and common citizens was not one of

careful, prudent calculation,76 but of exalted hopes, revolutionary excitement, and

enthusiasm+77 During this “springtime of the peoples,” notables, opposition lead-

ers, intellectuals, students, artisans, shopkeepers, and workers started to act before

receiving reliable news about the triggering events+ They did not assess in any

depth whether foreign lessons were applicable to their own countries: Was their

government equally weak and were their fellow opponents equally strong and com-

mitted to contention as in the world capital of revolution? Extant reports showthat this crucial question did not receive systematic consideration+ Instead, Louis

Philippe’s fall swept up people in the logically problematic belief that what was

possible in Paris would be possible in their capital + This rash inference, which

affected opinion leaders and mass publics, diverges from rational learning+

Second, given the risks of challenging repressive governments prematurely, ratio-

nal learning predicts that revolution spreads selectively, reaching only a few coun-

tries with similar “political opportunity structures” as the frontrunner+ But in 1848,

regime contention diffused very far, even to settings that differed greatly from

revolution-happy France, such as the stolid Austrian Empire and the Danubianbackwaters of Wallachia and Moldavia+ These political systems boasted highly

diverse levels of economic development, urbanization, education, societal plural-

ism, associational depth, and political institutionalization, ranging from more lib-

eral, constitutional regimes in the West to backward, repressive, staunchly absolutist

autocracies toward the East+78

Why did protest leaders and their followers in these different settings all take

inspiration from the same event and engage in similar types of contention? In

most of East-Central and Eastern Europe, people had traditionally submitted to

hierarchical authority and remained quiet in the previous wave of European rev-olutions in 1830+79 But now, many long-quiescent “subjects” suddenly believed

they could defy their powerful governments+ Rational cost-benefit calculations

cannot easily account for this striking switch to courage, which had at most fleet-

ing success+ The spread of the 1848 revolution in varied power constellations,

74+ See Bayer 1948, 20–25; Boerner 1920, 73–95; Jessen 1968, 45, 61, 75–77, 83, 99, 102; Rath1957, 34, 36, 62–63, 73, 78–80; Streckfuss 1948, 31, 36–37, 50; and Wolff 1898, 3– 4, 32, 35, 56, 77,81–84, 106, 111+

75+ Streckfuss 1948, 54–57+

76+ See especially Jessen 1968, 53+

77+ See Boerner 1920; and Frank-Döfering 1988; see also Vicuña Mackenna 1989, 31–33+78+ See Schieder 1979, 20; and Hobsbawm 1996a, 10–12+79+ See Church 1983; and Dowe et al+ 2001+



18/33

under the threat of repression, went beyond the predictions of rational learning

arguments+ Many leaders and citizens discounted the caution that balanced cost-

benefit calculations attuned to the prevailing political opportunity structure would

have counseled+Prudence did set some limits to the diffusion of regime contention, however+

The thoroughly repressive tsarist regime, which had brutally squashed the Polish

uprising in 1830–31 and had not allowed an independent civil society to emerge

in Russia, forestalled serious challenges in 1848+ Despite some feeble stirrings,

the Paris revolution failed to spark imitation in this totally unpropitious setting+

Similarly, dictator Juan Manuel Rosas prevented the 1848 revolution from exert-

ing any impact in Argentina, whereas it affected less repressive countries in Latin

America+80 Thus, where the chances of success approached zero—yet only there—

the established order avoided disruption+ Truly hard constraints shone through thesubjective layers examined in the next section+

Moreover, immediate concessions and credible commitment to reforms, such as

the creation or strengthening of constitutional limitations on monarchs, managed

to avert violent uprisings in several countries infected by contagion from Paris in

early 1848, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Brazil+81 Where

governments pre-empted popular rebellion by quickly initiating change, discon-

tent eased and tranquility returned+ Thus, regime contention did not spread to states

where it seemed unnecessary, or where it was obviously infeasible+ Prevailing oppor-

tunities and constraints set some limits+Inside these broad boundaries, however, diffusion was less selective than ratio-

nal choice predicts+ Many people risked protesting in settings that reasoned judg-

ments would find unpromising+ Rational learning cannot easily account for the

swiftness and breadth of the revolutionary wave of 1848 ~although it correctly

highlights diffusion’s limits!+ Regime contention spread faster and farther than care-

ful cost-benefit calculations justified+

Cognitive Heuristics in the Spread of the 1848 Revolution

Can goal-oriented behavior that deviates from low-information rationality by rely-

ing on simplifying and distortionary strategies of inference account better for the

striking diffusion of regime contention in 1848? Cognitive psychology shows that

humans do not tend to process the relevant information systematically, as rational

choice assumes+ People apply heuristics that facilitate information processing and

decision making, yet at the risk of biases and mistakes

+82

These commonly used

80+ See Saunders 2000; and Rock 2002, 125–30+81+ See Frandsen 2001; Lademacher 2001; Nilsson 2001; Seip 2001; and Quintas 1977, 67–68+82+ See Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982; and Gilovich, Griffin, and Kahneman 2002+



19/33

shortcuts introduce a thicker subjective layer between actors and the objective envi-

ronment+ Social scientists have demonstrated that these strategies of inference can

shape political decision making+83

Cognitive heuristics hold special sway in situations of high uncertainty whennovel opportunities suddenly open up and players’ actions and reactions are impos-

sible to foresee+ Such uncertainty prevails in revolutions and regime transitions ,

which constitute unusual interruptions of political normality+84 As previously qui-

escent actors burst onto the scene, marshal their unused power capabilities, and

test the unclear limits of political possibilities, outcomes seem to be “up in the

air+” The dearth of reliable, trustworthy information in the mid-nineteenth cen-

tury, in the absence of telephones and mass media, exacerbated this uncertainty+

In 1848, wild rumors swept across cities and countries; people often acted on shaky

information+85

Situations of tremendous fluidity impede systematic information pro-cessing and interest calculation so that rational choice assumptions may not fully

apply;86 rationality may be particularly bounded+

However, neither does chaos prevail; political contenders do not act in purely

arbitrary, idiosyncratic ways+ Instead, cognitive psychology shows that people auto-

matically resort to inferential shortcuts to process a flood of uncertain information

and make sense of fast-moving events+ These heuristics focus attention on certain

phenomena and filter out many others, and they produce quick albeit logically

problematic conclusions+ This simplification of complexity helps people avoid infor-

mational overload and decisional paralysis, but it comes at a risk , namely the poten-tially limited quality of decisions+

Specifically, the availability heuristic focuses attention and memory recall, guid-

ing and limiting information intake+ It highlights striking, dramatic pieces of infor-

mation, regardless of their inherent importance and actual relevance+ This filtering

mechanism applies logically problematic criteria, namely the vivid, memorable

nature of information; for instance, it makes people fear plane crashes although

air travel is in fact very safe+ Stunning, directly available information impresses

itself on observers’ mind+ They do not proactively search for it but react to its

appearance; it grabs their attention+This cognitive shortcut seems to have played a central role in the spread of

revolution in 1848+ Dramatic events captured the attention of a wide range of peo-

ple, both established governments and discontented citizens+ Above all, the sud-

den ouster of Louis Philippe “electrified the Viennese”87 and many other people

all over Europe+ In Berlin, this regime collapse triggered a rush on newspapers;

whoever obtained a new issue had to read aloud because others could not wait to

83+ See Gowda and Fox 2002; McDermott 2004b; and Weyland 2007+84+ See Blyth 2002, 8–10, 30–32; O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; and Kurzman 2004+

85+ See Rath 1957, 34–36, 62–63, 73, 78–80; Varnhagen 1862, 216; and Wolff 1898, 3– 4, 32–35,

56, 77–85, 106, 111+86+ Tsebelis 1990, 32–36+87+ See Rath 1957, 34+ For a similar account, see Stiles 1852, 102+



20/33

hear the news+88 Since directly available information grabs people’s attention, the

February revolution immediately impressed itself on people’s mind+ They did not

proactively search; this stunning information burst onto their radar screen+ The

instantaneous repercussions of the July monarchy’s fall show the availability heu-ristic at work +

Typically, this stream of vivid, novel information first grabbed the attention of

those sectors that, due to educational background and professional position, were

particularly attuned to news, namely journalists, professors, and students+ Both

in Berlin and Vienna, students were among the first to respond to the French

monarchy’s collapse, raise demands for reform, and move to contentious action,

such as besieging representative bodies and engaging in protest+89 City burghers,

especially liberal professionals, shopkeepers, and artisans, soon followed suit+ Their

unrest, expressed in semi-public mass meetings of growing size that ~in the absenceof a guiding organization! debated the best course of action, then reinforced the

impact of the Parisian news on the lower classes living on cities’ peripheries + In

that way, this highly “available” news spread downward in the social pyramid+

As cognitive psychology claims, attention was channeled by logically problem-

atic criteria+ People were disproportionately impressed by some events while

neglecting many others, regardless of their substantive importance+ While imme-

diately drawn to the Paris events, governments, opinion leaders, and citizens had

paid little attention to the revolutionary wave that swept across Italy at the begin-

ning of 1848,90

although the absolutist Italian states were politically more similarto the rest of Europe than France’s liberal, constitutional monarchy+ Whereas by

rational standards, regime contention in Italy held special significance for Central

and Eastern Europe, people there downplayed it as “baby revolutions” ~“Revo-

lutiönchen”!+91 Italy lay at the periphery of Europe; news reports were sparse and

personal connections few and far between+ The Italian rebellions were not partic-

ularly available to most Europeans—not to speak of Latin Americans +

The Italian sequence of revolutions therefore remained geographically con-

fined+ As is typical of diffusion processes, neighborhood effects were strong, given

that geographic proximity makes information available+ News travels easily amongadjacent states, which often have historical and personal ties+ This holds espe-

cially true where commonality or similarity of language prevails, as inside Italy+

Therefore, the Sicilian rebellion and its contagion effects were directly available

on the peninsula, setting in motion a fall of political dominoes in early 1848+ But

other countries that should have rationally learned from these experiences remained

unaffected+

88+ See Streckfuss 1948, 24; and Varnhagen 1862, 218+89+ See Boerner 1920, 71–77, 84–87; Frank-Döfering 1988, 28–35; Kaiser 1948, 27–28; Jessen

1968, 51–52; Hachtmann 1997, 127, 144; and Streckfuss 1948, 25+ For a general account, see Namier1992+

90+ See, for example, Varnhagen 1862, 239; see also Soule and Tarrow 1991, 18–21+91+ See Hachtmann 1997, 118; and Boerner 1920, 68+



21/33

By contrast to the limited Italian wave, Louis Philippe’s overthrow unleashed a

tsunami+ Its exceptional availability reflected the unique position of France, which

had, since 1789, been the global epicenter of revolution+ From Bastille Day onward,

fearful governments and eager rebels saw France as the volcano from which rev-olution would erupt+ The status of Paris as “the capital of Europe”92 and the leg-

acy of having been the “mother of revolutions”93 drew widespread attention to any

new outbreak of regime contention+ The July monarchy’s downfall immediately

grabbed the attention of governments and citizens throughout Europe and in the

Americas+ These dramatic events forcefully impressed themselves on everybody’s

mind+ As innumerable eyewitness reports about the tremendous impact of the Paris

events suggest,94 the availability heuristic was at work +

From a rational perspective, the disproportionate attention paid to Paris is puz-

zling+ Louis Philippe’s liberal, constitutional regime differed significantly from theilliberal, absolutist monarchies that the imitators of the Paris events challenged;

and ironically, the majority of Central and Eastern European rebels sought to insti-

tute not a republic as in France, but the type of liberal, constitutional monarchy

that had just been overthrown in France! Why did these moderate revolutionaries

take inspiration from France, rather than the Italian revolutions that were more

similar in their goals?

Similarly, why did the French Revolution of 1848 have greater repercussions

in Latin America than the democratization achieved under President Andrew Jack-

son in the United States?95

This differential effect is surprising because the Spanish-speaking countries already had republican constitutions; the main accomplishment

of the Paris events was irrelevant+ The Jacksonian effort to transform a republic

from an oligarchy into an effective democracy was much more pertinent + Con-

trary to these rational considerations, Latin Americans paid attention primarily

to the dramatic events in the world capital of revolution, rather than to the changes

in the politically more similar republic to the North, which lay at the periphery

of the civilized world+96 The violent collapse of Louis Philippe’s reign was more

vivid and stunning than the sequence of democratic reforms enacted under Pres-

ident Jackson+ Typically, the availability heuristic made Latin Americans pay dis-proportionate attention to the bloody revolution in France, rather than the peaceful

92+ See, for example, Varnhagen 1862, 264, 268+

93+ The precedent of 1830, when the July Revolution in Paris triggered emulation efforts in Bel-gium, Poland, and a few German states ~Church 1983!, induced Europeans to pay special attention toLouis Philippe’s overthrow in 1848+ Evidence suggests that this earlier wave was also driven by cog-nitive heuristics+ This sequence raises the difficult issue of how rational it is for people to adjust toothers’ deviations from full rationality+

94+ See Bayer 1948, 35–37; Boerner 1920, 67–77; Fenske 1996, 40–45, 50, 58–60, 71, 81; Jessen1968, 39–40; Metternich 1883, 565–66, 593–601, 624; Prittwitz 1985, 13–17; Rath 1957, 34–51;

Stiles 1852, 96, 102; Streckfuss 1948, 23–24; Varnhagen 1862, 203, 211–20, 250–53, 264–71; VicuñaMackenna 1989, 23–31; and Wolff 1898, 1– 6, 59+ See also Quintas 1977, 65–78+

95+ See Hobsbawm 1996b, 111, 121+96+ Collier 2003, 183–87+



22/33

transformation in the United States+ Although the Jacksonian reforms had more

lasting effects, the striking, dramatic events in Paris grabbed Latin Americans’

attention+

In sum, Paris’s central position in the revolutionary universe accounts for thehigh availability of the February events, which instantaneously made a strong

impression on a variety of people+ The contagion emanating from France had the

typical geographic clustering created by the availability heuristic+ Due to these

neighborhood effects, regime contention first spread to areas adjacent to France,

especially the Rhine valley+ From there, it moved eastward like a wave, traveling

with the news, which took days to spread+ After stirring up Baden at the end of

February, it reached Munich in early March, Vienna in mid-month, and shortly

thereafter Berlin+ Thus, diffusion’s characteristic geographic pattern is clearly vis-

ible in the 1848 revolutions+As the dominoes fell, pressure for a further spread of regime contention

increased+ The rising tide of revolution exacerbated the challenge for the more

repressive governments toward the East+ Thus, there were secondary diffusion

effects; for instance, the Viennese revolution of March 13 affected both the pro-

testers and the authorities in Berlin, contributing to the outburst of violence on

March 18 and the governmental capitulation the next day+97 Moreover, the main

demands advanced in Baden—press freedom, trial by jury, citizen militia, and a

national parliament—turned into a model for rebels in other German-speaking

states, who pushed for the same concessions+98

Thus, nested within the stormtriggered by the Paris events, diffusion also occurred among some of the imita-

tors+ As events in neighboring states were particularly available, revolution spread

in concentric waves+99

Louis Philippe’s overthrow also triggered the representativeness heuristic, which

bases judgments on similarities—even if they are logically arbitrary and irrelevant—

and draws excessively firm conclusions from limited data+ Disregarding statistical

base rates, people overestimate the significance of trends that appear in small sam-

ples, for instance; thus, they fail to consider chance factors+

Accordingly, observers all over Europe were impressed by the surprising easewith which the French monarchy crumbled+100 Based on this single event, they

immediately altered their political calculations+ Repressive governments of diverse

stripes suddenly looked like giants on feet of clay, and opposition forces came to

believe in their strength+ Viewing similarities across very different settings,101 many

people jumped to the conclusion that what was feasible in Paris could be repeated

97+ See Bayer 1948, 39–44, 57; Boerner 1920, 114–21; Fenske 1996, 63, 77–81; Hachtmann 1997,146–48; Kaeber 1948, 48–49, 54; Prittwitz 1985, 59, 69, 93–102; Varnhagen 1862, 217–18, 283–88,296; and Wolff 1898, 41, 53, 62, 68–71, 77+

98+ See Fenske 1996, 60–61; Varnhagen 1862, 219–20, 260; and Engehausen 2007, 25+

99+ Jessen 1968, 40–42, 56, 67–69, 73, 110+100+ Fenske 1996, 60+101+ For example, see Rath 1957, 38; and Varnhagen 1862, 214, 268–69+



23/33

in their states+102 The French regime collapse was seen as representative of large

swaths of a continent+ The resulting sense of empowerment helped unleash the

enthusiasm and exalted hopes that swept across Europe during this “springtime of

the peoples+”The instantaneous spread of revolutionary fervor and contentious action did not

emerge from rational calculations, which would have counseled greater caution,

given the high stakes of challenging repressive governments+ Instead of perform-

ing careful, systematic cost-benefit calculations, many citizens left prudence behind

because they followed the representativeness heuristic and drew a rash inference:

if the French had managed to overthrow the monarchy, they could force a similar

transformation+ Student Paul Boerner believed, “Now we will be free as well!” 103

Austrian revolutionaries proclaimed that “the people ‘must drive the Louis Phil-

ippes of the Austrian state out of the ministries+’ ”104

Extrapolating from the sur-prisingly easy regime change in France, many people assumed they could bring

about a similar feat+105 Thus, they overestimated the evidentiary value of a single

occurrence and exaggerated the similarities of their domestic political opportunity

structure with prerevolutionary France+

The perception of an unusual window of opportunity suggested by the avail-

ability and representativeness heuristics also unleashed people’s emotions+ It

prompted an outburst of enthusiasm; opinion leaders and common citizens held

enormous hopes for the future+ Moreover, anger exploded against established gov-

ernments, which had so long stifled these hopes+ Popular indignation and furywere further fueled by disproportionate governmental suppression of initially peace-

ful reform demands in cities such as Berlin and Vienna+106 All these emotions

reinforced people’s willingness to risk violent protest—contrary to the com-

mands of reason and prudence—and thus contributed to the escalation of con-

flict+ In line with psychological experiments,107 both enthusiasm and anger

emboldened opinion leaders and common people and reinforced goal-oriented

demands for reform, especially an end to absolutism with its arbitrariness and

brutality+ Thus, emotions came into play when cognitive inferences opened the

door to their expression, and they strengthened the behavioral tendencies sug-gested by the representativeness heuristic+

Interestingly, the logically problematic belief in the likely success of protest

and rebellion did not result from wishful thinking+ Incumbent governments applied

the representativeness heuristic as well and drew similar conclusions from the Paris

102+ See Boerner 1920, 74; Jessen 1968, 39–40, 66, 74, 92–96; Prittwitz 1985, 13–16; Rath 1957,

34–43, 47; Varnhagen 1862, 211–20; and Wolff 1898, 5– 6, 21+

103+ Boerner 1920, 74+104+ Quoted in Rath 1957, 38+105+ See Jessen 1968, 39–40, 66, 74, 92–96; Rath 1957, 34–43, 47; Varnhagen 1862, 211–20; and

Wolff 1898, 5– 6, 21+

106+ See Stiles 1852, 105–6; Streckfuss 1948, 31–58; and Wolff 1898, 46–58, 101– 4+ See, in gen-eral, Kalyvas 2006, 151–56+

107+ Druckman and McDermott 2008, 308–17+



24/33

revolution+ In many palaces, Louis Philippe’s downfall caused perplexity, conster-

nation, and the fear of suffering the same fate+108 A Prussian aristocrat commented

immediately after the July Monarchy’s collapse: “Believe me, this will repeat itself

here!”109

Metternich wrote an Austrian diplomat on March 1, “Europe is facingthe year 1793 again+ + + + We are headed toward horrible events!”110

Yet whereas discontented citizens had the Parisian success to imitate and there-

fore protested and built barricades,111 the authorities did not know how to prevent

replications of Louis Philippe’s failure to retain power: Should they make hasty

concessions or respond with repression? Whereas more liberal-minded govern-

ments in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia went the conciliatory route

and thus averted revolutions, most absolutist princes in Central and Eastern Europe

instinctively dug in their heels+112 But there were disagreements among court fac-

tions on how harsh the response to protests should be+ The representativeness heu-ristic led different government sectors to advocate somewhat different tactics ,

depending on their interests and power capabilities+ Interacting with contextual

circumstances, the same causal mechanism played out differently, as the literature

on causal mechanisms postulates+113 Since external inputs combine with the domes-

tic constellation of political forces, they are “localized” and give rise to contend-

ing “coalitions+”114

The authorities therefore wavered on how to respond to the gathering storm+115

In Berlin, the king’s brother, Prince Wilhelm, pressed for a hard line+ This position—

also held by Metternich in Vienna—saw Louis Philippe’s downfall as the logicalresult of the July Monarchy’s birth defect: the departure from “legitimate” dynas-

tic rule and the liberal base of the Citizen King’s regime+116 In this view, the Pari-

sian collapse suggested the need to refuse concessions to the liberal opposition,

which sought to institute the type of rule just overthrown by the French + Wil-

helm’s faction insisted on royal absolutism and, through direct command over mil-

itary units, tried to suppress protest brutally+117

While reactionaries stressed the similarities in liberal principles underlying the

July Monarchy and the rebels’ demands, moderate factions equally followed the

representativeness heuristic yet highlighted the more acute and salient politicalsimilarities between the rapidly growing mass protest in Paris and in their state;

108+ See Bayer 1948, 57–67; Jessen 1968, 39–40, 53, 66, 74, 92–96, 104–5; Metternich 1883,

532–37; Prittwitz 1985, 13–16; and Varnhagen 1862, 211–15, 255, 271, 284, 313–23, 335+

109+ Quoted in Varnhagen 1862, 214+110+ Metternich 1883, 595+111+ See Streckfuss 1948, 57; Tarrow 1998, 40–41; Soule and Tarrow 1991, 34–42+

112+ See Varnhagen 1862, 214–15; and Streckfuss 1948, 23+

113+ McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001+114+ See Acharya 2004; and Jacoby 2006+115+ See Rath 1957, 52, 68, 71, 84; Jessen 1968, 66, 74, 104– 6; Häusler 1979, 142–43; and Hacht-

mann 1997, 124+

116+ See Varnhagen 1862, 261, 283–84; Prittwitz 1985, 288; Boerner 1920, 98; and Metternich1883, 565–66, 592–93, 627+

117+ See Wolff 1898, 52; Prittwitz 1985, 274, 287, 345; and Jessen 1968, 92–96+



25/33

therefore, they saw their regime endangered by collapse as well+118 Both factions

thus applied the representativeness heuristic and perceived crucial similarities to

the Parisian events but interpreted them differently based on their political and

ideological backgrounds+This division kept governments from pursuing a coherent response and increased

the uncertainty among contentious citizens and their informal leaders+ The author-

ities’ vacillations reinforced the impression of similarity with the collapsing July

Monarchy, while the incidents of brutality unleashed indignation and anger, which

strengthened protesters’ willingness to take risks+119 As capital cities therefore rose

in mass insurgency, governments lost their nerve and abruptly switched to conces-

sions to save their tottering rule and avoid Louis Philippe’s fate+ After consider-

able bloodshed, Prussia’s Friedrich Wilhelm IV, for instance, decided to give in to

popular demands, withdrew the undefeated military, and sent his tough brotherinto exile+120

As princes appointed liberal ministers and promised civil rights, a constitution,

broader parliamentary representation, and the arming of the citizenry, the revolu-

tionary fervor quickly ebbed+ Believing they had reached their goals as quickly as

their models in Paris, the protesters did not overthrow the monarchy itself + As a

result, the forces of repression—while removed from the capital cities—remained

intact, and the new citizen militias did not form a serious counterweight+121 Mis-

led by the relative ease of victory, contentious citizens and their leaders mis-

judged the new power constellation and failed to cement their political gains+122

The representativeness heuristic made them overestimate the similarity of their

accomplishments with the regime change in France+

Within months, however, the March revolutionaries were disabused of their

illusions by princes who gradually regained their strength and skillfully took advan-

tage of political and ethnic divisions among the revolutionaries , which were most

pronounced in the Austrian Empire and allowed the Habsburgs to rein in rebel-

lious hotspot Hungary+123 Slowly but surely, the reigning dynasties rescinded con-

cession after concession, tightened the chokehold of coercion, and encircled

remaining foci of unrest militarily, in Hungary and the Papal States with armedhelp from allied reactionary powers+124 Almost as quickly as the revolutions seemed

to succeed in the “springtime of the peoples” did the chilly winds of repression

blow away many of their accomplishments,125 ushering in the stagnant 1850s+

118+ See Varnhagen 1862, 214–15, 273; Wolff 1898, 41–2; Bayer 1948, 28–29;

weyland the diffusion of revolution 1848 in europe and latin america

Documents