Weyland The Diffusion of Revolution 1848 in Europe and Latin America

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 article assesses four causal mechanisms for explaining diffusion, namely external pressure from a great power ~such as revolutionary France after 1789!; the promotion of
new norms and valuessuch as liberalism and democracyby more advanced countries; rational learning from successful contention in other nations; or boundedly rational, 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 experiences but not others and induced both challengers and defenders of the established
order to draw rash conclusions from these experiences, particularly the French
monarchys 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 common 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, Ral Madrid, Mitchell Orenstein,
Ami Pedahzur, Dora Piroska, Adam Przeworski, Hillel Soifer, Meral Ugur, and Barbara Vis for excellent comments on earlier versions of this article+
1+ See Huntington 1991; Markoff 1996; Kurzman 1998, 5156; Brinks and Coppedge 2006; and
Gleditsch and Ward 2006+
2+ See McAdam and Rucht 1993; and Katz 1999+
International Organization 63, Summer 2009, pp+ 391423
2009 by The IO Foundation+
doi:10+10170S0020818309090146
392
International Organization
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, especially the revolutions of 1830 and 1848+5 French King Louis Philippes ouster in
February 1848 unleashed a torrent of regime contention 6 that swept across Europe
and affected Latin America as well+ Within one month, many small states in Central and Eastern Europe and even the great powers of Austria and Prussia ceded to
violent protest and instituted unprecedented changes in governing and regime institutions; Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia narrowly averted this fate
through pre-emptive concessions+ Even in the distant New World, the French precedent 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 causal
mechanisms, especially external pressure for regime change by a great power;
promotion of new political principles and values by higher-status countries; careful 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 contentions spread was boundedly rational learning, which relies on simplifying heuristics that can entail distortions and
biases+ Due to its dramatic and vivid naturerather than its inherent relevance
the downfall of Frances July monarchy grabbed the attention of opposition leaders, 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 and
Simmons 2005; Braun and Gilardi 2006; Levi-Faur 2005; Henisz, Zelner, and Guilln 2005; Simmons,
Dobbin, and Garrett 2006; and Meseguer 2009+
5+ See Bergeron, Furet, and Koselleck 1969, chap+ 9; Church 1983; Kossok and Loch 1985; Sperber
1994; and Dowe et al+ 2001+
6+ While the 1848 events are commonly called revolutions, observers agree that political demands
and reforms had highest salience ~see Jessen 1968, 42, 56; Fenske 1996, 5154; and Rath 1957, 47,
60 61, 7477!, and major theorists ~Skocpol 1979, 144 47! invoke the absence of profound societal
transformation to stress the difference from the French Revolution of 1789+ Conversely, political regime
change was often more contentious than transitologists claim, as in Costa Ricas 1948 civil war and
Switzerlands 1847 Sonderbund war+ I therefore follow McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001; and Tilly
2004; and include 1848, a mini-wave of democratization ~Kurzman 1998, 46, 49, 5253!, in the
broader category of regime contention ~see also Goldstone 2001, 139, 141, 168!+
7+ See Rock 2002, 12527; Carvalho 2003, 217, 228; Quintas 1977, 6583, 128; Collier 2003, 79,
8485; Gazmuri 1992, 10815; Vicua Mackenna 1989, 2324, 3233; and Rosas and Ragas 2007+
The Diffusion of Revolution
393
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 gradual restoration of established regimes in many states+ Thus, the cognitive heuristics 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 common causes; contagion was crucial+ As explained thereafter, this article seeks to
unearth the causal mechanisms propelling diffusion rather than mapping the process and its underlying networks+ The fourth section outlines major theories that
propose different moving causes, especially external pressure, normative promotion, rational learning, and cognitive shortcuts+ The subsequent sectionsthis
articles coredemonstrate 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
students 8 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 population 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 artisans livelihoods, creating widespread downward mobility and, in some regions,
desperate poverty+11 While proletarians in the Marxian sense were few and far
between, discontented, footloose journeymen and ill-paid laborers engaged in frequent unrest, albeit locally+
Political discontent was also increasing+ Advancing education and the examples 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 Austrian Chancellor Metternich, was showing increasing cracks and weaknesses+
8+
9+
10+
11+
See Boerner 1920; Frank-Dfering 1988; and Kaiser 1948+

See Prittwitz 1985; and Metternich 1883+
Goldstone 1991+
Siemann 1985, 2830, 36, 44 48+
394
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 condition
for the revolutionary wave of March 1848+ But domestic problems were not coming to a head to trigger such widespread contention; they were insufficient for
producing the outburst of protest and violence+ In fact, bad harvests were followed across Europe by a bumper crop in 1847, which quickly lowered food
prices+13 As basic necessities again claimed a lower income share, social discontent diminishedright 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 Tocqueville, could have spurred contention+ While counterfactual inferences are tentative, 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 Wallachia, 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 hinder mass protest, especially where organization is missing+ Governmental repression 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 same
moment+ 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, 1821+
13+ See Sperber 1994, 106; Engehausen 2007, 22; and Siemann 1985, 44 48+
14+ Sperber 1994, 10811, mentions reform movements in the Papal States and Prussiabut stifling stagnation prevailed elsewhere, for example, Austria and the German middle states+
15+ Contentions dramatic upsurge is documented by Godechot 1971, 1724, 21520; Soule and
Tarrow 1991, 1316; and Tarrow 1998, 15054+ Goldstone ~1991, 341 42!, for example, does not
explain the spread of the 1830 revolution to German states ~Church 1983, chaps+ 4 and 8!+
16+ Maier 2001, 19699+
17+ For a recent example, see Foran 2005, 6, 17+
18+ See Skocpol 1979, xii, 3132; and Goodwin 2005+
395
In fact, the evidence for demonstration and contagion effects is overwhelming+

As numerous eyewitnesses report, discontented people in diverse settings took inspiration from the same external event, namely Louis Philippes fall, which was decisive for triggering the revolutionary wave+ Participants of all stripes stressed the
crucial importance of the Parisian events+ Whether they stood on the side of reaction, reform, or revolution, contemporaries uniformly highlighted in their diaries,
letters, or memoirs the impulse arising from the monarchys 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 groundswell 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 placard was posted in the city center reading: Within a month Prince Metternich
will 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 revolutions
spread, Josef von Radowitz, wrote his wife on March 3 that the Parisian precedent had brought a reinforcement by a factor of ten in physical and political
strength among the enemies, and in our camp the discouragement of governments and the collapse of their authority and popular veneration+ 21 Indeed, as
an eyewitness states, the French Revolution of 1848 produced a powerful echo
in Chile, as well as in Peru and northeastern Brazil 22 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, 3537; Boerner 1920, 6777; Fenske 1996, 40 45, 50, 58 60, 71, 81; Jessen
1968, 39 40, 66, 74, 9296, 1015; Metternich 1883, 565 66, 593 601, 624; Prittwitz 1985, 1317;
Rath 1957, 3451; Stiles 1852, 96, 102; Streckfuss 1948, 2324; Varnhagen 1862, 203, 21120, 250
53, 26471; Vicua Mackenna 1989, 2331; Wolff 1898, 1 6, 59+
20+ Reported in Rath 1957, 34; and Husler 1979, 133, respectively+
21+ Reprinted in Jessen 1968, 38+
22+ See Vicua Mackenna 1989, 23; Rosas and Ragas 2007; and Quintas 1977, 6583, 128+
23+ See Rogers 1995; Strang and Soule 1998; Chamley 2004; Elkins and Simmons 2005; Simmons,
Dobbin, and Garrett 2006; and Gladwell 2000+
396
and measured this process and analyzed its temporal, spatial, and sequential unfolding+ 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 historybut it occurred when networks of communication and transportation were underdeveloped and the world was much less small than nowadays! The third wave of democratization, for instance, advanced much more
slowly, 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 cascadesnew costbenefit 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 diffusions 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 Macy
2001; 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, 30612; Meseguer 2004, 511; Henisz,
Zelner, and Guilln 2005, 87478; Elkins and Simmons 2005, 34 45; and Dobbin, Simmons, and
Garrett 2007+
397
hard reality is mediated by subjective factors, such as perceptions, communication, ideas, or norms+
Accordingly, external impulses for regime contention can arise from four causes,
namely external pressure, normative promotion, rational learning, and cognitive
inferences+ External pressure and normative promotion embody vertical influence, 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 competition, are crucial in political economy, but irrelevant for the wave of regime
contention in 1848+
FIGURE 1.
Causal mechanisms in the diffusion of political contention
Classification schemes necessarily simplify the theoretical landscape+ Splitters 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, can
survive+ 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, 1921; and Levitsky and Way 2005+ In 1848, powerful firms with a transnational 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 produced external pressures in later time periods+
398
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 constructivist 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 legitimacy; therefore, they eagerly comply with new international norms and change
their 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 subordinate 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 mechanisms, rational learning and cognitive inference arguments depict diffusion more
as a horizontal process: actors in recipient countries observe foreign events, assess
them 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 pressures+ Contending political forces have a clear notion of their underlying goals
and pursue them consistently+ Instrumental preferencesthe means for pursuing
goalscan 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 best
possible fashion despite facing environmental uncertainty and imperfect information+ Actors derive decisions from fairly systematic, unbiased cost-benefit calculations, for which they search for the relevant information+ While unimportant
choices may not justify much costly information gathering so that rational ignorance prevails, high-stakes decisions stimulate considerable reconnaissance+35 Since
participation in regime contention risks injury, even death, potential activists are
32+ Huntington 1982, 2535+

33+ See Meyer and Rowan 1977; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Wiener
2003; and Dobbin, Simmons, and Garrett 2007, 45054+
34+ Finer-grained classifications combine external promotion and domestic initiative through concepts such as localization ~Acharya 2004! or coalition ~Jacoby 2006!+
35+ Tsebelis 1990, 3334+
399
likely to acquire a reasonable grasp of the objective situation with all its uncertainties 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 common peoples 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, manages to approximate rational choices although most individuals are incapable of
performing well-informed rational calculations+ Despite individual frailties, the
opportunities 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 game 40 in which the dominant side bluffs to intimidate 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 rulers weakness and subjects widespread, intense dislike for the established regime and willingness to challenge it can serve as a crucial signal for
other 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, whichif the situation is
ripecan 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, 3435+ Fearon and Laitin
2000, 846 47, 85357, 86874, highlight aspects of rationality in least likely cases, the eruption of
ethnic violence+
37+ See Page and Shapiro 1992; and Tsebelis 1990, 3638+
38+ See Levi 1988, 10; and Mercer 2005, 85+ See also the structuralist conceptualization of rational choice in Satz and Ferejohn 1994+
39+ Applying this objectivist approach, Meseguer 2009 assumes Bayesian learning and uses the actual
results 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, 2830+
400
to proceed with prudence, however; when in doubt, they prefer continued submission+ Opposition leaders are careful in assessing opportunities and threats, and
common people follow their cues+ As excessive boldness and paralyzing fear cancel out, proper caution prevails in the aggregate+ Therefore, contagion will be fairly
selective; it will take hold only where the political opportunity structure 43 is
propitious+
By contrast to the objectivist tendencies of rational choice, cognitive psychology finds that people systematically deviate from rational assessments and have a
more problematic grasp on reality+ Confounded by pervasive uncertainty and overwhelmed by a flood of complex information, humans commonly rely on inferential 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 to
become available to them, due to its vividness and psychological impact rather
than its inherent significance+ Instead of carrying out systematic, balanced costbenefit analyses, they draw inferences haphazardly, disregarding essential information, 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 perceptions and process the skewed information they consider in nonlogical ways+ The
automatic usage of cognitive shortcuts can create important distortions and divergences between objective circumstances and peoples 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 decision 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 from
rationality 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 direction+ Even if opinion leaders are less susceptible to cognitive biases, psychologi-
43+ Tarrow 1998, 7190+

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 cognitive psychology+
47+ Caplan 2007, 2490+
401
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 memory
recall, 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 considerations+ The representativeness heuristic also causes deviations from rational
judgments by basing inferences on apparent similarities while disregarding relevant information, such as statistical base rates+ For instance, people draw improperly firm conclusions from limited data, assuming that patterns found in small
samples 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 striking, vivid impression have a disproportionate impact and grab peoples attention;
and facile judgments of similarity fuel much stronger contagion than cautious rational learning justifies+ The bounded-rationality approach thus predicts waves of diffusion 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 psychologys
observable implications thus differ from rational choice+
In recent years, psychology has complemented its earlier cognitive turn by paying increasing attention to emotions and their neurophysiological basis in human
brain structure, moving even farther away from the concept of calculating rationality that originated in economics+51 Although these novel findings have not yet
crystallized into a coherent theory, they reinforce the predictions of excessive boldness and sweeping diffusion suggested by cognitive heuristics+ Drastic, vivid, particularly 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 emotions, such as enthusiasm and anger, turn people risk-acceptant,52 boosting their
willingness to challenge unjust regimes+ The emotions unleashed by other countries experiences thus reinforce peoples tendency to deviate from rational demands
of prudence and engage in dangerous protests, propelling regime contention farther than careful cost-benefit calculations advise+
48+
49+
50+
51+
52+
See Kuklinski and Quirk 2000; Lau and Redlawsk 2001; Kinder 2006; and Gilens 2001+
See Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982; and Gilovich, Griffin, and Kahneman 2002+
Weyland 2007, chap+ 2+
See Damasio 2005; and McDermott 2004a+
See Druckman and McDermott 2008, 30817; and Kim 2002, 164, 17172+
402
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 diversity of participants+
In sum, four causal mechanismsexternal pressure, normative promotion, rational 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 Germany+53 Napoleon also shaped the constitutional design of nominally independent states
in Frances sphere of influence+ These efforts had lasting effects by spreading liberal, republican, and democratic ideas, values, and sentiments in the regions closest 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 Goyas disturbing prints+ Moreover, they fell with
Napoleons defeat in 181315+
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
minence grise Metternich+ The pentarchy of Austria, Britain, France, Prussia,
and Russia enforced political stagnation during three stifling decades+55 But these
external pressures were not always successful+ While the smaller German states
had little room to maneuver, great powers were less vulnerable, as the ouster of
Frances 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 sectors all over Europe and parts of Latin America took inspiration from the surprisingly easy overthrow of the French king+ The wave of uprisings it triggered resulted
53+ Lademacher 2001, 263+

54+ See Botzenhart 1985, 2732, 3738, 44 65, 6975; and Fehrenbach 1981, 42 45, 6688, 17578+
55+ Botzenhart 1985, 8495+
403
from spontaneous domestic initiatives, not French arms+ The provisional government in Paris did not foment revolution in other countries+56 Remembering the
1790s, contemporaries expected France again to export its revolution via a major
warbut this conflagration never materialized+ Frances second republic did not
even intervene in areas where revolutionary principles coincided with geopolitical
interests, such as the regions of northern Italy that sought independence from
Frances old rival Austria+ The fear that international war would cause domestic
radicalization, as during the run-up to Jacobin terror in 179293, induced the new
government in Paris to refrain from military adventures 57 and forestalled the forceful 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 exiles
from 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, autonomous domestic uprisings, which the news of Louis Philippes fall triggered spontaneously, 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 Republic 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 Russian army units requested by the Austrian Emperor squashed these remaining
islands of contentious fervor+ But these military interventions reflected reactionary solidarity; solicited by the formal authorities, they did not arise from external
initiatives+
In sum, external pressure, which has played a role throughout history, especially 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+
57+
58+
59+
60+
Ellis 2000, 50+

Namier 1992, 34+
See Streckfuss 1948, 42, 45, 5051, 58; Hachtmann 1997, 17072+
Metternich 1883, 62425+
See Maier 2001; Collier 2003, 8485; and Gazmuri 1992, 63, 69+
404
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 instantaneous+ It did not trigger the dramatic contagion in March 1848, when masses of
people, immediately upon hearing about the monarchys overthrow in Paris, poured
into the streets and challenged their repressive governments all over Europe+62 New
ideas and values are not embraced that fast+ Instead, due to a gradual norm cascade 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 Philippes downfall made
other regimes suddenly look weak, citizens finally felt confident to act on these
values+ While preference falsification 63 evaporated instantaneously, the underlying 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 ideas
and values held in Central and Eastern Europe+ Analyses of the prevailing political 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 different
values than the French revolutionaries who inspired their actions+66 Whereas Parisians overthrew the monarchy and installed a republic, the majority of revolutionaries 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+ Hrlimann 1948, 3031, 3537+
63+ Kuran 1995+
64+ See Botzenhart 1985, 7375, 92, 121; Sheehan 1995, 818; 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+
405
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 dynasties+ Instead, it reflected principled reasoning, namely the fear that a democratic
republic would degenerate into mob rule and terror, as in France from 179294+
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 widespread 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 authority 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 goals
inspiring the majority of European revolutionaries did not reproduce the ideas and
values driving their forerunners in Paris+ Constructivist arguments about the diffusion of the same norms do not apply in this case+ As regards constitutional principles 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 Revolution of 1789, prepared the ground for this striking surge of regime contention+ As
more and more people regarded undivided monarchical rule as illegitimate, advocated a constitution guaranteeing the separation of powers, and yearned for freedom of speech and association, the preference for challenging established dynasties
spreadin case the opportunity arose+ When Louis Philippes fall seemed to signal 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+
69+
70+
71+
Namier 1992, 1011+

See Botzenhart 1985, 42; and Sheehan 1995+
Kaiser 1948, 29+
See Sheehan 1995; and Botzenhart 1985, 12639+
406
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 system 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 Philippes overthrow suggested
that seemingly powerful monarchies were surprisingly weak and could be challenged at limited risk+ Rather than inspiring new ideas and norms, the French
monarchys 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 revolutionary 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 Philippes 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, opponentsespecially opinion leaders with reasonable access to information, but also mass actors displaying low-information rationalityshould 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 assessments 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 was
coined by Kuran 1995, 74, 166, 180, 258 60, whose basic model is rationalist, but takes cognitive
heuristics into account+
407
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 information+74 For instance, the worst and decisive outbreak of violence occurred in Berlin as a result of two accidental gunshots, which protesters sawmistakenly, it
seemsas 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 leaders, 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 committed to contention as in the world capital of revolution? Extant reports show
that this crucial question did not receive systematic consideration+ Instead, Louis
Philippes 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, rational learning predicts that revolution spreads selectively, reaching only a few countries 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 Danubian
backwaters of Wallachia and Moldavia+ These political systems boasted highly
diverse levels of economic development, urbanization, education, societal pluralism, associational depth, and political institutionalization, ranging from more liberal, 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 revolutions 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 fleeting success+ The spread of the 1848 revolution in varied power constellations,
74+ See Bayer 1948, 2025; Boerner 1920, 7395; Jessen 1968, 45, 61, 7577, 83, 99, 102; Rath
1957, 34, 36, 62 63, 73, 7880; Streckfuss 1948, 31, 3637, 50; and Wolff 1898, 3 4, 32, 35, 56, 77,
8184, 106, 111+
75+ Streckfuss 1948, 5457+
76+ See especially Jessen 1968, 53+
77+ See Boerner 1920; and Frank-Dfering 1988; see also Vicua Mackenna 1989, 3133+
78+ See Schieder 1979, 20; and Hobsbawm 1996a, 1012+
79+ See Church 1983; and Dowe et al+ 2001+
408
under the threat of repression, went beyond the predictions of rational learning
arguments+ Many leaders and citizens discounted the caution that balanced costbenefit 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 183031 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 exerting any impact in Argentina, whereas it affected less repressive countries in Latin
America+80 Thus, where the chances of success approached zeroyet only there
the established order avoided disruption+ Truly hard constraints shone through the
subjective 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, discontent eased and tranquility returned+ Thus, regime contention did not spread to states
where it seemed unnecessary, or where it was obviously infeasible+ Prevailing opportunities and constraints set some limits+
Inside these broad boundaries, however, diffusion was less selective than rational choice predicts+ Many people risked protesting in settings that reasoned judgments would find unpromising+ Rational learning cannot easily account for the
swiftness and breadth of the revolutionary wave of 1848 ~although it correctly
highlights diffusions limits!+ Regime contention spread faster and farther than careful cost-benefit calculations justified+
Cognitive Heuristics in the Spread of

the 1848 Revolution
Can goal-oriented behavior that deviates from low-information rationality by relying 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, 12530+

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+
409
shortcuts introduce a thicker subjective layer between actors and the objective environment+ 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 when
novel opportunities suddenly open up and players actions and reactions are impossible to foresee+ Such uncertainty prevails in revolutions and regime transitions,
which constitute unusual interruptions of political normality+84 As previously quiescent 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 century, 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 processing 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 automatically 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 informational overload and decisional paralysis, but it comes at a risk, namely the potentially limited quality of decisions+
Specifically, the availability heuristic focuses attention and memory recall, guiding and limiting information intake+ It highlights striking, dramatic pieces of information, 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 people, both established governments and discontented citizens+ Above all, the sudden 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, 810, 3032; ODonnell and Schmitter 1986; and Kurzman 2004+
85+ See Rath 1957, 3436, 62 63, 73, 7880; Varnhagen 1862, 216; and Wolff 1898, 3 4, 3235,
56, 7785, 106, 111+
86+ Tsebelis 1990, 3236+
87+ See Rath 1957, 34+ For a similar account, see Stiles 1852, 102+
410
hear the news+88 Since directly available information grabs peoples attention, the
February revolution immediately impressed itself on peoples mind+ They did not
proactively search; this stunning information burst onto their radar screen+ The
instantaneous repercussions of the July monarchys fall show the availability heuristic 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
monarchys 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 absence
of 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 problematic criteria+ People were disproportionately impressed by some events while
neglecting many others, regardless of their substantive importance+ While immediately drawn to the Paris events, governments, opinion leaders, and citizens had
paid little attention to the revolutionary wave that swept across Italy at the beginning of 1848,90 although the absolutist Italian states were politically more similar
to the rest of Europe than Frances 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 ~Revolutinchen!+91 Italy lay at the periphery of Europe; news reports were sparse and
personal connections few and far between+ The Italian rebellions were not particularly available to most Europeansnot to speak of Latin Americans+
The Italian sequence of revolutions therefore remained geographically confined+ As is typical of diffusion processes, neighborhood effects were strong, given
that geographic proximity makes information available+ News travels easily among
adjacent states, which often have historical and personal ties+ This holds especially 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+
89+
1968,
1992+
90+
91+
See Streckfuss 1948, 24; and Varnhagen 1862, 218+

See Boerner 1920, 7177, 8487; Frank-Dfering 1988, 2835; Kaiser 1948, 2728; Jessen
5152; Hachtmann 1997, 127, 144; and Streckfuss 1948, 25+ For a general account, see Namier
See, for example, Varnhagen 1862, 239; see also Soule and Tarrow 1991, 1821+
See Hachtmann 1997, 118; and Boerner 1920, 68+
411
By contrast to the limited Italian wave, Louis Philippes 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 revolution would erupt+ The status of Paris as the capital of Europe 92 and the legacy of having been the mother of revolutions 93 drew widespread attention to any
new outbreak of regime contention+ The July monarchys downfall immediately
grabbed the attention of governments and citizens throughout Europe and in the
Americas+ These dramatic events forcefully impressed themselves on everybodys
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 puzzling+ Louis Philippes liberal, constitutional regime differed significantly from the
illiberal, absolutist monarchies that the imitators of the Paris events challenged;
and ironically, the majority of Central and Eastern European rebels sought to institute 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 Jackson in the United States? 95 This differential effect is surprising because the Spanishspeaking 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+ Contrary 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 Philippes reign was more
vivid and stunning than the sequence of democratic reforms enacted under President Jackson+ Typically, the availability heuristic made Latin Americans pay disproportionate 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 Belgium, Poland, and a few German states ~Church 1983!, induced Europeans to pay special attention to
Louis Philippes overthrow in 1848+ Evidence suggests that this earlier wave was also driven by cognitive heuristics+ This sequence raises the difficult issue of how rational it is for people to adjust to
others deviations from full rationality+
94+ See Bayer 1948, 3537; Boerner 1920, 6777; Fenske 1996, 40 45, 50, 58 60, 71, 81; Jessen
1968, 39 40; Metternich 1883, 565 66, 593 601, 624; Prittwitz 1985, 1317; Rath 1957, 3451;
Stiles 1852, 96, 102; Streckfuss 1948, 2324; Varnhagen 1862, 203, 21120, 25053, 26471; Vicua
Mackenna 1989, 2331; and Wolff 1898, 1 6, 59+ See also Quintas 1977, 6578+
95+ See Hobsbawm 1996b, 111, 121+
96+ Collier 2003, 18387+
412
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, Pariss central position in the revolutionary universe accounts for the
high 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, diffusions characteristic geographic pattern is clearly visible 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 protesters 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 Badenpress freedom, trial by jury, citizen militia, and a
national parliamentturned into a model for rebels in other German-speaking
states, who pushed for the same concessions+98 Thus, nested within the storm
triggered by the Paris events, diffusion also occurred among some of the imitators+ As events in neighboring states were particularly available, revolution spread
in concentric waves+99
Louis Philippes overthrow also triggered the representativeness heuristic, which
bases judgments on similaritieseven 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 samples, for instance; thus, they fail to consider chance factors+
Accordingly, observers all over Europe were impressed by the surprising ease
with 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, 11421; Fenske 1996, 63, 7781; Hachtmann 1997,
146 48; Kaeber 1948, 48 49, 54; Prittwitz 1985, 59, 69, 93102; Varnhagen 1862, 21718, 28388,
296; and Wolff 1898, 41, 53, 62, 6871, 77+
98+ See Fenske 1996, 60 61; Varnhagen 1862, 21920, 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+
413
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 performing 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 Philippes of the Austrian state out of the ministries+ 104 Extrapolating from the surprisingly 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 availability and representativeness heuristics also unleashed peoples emotions+ It
prompted an outburst of enthusiasm; opinion leaders and common citizens held
enormous hopes for the future+ Moreover, anger exploded against established governments, which had so long stifled these hopes+ Popular indignation and fury
were further fueled by disproportionate governmental suppression of initially peaceful reform demands in cities such as Berlin and Vienna+106 All these emotions
reinforced peoples willingness to risk violent protestcontrary to the commands of reason and prudenceand thus contributed to the escalation of conflict+ 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 suggested 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, 9296; Prittwitz 1985, 1316; Rath 1957,
34 43, 47; Varnhagen 1862, 21120; and Wolff 1898, 5 6, 21+
103+ Boerner 1920, 74+
104+ Quoted in Rath 1957, 38+
105+ See Jessen 1968, 39 40, 66, 74, 9296; Rath 1957, 34 43, 47; Varnhagen 1862, 21120; and
Wolff 1898, 5 6, 21+
106+ See Stiles 1852, 105 6; Streckfuss 1948, 3158; and Wolff 1898, 4658, 101 4+ See, in general, Kalyvas 2006, 15156+
107+ Druckman and McDermott 2008, 30817+
414
revolution+ In many palaces, Louis Philippes downfall caused perplexity, consternation, and the fear of suffering the same fate+108 A Prussian aristocrat commented
immediately after the July Monarchys collapse: Believe me, this will repeat itself
here! 109 Metternich wrote an Austrian diplomat on March 1, Europe is facing
the year 1793 again+ + + + We are headed toward horrible events! 110
Yet whereas discontented citizens had the Parisian success to imitate and therefore protested and built barricades,111 the authorities did not know how to prevent
replications of Louis Philippes failure to retain power: Should they make hasty
concessions or respond with repression? Whereas more liberal-minded governments 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 factions on how harsh the response to protests should be+ The representativeness heuristic 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 domestic constellation of political forces, they are localized and give rise to contending coalitions+ 114
The authorities therefore wavered on how to respond to the gathering storm+115
In Berlin, the kings brother, Prince Wilhelm, pressed for a hard line+ This position
also held by Metternich in Viennasaw Louis Philippes downfall as the logical
result of the July Monarchys birth defect: the departure from legitimate dynastic rule and the liberal base of the Citizen Kings regime+116 In this view, the Parisian collapse suggested the need to refuse concessions to the liberal opposition,
which sought to institute the type of rule just overthrown by the French+ Wilhelms faction insisted on royal absolutism and, through direct command over military 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 political
similarities 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, 9296, 1045; Metternich 1883,
53237; Prittwitz 1985, 1316; and Varnhagen 1862, 21115, 255, 271, 284, 31323, 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, 21415; 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; Husler 1979, 142 43; and Hachtmann 1997, 124+
116+ See Varnhagen 1862, 261, 28384; Prittwitz 1985, 288; Boerner 1920, 98; and Metternich
1883, 565 66, 59293, 627+
117+ See Wolff 1898, 52; Prittwitz 1985, 274, 287, 345; and Jessen 1968, 9296+
415
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 authorities 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 concessions to save their tottering rule and avoid Louis Philippes fate+ After considerable bloodshed, Prussias Friedrich Wilhelm IV, for instance, decided to give in to
popular demands, withdrew the undefeated military, and sent his tough brother
into exile+120
As princes appointed liberal ministers and promised civil rights, a constitution,
broader parliamentary representation, and the arming of the citizenry, the revolutionary 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 repressionwhile removed from the capital citiesremained
intact, and the new citizen militias did not form a serious counterweight+121 Misled by the relative ease of victory, contentious citizens and their leaders misjudged 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 advantage of political and ethnic divisions among the revolutionaries, which were most
pronounced in the Austrian Empire and allowed the Habsburgs to rein in rebellious hotspot Hungary+123 Slowly but surely, the reigning dynasties rescinded concession after concession, tightened the chokehold of coercion, and encircled
remaining foci of unrest militarily, in Hungary and the Papal States with armed
help 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, 21415, 273; Wolff 1898, 412; Bayer 1948, 2829; and Hachtmann
1997, 147 49+
119+ See Streckfuss 1948, 37 43, 4954; and Wolff 1898, 4658, 101 4+ See also Rath 1957, 66+
In general, see Goodwin 2001; and Kalyvas 2006, 151 60+
120+ Prittwitz 1985, 347 49+
121+ Streckfuss 1948, 137 41, 16990+
122+ Siemann 1985, 6871, 181, 22627+
123+ See Kosry 2000, 1217; and Deak 2001, chaps+ 58+
124+ Sperber 1994, 20318, 22635+
125+ Tarrow 1998, 15055+
416
The illusion of easy victory, derived via the representativeness heuristic from the
example of France, came to haunt the rebels of 1848+
Conclusion
What drives the waves of revolutionary protest and regime contention that the
modern world has seen? Given the long predominance of structuralist approaches
to the study of revolutions, this question has received insufficient attention+126
This article helps fill this gap by studying the 1848 wildfire, which, in its dramatic spread, allows for an especially clear analysis of the causal mechanisms
driving diffusion+ The examination of the patterns of contagion and the perceptions and thoughts of numerous eyewitnesses considers various moving causes,
namely external pressure, normative promotion, rational learning, and cognitive
heuristics+
The evidence suggests that forceful pressures by a great power did not propel
this diffusion of regime contention+ Contrary to its first revolutionary period, France
refrained from exporting its new bout of revolution+ A norm cascade from advanced
to backward countries did not directly trigger the revolutionary wave either+ Instead,
liberal and democratic ideas had been implanted decades before in West-Central
Europe and had gradually spread eastward+ This slow value change prepared the
ground for the explosion of regime contention, as constructivism correctly stresses
~see below!+ But it did not set in motion the revolutionary upsurge in early 1848+
Indeed, the February events in Paris did not inspire new norms but suggested the
feasibility of attaining norms that had already spread before+ In fact, the French
rebels pursued a different goala republicthan the revolutionaries in Central
and Eastern Europe, who sought to institute the kind of liberal, constitutional monarchy the French had just overthrown+
Instead of being pushed by great powers or acting on new, externally promoted
norms, the revolutionaries of 1848 pursued their own goals+ Louis Philippes ouster
made them reassess the opportunities and risks of pursuing these aims by challenging their repressive governments+ But deviating from rational learning, neither opinion leaders nor the cues-taking mass public conducted this reassessment
in a very systematic and balanced way+ Instead, many actors displayed surprising
boldness and abandoned the caution that rational calculations would have counseled, given the risk of repression+ Considering their goals and interests, the protesters did not seem to make reasoned choices that reflected the opportunities and
constraints of the real world+
Instead, the contentious public deviated from the standards of full rationality
and applied bounded rationality+ Reliance on inferential shortcuts allowed people
to cope with uncertain information in highly fluid and unclear situations, but
126+ Exceptions include McAdam and Rucht 1993; Katz 1999; and Tarrow 2005, chap+ 6+
417
at the risk of drawing hasty and faulty conclusions+ Both the revolutionaries and
the established authorities applied the availability heuristic and paid disproportionate attention to particularly vivid, dramatic, and memorable events, namely
the violent rebellion in the world capital of revolution, Paris+ By contrast, they
neglected other, arguably more relevant information: they took little notice of the
revolutions in Italy, despite the greater similarity in the setting and the
revolutionaries goals+ Similarly, progressives in Latin America were more
impressed by the overthrow of the French monarchy than the Jacksonian reforms
in the United States, although they already lived under republican constitutions
and sought to democratize their effective regimes, as the United States had just
done+
Moreover, the 1848 revolutionaries overestimated the ease of reaching their
goals+ Applying the representativeness heuristic, they drew excessively confident
inferences from the single case of Louis Philippes overthrow and believed they
could replicate this success in their states, disregarding the differences in the setting+ Yet because princes drew similar inferences, they quickly abandoned their
initial recourse to repression and made concessions+ They promised many policy
and institutional changesbut retained command over the forces of coercion,
which remained intact+ Misled by princes seeming weakness and the ease of their
early triumph, the revolutionaries failed to understand the true constellation of
power, which allowed the established authorities to take back one concession after
another+ Contrary to the initial excitement and hope, the springtime of the peoples therefore brought little lasting success; the 1848 revolutions are widely
viewed as failures+ The striking wave propelled by cognitive heuristics soon dissipated on the hard rocks of reality+
This article thus shows that cognitive-psychological insights help elucidate the
spread of revolutions+ The heuristics of availability and representativeness seem
to be crucial causal mechanisms driving the diffusion of regime contention in 1848+
As stressed throughout the analysis, however, other factors also made important contributions+ The gradual spread of liberal and democratic ideas and values
from France and England toward Central and Eastern Europe created the preconditions for the sudden explosion of challenges to entrenched autocratic governments+ This slow norm cascade in turn had received an important impulse from
the forceful export of liberal principles and institutions by French revolutionary
armies in the 1790s and early 1800s+ Thus, external pressure and the promotion of
new norms helped produce the fuel that the spark of Louis Philippes fall set aflame
across Europe+
Moreover, the constraints of hard reality set some limits to this dramatic diffusion+ Where brutal regimes suppressed civil society, as in tsarist Russia and dictatorial Argentina, autocrats managed to maintain firm control and forestall contagion+
Under those clear-cut conditions, cost-benefit calculations that called for caution
carried the day, taming the allures of availability and representativeness+ Though
significantly bounded, rationality did play a role+ In sum, while demonstrating the
causal significance of cognitive heuristics, this article also clarifies the precondi-
418
tions that allow them to exert their effect and the obstacles that can hinder their
operation+ Given the tremendous complexity of political life, various causal factors play a role+
By demonstrating the impact of inferential shortcuts, this article goes beyond
the structuralist arguments that predominated in the third generation of revolutionary theory and contributes to the analysis of agency-oriented and ideational
factors that characterizes the fourth generation+ 127 Yet it diverges from the
approach to political agency that has advanced in the social sciences, namely rational choice+ Instead, it draws on empirical findings from cognitive psychology that
document the bounds of rationality+ So far, such arguments have not found many
adherents in the social sciences, especially the study of revolutions+128 But they
promise to elucidate a wide range of diffusion processes, including later waves of
regime changeboth democratization and authoritarian reversalas well as the
clustered spread of various policy innovations, ranging from trade liberalization
to social security privatization+
Interestingly, revolution and regime contention did not spread as dramatically
in the twentieth century as in 1848+ For instance, the Bolshevist Revolution
of 1917, the transitions of the third wave of democratization, and the recent
color revolutions displayed more limited contagion effects; dominoes fell more
slowly and selectively than during the springtime of the peoples+ My larger
project hypothesizes that higher levels of political organization gave experienced
leaders a greater role in these later waves and limited the space for spontaneous
mass action+ Therefore, the bounds of rationality were less tight, cognitive
heuristics did not reign as freely, caution asserted itself more, and abortive
challengeswhile still commonwere less frequent than in 1848 ~and 1830!+
Further research will examine this variation in the operation and effect of
inferential shortcuts and the differential constraints they impose on rational
choice+
In an even broader perspective, cognitive heuristics help explain the frequently
haphazard advance of social and political development+ Rather than being guided
in an orderly fashion by fully rational calculation, reasoned deliberation, moral
suasion, or cognitive evolution, decision makers, citizens, and even experts pay
selective attention to their environment, process information in unbalanced ways,
and thus risk arriving at rash, distorted conclusions+ Instead of responding proportionately to problems and challenges, they long postpone action but then fall for a
novel solution that happens to appear on their radar screen and that they eagerly
embrace without thoroughly assessing its costs and benefits+ As empirical studies
show, mechanisms of bounded rationality underlie the striking twists and turns of
political decision making and historical change+129
127+ See Goldstone 2001; and Foran 2005, 13, 17, 22+ See also Tarrow 1998, chap+ 7+
128+ Exceptions include Berejikian 1992; and Tarrow 1998, 8687+
129+ See Jones and Baumgartner 2005; Boushey 2007; and Weyland 2007+
419
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The Diffusion of Revolution: 1848

in Europe and Latin America

The Diffusion of Revolution

Common Causes in the Revolutionary Wave?

See Boerner 1920; Frank-Dfering 1988; and Kaiser 1948+

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

The Diffusion of Revolution

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

Diffusion Studies: Focus on Process or Causal Impulse

Arguments on Causal Mechanisms

The Diffusion of Revolution

Causal mechanisms in the diffusion of political contention

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

32+ Huntington 1982, 2535+

The Diffusion of Revolution

43+ Tarrow 1998, 7190+

The Diffusion of Revolution

External Pressures in the 1848 Revolutions

53+ Lademacher 2001, 263+

The Diffusion of Revolution

Ellis 2000, 50+

The Spread of Ideas, Norms, and Principles

The Diffusion of Revolution

Namier 1992, 1011+

Rational Learning in the 1848 Revolution

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

The Diffusion of Revolution

Cognitive Heuristics in the Spread of

80+ See Saunders 2000; and Rock 2002, 12530+

The Diffusion of Revolution

See Streckfuss 1948, 24; and Varnhagen 1862, 218+

The Diffusion of Revolution

By contrast to the limited Italian wave, Louis Philippes overthrow unleashed a

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

The Diffusion of Revolution

The Diffusion of Revolution

The Diffusion of Revolution

The Diffusion of Revolution

The Diffusion of Revolution

The Diffusion of Revolution

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