Push, ignore or surrender? Party responses to the ideational momentum of foreign events

What is the effect of foreign events on ideas and discourses at the national level? This paper argues that a foreign event may set in motion an ideational momentum that gives positive attention to certain ideas, strengthening the credibility of political actors that hold these ideas, and hurting the credibility of actors promoting competing ideas. Based on a regression discontinuity design and quantitative text analysis, we employ insights from discursive institutionalism and issue competition theory to analyse parliamentary debates in Denmark following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The analysis demonstrates a shift towards more market-friendly discourses across the political spectrum. Both parties with liberal and socialist ideologies strengthen their market-friendly discourses, although for different reasons. Liberal parties seize the momentum brought on by the fall of the wall to promote their ideology, while the left promotes market-friendly discourses to strengthen their legitimacy in a post-Soviet world.