Cold Fronts
Muddying the Waters: How Perceived Foreign Interference Affects Public Opinion on Protest Movements
Wilfred Chow & Dov Levin
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does foreign interference help or harm protest movements? An extensive literature has debated this question but focuses on observational data, obscuring a crucial mechanism for protest success: its effect on public attitudes. We argue that public accusations of foreign meddling damage protest groups by reducing public support. In survey experiments conducted in the United States and Canada, we find that credible accusations of foreign interference erode support by discrediting protester groups among sympathizers and inflaming nationalist fears. Indeed, such accusations delegitimize protest movements even among those sympathetic to the cause. Conditional factors, such as the type of foreign assistance or the identity of the meddling state, have no impact. These findings reveal how referencing foreign backing is a potent discrediting tactic -- it influences public opinion, a critical determinant for protest outcomes.
The Diplomacy of Whataboutism and US Foreign Policy Attitudes
Wilfred Chow & Dov Levin
International Organization, Winter 2024, Pages 103-133
Abstract:
Does whataboutism work in global affairs? When states face international criticism, they often respond with whataboutism: accusing their critics of similar faults. Despite its prevalence in policy discussions, whataboutism remains an understudied influence strategy. This study investigates how states use whataboutism to shape American public opinion across various international issues. We find, using survey experiments, that whataboutism mitigates the negative impacts of criticism by reducing public approval of US positions and backing for punitive actions. Whataboutist critiques referencing similar, recent misdeeds have more power to shape opinions. However, the identity of the whataboutist state does not significantly affect effectiveness. US counter-messaging often fails to diminish the effects of whataboutism. These results show that whataboutism can be a potent rhetorical tool in international relations and that it warrants greater attention from international relations scholars.
Us and Them: Foreign Threat and Domestic Polarization
Joshua Schwartz & Dominic Tierney
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can foreign threats reduce domestic polarization, and if so, under what conditions? This is an important question for the United States given the severity of internal division and the emergence of China as a potentially unifying external peril. We offer a novel theoretical argument about when external danger will rally Americans based on the nexus between the vividness of foreign danger and bipartisan elite agreement about the threat. We test our theory through a series of pre-registered survey experiments. We find that vivid foreign threats, in isolation, do not reduce domestic polarization and therefore the danger from China alone may not be sufficient to spur domestic unity. However, vivid foreign threats in combination with policymaker agreement about the threat does significantly reduce domestic polarization. This reduction in polarization comes at a cost: increased public willingness to violate use of force norms against China. Overall, our study establishes that foreign peril can reduce domestic polarization under certain circumstances, and demonstrates that elite reactions to foreign threats are highly important in shaping wider domestic effects.
Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Chinese Public Support for War
Deniz Aksoy, Ted Enamorado & Tony Zirui Yang
International Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines how the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent Western responses influence Chinese public opinion on the use of force. Using two original, preregistered online survey experiments, first in June 2022 and then in June 2023, we show that the Russian invasion is associated with a modest but statistically significant increase in Chinese support for using military force in international affairs in general and against Taiwan in particular. However, information on Western military measures aiding Ukraine curbs the modest impact of the invasion. Such information is especially effective in reducing support for an outright military invasion of Taiwan. Causal mediation analyses reveal that the Russian invasion influences public opinion by inducing optimism regarding military success and pessimism regarding peaceful resolution of the conflict. These findings suggest that foreign military aggression and subsequent international countermeasures can sway domestic public opinion on using military force.
Leaders but Not Authorities? Gender, Veterans, and Messages about National Security
Jonathan Caverley & Yanna Krupnikov
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Politicians’ ability to provide national security to the public is deeply enmeshed in conceptions of the state and of leadership. This article incorporates securitization, feminist, and political communication theories to consider whether gendered and militarized conceptions of national security have different effects for politicians who are women and those who are men. Although scholarship suggests that signaling military bona fides -- such as invoking one’s veteran status -- can help politicians claim that certain policies are a matter of national security, we consider whether this ability will be gendered. Relying on two national studies, we find results that are contrary to our original predictions. First, we find that military bona fides do help women be seen as leaders. However, we do not find evidence that bona fides increase the “authority” to identify and address national security threats for any politicians.
Leader-contingent sanctions as a cause of violent political conflict
Yu Mei
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
Economic sanctions are a policy tool that great powers frequently use to interfere with domestic politics of another state. Regime change has been a primary goal of economic sanctions over the past decades. This article studies the relationship between leader-contingent sanctions -- sanctions that are designed to impede the flow of revenue to a specific leader -- and violent political conflict in target countries. I build a theoretical model to illuminate two mechanisms by which leader-contingent sanctions destabilize a regime -- the Depletion Mechanism and the Instigation Mechanism. The Depletion Mechanism works when sanctions mechanically deplete the government's resources so that it becomes unable to buy off domestic opposition even by making the largest possible offer. The Instigation Mechanism implies that as sanctions decrease the benefit of negotiated settlement relative to war, the government may strategically choose to repress rather than buy off the opposition even when it is able to do so. Leader-contingent sanctions lead to bargaining failure by rewarding the opposition for revolt while reducing the government's ability and willingness to appease the opposition.
Assessing the US foreign assistance activities impact on violent conflicts
Daniel Feze & Mark Gallagher
Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Global Fragility Act, H.R.2116 116th Congress, directs the Department of State to establish an interagency initiative to stabilize conflict-affected areas and prevent violence globally. We propose and demonstrate an approach to evaluate the success of funding these initiatives. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has identified deteriorating economies, weak, or illegitimate political institutions, and competition over natural resources as causes of violence, extremism, and instability. The agency prioritizes mitigating the causes and consequences of violent conflicts, instability, and extremism and funds corresponding programs. Focused on military aid, we quantitatively assess these programs effectiveness at preventing or deescalating conflicts during 2010 to 2020. Our statistical analysis shows the funds during that period did not have an immediate impact on countries prone to violence. However, cumulative long-term relationships exist between some funds and the global conflict levels. As the total amount of 5 years cumulative Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) implemented funds increases, the total number of countries not-in-conflict increases while the total number of the most violent countries decreases. Those funds also correlate to the decline in total conflict levels during that timeframe. This quantitative approach assesses the aggregate effectiveness of aid across various countries.
When to Appease and When to Punish: Hitler, Putin, and Hamas
David Levine & Lee Ohanian
NBER Working Paper, March 2024
Abstract:
Much has been written about deterrence, the process of committing to punish an adversary to prevent an attack. But in sufficiently rich environments where attacks evolve over time, formulating a strategy involves not only deterrence but also appeasement, the less costly process of not responding to an attack. This paper develops a model that integrates these two processes to analyze the equilibrium time paths of attacks, punishment, and appeasement. We study an environment in which a small attack is launched and can be followed by a larger attack. There are pooling and separating equilibria. The pooling equilibrium turns the common intuition that appeasement is a sign of weakness, inviting subsequent attacks, on its head, because appeasement is a sign of strength in the pooling case. In contrast, the separating equilibrium captures the common intuition that appeasement is a sign of weakness, but only because deterrence in this equilibrium fails. We interpret several episodes of aggression, appeasement, and deterrence: Neville Chamberlain's responses to Hitler, Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Israel's response to Hamas, Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, and Serbia's attacks in Kosovo.
On being unpredictable and winning
Carsten De Dreu et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, March 2024, Pages 369–389
Abstract:
In theory, it can be strategically advantageous for competitors to make themselves unpredictable to their opponents, for example, by variably mixing hostility and friendliness. Empirically, it remains open whether and how competitors make themselves unpredictable, why they do so, and how this conditions conflict dynamics and outcomes. We examine these questions in interactive attacker–defender contests, in which attackers invest to capture resources held and defended by their opponent. Study 1, a reanalysis of nine (un)published experiments (total N = 650), reveals significant cross-trial variability especially in proactive attacks and less in reactive defense. Study 2 (N = 200) shows that greater variability makes both attacker’s and defender’s next move more difficult to predict, especially when variability is due to occasional rather than (in)frequent extreme investments in conflict. Studies 3 (N = 27) and 4 (N = 106) show that precontest testosterone, a hormone associated with risk-taking and status competition, drives variability during attack which, in turn, increases sympathetic arousal in defenders and defender variability (Study 4). Rather than being motivated by wealth maximization, being unpredictable in conflict and competition emerges in function of the attacker’s desire to win “no matter what” and comes with significant welfare cost to both victor and victim.
Threat beyond the border: Kim Jong-un’s nuclear tests and China’s rural migration
Li Zhou, Zongzhi Liu & Xi Tian
Journal of Population Economics, January 2024
Abstract:
Between 2006 and 2017, North Korea conducted six nuclear weapon tests near its border with China, which clearly posed an existential threat to China. Utilizing data from a representative sample of rural households and adopting a quasi-experimental framework, this study analyzes the effects of human-made nuclear threats on the coping strategies of rural households in China living on the border with North Korea. Our results show that nuclear tests have sizable causal effects on several aspects of non-farm employment and land rented out by rural residents in the border area of China. This study finds that, due to the human-made radiation risk resulting from North Korean nuclear tests, households in the border regions of China bordering North Korea increase labor out-migration and lease out more land. Multiple robustness tests consistently support this conclusion. Our study further found that nuclear tests led to a significant decline in the economic viability of villages, which ultimately led to the out-migration of households. We also find that the impact of moving away from rural areas due to nuclear tests is more pronounced for households with higher human capital, higher income, and a lower proportion of elderly family members. As rural households respond to nuclear threats by migrating out, North Korea’s nuclear tests exacerbate the phenomenon of rural hollowing-out in China’s border regions.
Distributing Blame Among Multiple Entities When Autonomous Technologies Cause Harm
Ryan McManus, Catherine Mesick & Abraham Rutchick
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
As autonomous technology emerges, new variations in old questions arise. When autonomous technologies cause harm, who is to blame? The current studies compare reactions toward harms caused by human-controlled vehicles (HCVs) or human soldiers (HSs) to identical harms by autonomous vehicles (AVs) or autonomous robot soldiers. Drivers of HCVs, or HSs, were blamed more than mere users of AVs or HSs who outsourced their duties to ARSs. However, as human drivers/soldiers became less involved in (or were unaware of the preprogramming that led to) the harm, blame was redirected toward other entities (i.e., manufacturers and the tech company’s executives), showing the opposite pattern as human drivers/soldiers. Results were robust to how blame was measured (i.e., degrees of blame versus apportionment of total blame). Overall, this research furthers the blame literature, raising questions about why, how (much), and to whom blame is assigned when multiple agents are potentially culpable.
Hierarchy and war
Maël van Beek et al.
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars have written extensively about hierarchical international order, on the one hand, and war on the other, but surprisingly little work systematically explores the connection between the two. This disconnect is all the more striking given that empirical studies have found a strong relationship between the two. We provide a generative computational network model that explains hierarchy and war as two elements of a larger recursive process: The threat of war drives the formation of hierarchy, which in turn shapes states' incentives for war. Grounded in canonical theories of hierarchy and war, the model explains an array of known regularities about hierarchical order and conflict. Surprisingly, we also find that many traditional results of the international relations literature -- including institutional persistence, balancing behavior, and systemic self-regulation -- emerge from the interplay between hierarchy and war.