"Rethinking Reputation: When Fighting to Demonstrate Resolve Backfires"
ABSTRACT
According to the conventional wisdom among policymakers and prominent scholars, states inevitably harm their reputation for resolve by backing down. This logic has justified consequential interventions, such as the Vietnam War. I advance a new theory that argues the impact of backing down or standing firm on a state's future reputation is more conditional than commonly believed. In contrast to both the orthodox view and a set of critics who contend that reputation is unimportant in international politics, I argue that reputation matters, but that in crucial circumstances standing firm and fighting can worsen one’s reputation for resolve in the medium or long term. Standing firm rather than backing down can lead to war-weariness among a country’s public and leaders, undermining a state’s actual resolve. Foreign powers—observing these signs of war-weariness—then downgrade their assessments of the state’s resolve precisely because of its decision to stand firm in the past. I provide evidence for this novel theory through an elite experiment conducted on members of the UK Parliament and captured Iraqi government documents from the Gulf War. The most important implication of this project is that policymakers and scholars should be more skeptical about the utility of using military force than prevailing opinion indicates.
ABSTRACT
Democratic peace theory contends that democracies do not fight interstate wars against each other, and one logic behind the theory is that the public opposes war with sister representative regimes. We theorize that an “ideological peace” also exists, which means that Americans tend to favor the use of force against countries that exhibit an opposing conservative or liberal ideology (e.g., the observer is liberal and the target country is conservative)—irrespective of whether the target country is democratic or nondemocratic. Americans see out-ideology states as more threatening than in-ideology states because of American ideological polarization and global ideological polarization. In two survey experiments among the American public we find strong evidence for both the democratic peace and the ideological peace. Respondents are 37% more likely to support military action against foreign countries that do not share their conservative or liberal ideology compared to countries that do. Our novel theory connects major literatures in political science across subfields, including political polarization, the democratic peace, and social identity theory. The project contributes to seminal debates about the extent to which politics “stops at the water’s edge,” the impact of polarization on political violence, and the sources of public opinion.
"Out and Proud, But Still Under Fire: The Discrimination Gay Commanders-in-Chief Face."
ABSTRACT
Given the growth of openly gay individuals in political office, this paper investigates an increasingly important question that sits at the nexus between domestic and international politics—the effect of sexual orientation on audience costs. I argue that when gay leaders back down from threats, they activate stereotypes about their lack of toughness and competence in the realm of foreign policy, leading to greater levels of domestic disapproval than when heterosexual leaders take identical actions. This hypothesis is tested in survey experiments in both the United States and United Kingdom. Optimistically, I find no significant evidence that gay leaders are discriminated against, on average, in this way. However, I uncover a strong double standard faced by out-partisan gay leaders. This indicates the nuanced ways in which stereotypes related to sexual orientation influence public opinion. The project contributes to international relations scholarship on audience costs and American politics research on LGBTQ discrimination.
"Hegemonic Fluctuation and Its Consequences for International Order" (with Daniel Silverman).
abstract
Many scholars agree that the world order is witnessing substantial change—especially given the disruption caused by Donald Trump’s election and re-election—but there is wide debate about what shape it is taking. While some argue that the U.S.-led liberal international order will collapse entirely or even be rejuvenated, we contend neither of these possibilities fully describes the prevailing trajectory of international affairs. Instead, we advance a new framework that posits a third, more intermediate possibility. The core explanatory variable in our model is the dramatic and frequent domestic political fluctuations within the contemporary hegemon—the United States. These oscillations produce a variety of responses by other states to exploit, manage, and even influence the hegemon’s fluctuations. The cumulative effect of these responses is to leave us with a persistent—but significantly less stable, liberal, and effective—international system. We make this argument in three steps. First, we empirically characterize the state of domestic politics in the contemporary United States. Second, we theorize the impact that hegemonic fluctuations will have on state behavior and how those effects will aggregate to impact international order. Third, we provide initial empirical evidence that states are behaving in accordance with our argument. In sum, our article grapples with the prospect of a U.S. that retains hegemonic power, but varies wildly in its preferences. It makes a key contribution by blending insights from American, comparative, and international politics scholars to help us understand how domestic political fluctuations within a hegemon can reverberate internationally and impact global order.
"Think Globally, Act Locally: The Determinants of Local Policymakers' Support for Climate Policy" (with Sabrina B. Arias).
[Washington Post Article][Harvard Belfer Center Presentation]
abstract
Although much progress to combat climate change has occurred subnationally, little research examines the policy preferences of local policymakers themselves. To address this gap, we conduct a conjoint experiment on over 500 elected local policymakers across the US, including mayors, county executives, and council members. Per our theoretical expectations, we demonstrate the probability of policy adoption can be increased by strategic design. Most notably, climate-related subsidies and regulations are preferred over taxes and penalties, suggesting efforts to put a price on carbon may not be the most effective political strategy in terms of obtaining support. Partisan endorsements of climate plans also have a large effect, greater in some cases than substantive policy design, consistent with increasing polarization. Most interestingly, there is a significant backlash effect---even among Democratic policymakers---when climate plans are endorsed by only the Democratic Party rather than by neither party or by both parties. While direct economic relief to the public is popular among policymakers, it does not increase support for bolder climate policies. We also uncover salient differences between Democratic and Republican policymakers. For example, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support delayed implementation and are less likely to support plans with high short-term costs even if the long-term benefits are high. Finally, we conducted an identical replication of our elite experiment among the general public and found policymaker preferences are highly compatible with those of average citizens. Our study provides one of the few causally-identified tests of local policymakers’ climate policy preferences.
"Beyond Meating Climate Goals: Masculinity and Climate Policy Backlash" (with Christopher W. Blair and Sabrina B. Arias).
abstract
Political debates over climate change mitigation are inflected with gendered language. While prior work has shown a connection between individual gender and climate-related attitudes, little evidence exists regarding the gendered nature of climate policy itself. We theorize that climate change mitigation policies perceived as "masculinity-threatening'" elicit more public opposition than gender-neutral climate policies. We further argue that women leaders face a higher penalty when they advocate climate policies that threaten masculine-coded norms and behaviors. To test our theoretical expectations, we fielded three pre-registered survey experiments on representative samples of the US public. While we find that masculinity-threatening policies face substantially more opposition—suggesting that proposing them is politically fraught—we do not find that women policymakers face a disproportionate penalty for advocating them. These results underscore the nuanced ways gender dynamics shape public attitudes on climate change and bear key implications for our understanding of political communication on climate policy.
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"The Limits of Language: Gender Apartheid and Public Opinion" (with Meghan Garrity).
"The Limits of Language: Gender Apartheid and Public Opinion" (with Meghan Garrity).
abstract
In 2023, Afghan and Iranian human rights activists launched the #EndGenderApartheid campaign, calling for the global recognition of the crime of gender apartheid. A key component of the campaign’s strategy is to mobilize social movements of resistance akin to the South African anti-apartheid movement. The implicit assumption is that the framing of gender apartheid evokes a stronger response among the public than alternatives, such as the language of gender persecution. We test the effectiveness of this rhetorical frame in a survey experiment of 1,200 Americans and 100 elites, finding null effects. However, informing respondents that the systematic oppression of women violates international law significantly increases support for policy action. Legal codification may thus have a stronger impact on public opinion than subtle rhetorical framing related to the severity and scope of human rights abuses. We also uncover evidence of a spillover effect between distinct human rights issues, where more pro-Israeli individuals are less responsive to the gender apartheid frame than pro-Palestinian respondents, likely because Israel has been accused of apartheid. Overall, our study contributes to broader academic debates about the impact of language, the efficacy of international law, and the possibility of backlash effects in response to human rights shaming.
"Immune, Immune, Immune: Presidential Immunity and Public Support for Democratic Norms" (with John J. Chin).
abstract
Scholars have vigorously debated the impact of Supreme Court decisions on public opinion and whether the public is more tolerant of violations of democratic norms by co-partisan politicians. We intervene in these debates by assessing the impact of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision via a pre-registered survey experiment on the U.S. public. We find limits to the court’s power to shape public opinion, as priming the Supreme Court’s immunity decision does not significantly impact aggregate public support for anti-democratic actions. However, we find disturbing evidence of partisan hypocrisy. The public is 13.5 percentage points more likely to support even extreme actions now plausibly immune from criminal prosecution—such as ordering the military to assassinate a political rival or plotting a self-coup—when carried out by a co-partisan president. These kinds of extreme anti-democratic actions have not been studied in prior literature and present a hard test for finding evidence of partisan bias. Our results indicate that the removal of criminal prosecution as a check on presidential abuses combined with the public’s polarized and hypocritical reaction to norm violations potentially provides an opening to presidents with authoritarian impulses to get away with severe anti-democratic behavior.