Published

Militarized Statebuilding Interventions and the Survival of Fragile States. Journal of Peace Research. (2023) with David Lake.

Download pre-print here.

What is the effect of armed statebuilding on the survival of previously failed states? Do military interventions by great powers or international organizations during periods of state failure increase the subsequent durability of “rehabilitated states”? Fearing ungoverned spaces, the international community responds to failed states by funneling aid, experts, peacekeepers, and military forces in various guises into conflict zones with the ambition of rebuilding effective states. There has been relatively little research, however, on whether such interventions – especially in their most ambitious and extreme forms as indicated by armed interventions – are effective. Using multiple definitions of state failure, and the set of military interventions by great powers or international organizations, we develop a model of state failure with baseline covariates from the Political Instability Task Force model. We examine all states that have failed and their subsequent durability in the period 1956-2006. Under most model specifications, armed statebuilding has no significant effect on later state survival. However, we find that military interventions can prolong the time to the next failure when a failed autocracy democratizes and when the statebuilder does not move the failed state’s policies closer to its own. These results challenge current statebuilding practices.

Harnessing Backlash: Why do leaders antagonize foreign actors? British Journal of Political Science. (2023).

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Leaders nearly always claim that their diplomatic campaigns are intended to attract foreign support. However, many diplomacy campaigns fail spectacularly in this regard. While these events have largely been explained as diplomatic failures, I argue that alienating the apparent target of an international diplomatic campaign can be a deliberate strategy leaders use to win domestic support. Under certain conditions, a costly backlash from a foreign actor can be a credible signal that the leader shares the domestic audience’s preferences. Therefore, by intentionally provoking a backlash from a valuable foreign actor, leaders can exchange foreign condemnation for an increase in domestic support. I support this argument with evidence from Netanyahu’s 2015 speech to the U.S. Congress. I show that, as expected by this theoretical framework, Netanyahu’s efforts resulted in a significant backlash among American Democrats and a corresponding increase of support among right-wing Israelis, a crucial constituency for his upcoming election.

Does Public Diplomacy Sway Foreign Public Opinion? Identifying the Effect of High-level Visits. American Political Science Review. (2021). with Benjamin E. Goldsmith and Yusaku Horiuchi.

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Although many governments invest significant resources in public-diplomacy campaigns, there is little well-identified evidence of these efforts' effectiveness. We examine the impacts of a major type of public diplomacy: high-level visits by national leaders to other countries. We combine a dataset of the international travels of 15 leaders from nine countries over 11 years, with worldwide surveys administered in 38} host countries. By comparing 32,456 respondents interviewed just before or just after the first day of each visit, we show that visiting leaders can increase public approval among foreign citizens. The effects do not fade away immediately and are particularly large when public-diplomacy activities are reported by the news media. In most cases, military capability differentials between visiting and host countries do not appear to confer an advantage in the impact of public diplomacy. These findings suggest that public diplomacy has the potential to shape global affairs through soft power.

The Authoritarian Wager: Mass Political Action and the Sudden Collapse of Repression. Comparative Political Studies. (2020). with Branislav Slantchev

Authoritarian rulers tend to prevent political action, but sometimes allow it even if it leads to social conflict. The collapse of preventive repression is especially puzzling when rulers have reliable security forces capable of preventing protests. We develop a game-theoretic model that explores the incentives of authoritarians to repress or permit political contestation. We show that rulers with the capacity to fully repress political action create despotic regimes, but rulers with more moderate capacity might opt to allow open contestation. The status quo bias that favors regime supporters weakens their incentive to defend it. Rulers take the authoritarian wager by abandoning preventive repression and allowing opposition that threatens the status quo. The resulting risk gives incentives to the supporters to defend the regime, increasing the rulers’ chances of political survival. Even moderate changes in the structural capacity to repress might result in drastic policy reversals involving repression.  

Working Papers

Does Public Diplomacy Sway Domestic Public Opinion? Presidential Travel Abroad and Approval at Home. with Benjamin E. Goldsmith and Yusaku Horiuchi.

[SSRN]

Political leaders travel abroad to attend bilateral and multilateral meetings, engage in public diplomacy, and send signals of commitment or deterrence. However, their incentive to use this foreign policy tool depends on how it is received domestically. We leverage a powerful dataset of daily surveys administered by Gallup during the Obama administration to examine whether U.S. presidential trips abroad change domestic public approval. Specifically, we compare the presidential approval of 374,715 respondents interviewed just before or after each of Barack Obama’s 51 diplomatic trips to 59 countries during his presidency. We find a small and short-term decrease in approval and increase in disapproval. We observe a similar pattern or no effect in more sparse monthly surveys available during the Bush, Trump, and Biden administrations. Our results suggest that contrary to the common assumption made by scholars and practitioners, it is unlikely that presidents can leverage foreign travel for an immediate increase in a key indicator of their success—domestic public approval

Does Democratic Backsliding Erode Soft Power? A Multinational Experiment. with Benjamin E. Goldsmith, Yusaku Horiuchi, and Kathleen E. Powers.

The U.S. has long relied on its strong democracy as a central part of its international image. However, American democracy has recently weakened, and scholars predict that this will erode the U.S.’s foreign image and undercut its ability to win cooperation from international partners. How does American democratic backsliding influence perceptions of the U.S. among the citizens of American partners? Do these changes shape perceptions of other great powers or undermine public support for cooperation with the U.S.? Although the literature on democratic backsliding is rapidly growing, we have limited understanding of its global ramifications. Based on a multinational survey experiment in twelve U.S. partner countries, we show that democratic backsliding significantly decreases respondents’ favorability towards the U.S. and their perceptions of its international status. Additionally, information about U.S. backsliding may decrease image of other great powers, including global rivals’ and other democracies. However, we find little evidence that this decreases public support for cooperation with the U.S. We discuss the theoretical implications of such transnational effects on public opinion

Invaluable cheap talk: When low-cost public diplomacy works.

Leaders spend valuable time on international public diplomacy campaigns, but it remains uncertain when -- or whether -- they are successful in these endeavors. I propose that in order to predict the success of public diplomacy, we must evaluate how the speaking leader is viewed by key subsets of the target public. While leaders conducting public diplomacy cannot convince every member of a foreign public to support their preferred policy, they can sometimes tip the scale of public opinion by persuading individuals whose preferences are aligned with the speaker on the issue at hand. I present evidence from Obama's 2016 visit to the U.K. that aimed to persuade British voters to oppose Brexit. Leveraging micro-level trade exposure paired with individual-level survey data, I show that Obama successfully increased opposition to Brexit within the subset of Brits who shared his preferences on maintaining the trade relationship between the U.S. and the U.K.: those who personally relied most heavily on trade with the U.S.