Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T13:45:47.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Opinion and Foreign Electoral Intervention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2020

MICHAEL TOMZ Open the ORCID record for MICHAEL TOMZ [Opens in a new window]  and
JESSICA L. P. WEEKS Open the ORCID record for JESSICA L. P. WEEKS [Opens in a new window]
MICHAEL TOMZ*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
JESSICA L. P. WEEKS*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
*
Michael Tomz, William Bennett Munro Professor in Political Science, Stanford University, Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, [email protected].
Jessica L. P. Weeks, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Foreign electoral intervention is an increasingly important tool for influencing politics in other countries, yet we know little about when citizens would tolerate or condemn foreign efforts to sway elections. In this article, we use experiments to study American public reactions to revelations of foreign electoral intervention. We find that even modest forms of intervention polarize the public along partisan lines. Americans are more likely to condemn foreign involvement, lose faith in democracy, and seek retaliation when a foreign power sides with the opposition, than when a foreign power aids their own party. At the same time, Americans reject military responses to electoral attacks on the United States, even when their own political party is targeted. Our findings suggest that electoral interference can divide and weaken an adversary without provoking the level of public demand for retaliation typically triggered by conventional military attacks.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 856 - 873
Copyright
© American Political Science Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This material is based in part on work supported by the National Science Foundation under award numbers SES-1226855 and SES-1226824. For extremely helpful comments on earlier versions of this article, we thank participants at the American Political Science Association conference (2018, 2019), the International Studies Association conference (2018), the Barcelona-Gothenburg-Bergen Workshop in Experimental Political Science (2018), the Midwest Political Science Association conference (2019), the Upper Midwest International Relations Conference (2018), and the Pacific International Politics Conference (2018), and seminar participants at Academia Sinica, Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, Facebook, Hebrew University, Princeton, Stanford, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Washington University in St. Louis. We are also grateful for comments from Kirk Bansak, Mark Bell, Andrew Blinkinsop, Sarah Bush, Stephen Chaudoin, Ben Fordham, Herb Lin, Josh Kertzer, Jon Krosnick, Carrie Lee, Dov Levin, Jordi Muñoz, Urte Peteris, Jon Pevehouse, Katy Powers, Lauren Prather, and Jonathan Renshon. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/E3BAO5.

References

REFERENCES

Ahlquist, John S., Ichino, Nahomi, Wittenberg, Jason, and Ziblatt, Daniel. 2018. “How Do Voters Perceive Changes to the Rules of the Game? Evidence from the 2014 Hungarian Elections.” Journal of Comparative Economics 46 (4): 906–19.10.1016/j.jce.2018.01.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Christopher J., Blais, André, Bowler, Shaun, Donovan, Todd, and Listhaug, Ola. 2005. Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy . New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0199276382.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Christopher J., and Guillory, Christine A.. 1997. “Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems.” American Political Science Review 91 (1): 66–81.10.2307/2952259CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anduiza, Eva, Gallego, Aina, and Muñoz, Jordi. 2013. “Turning a Blind Eye: Experimental Evidence of Partisan Bias in Attitudes Toward Corruption.” Comparative Political Studies 46 (12): 1664–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaulieu, Emily. 2014. “From Voter ID to Party ID: How Political Parties Affect Perceptions of Election Fraud in the U.S.” Electoral Studies 35: 24–32.10.1016/j.electstud.2014.03.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birch, Sarah. 2011. Electoral Malpractice. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199606160.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolsen, Toby, Druckman, James N., and Cook, Fay Lomax. 2014. “The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion.” Political Behavior 36 (2): 235–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brancati, Dawn. 2014. “Building Confidence in Elections: The Case of Electoral Monitors in Kosova.” Journal of Experimental Political Science 1 (1): 6–15.10.1017/xps.2013.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bubeck, Johannes, and Marinov, Nikolay. 2017. “Process or Candidate: The International Community and the Demand for Electoral Integrity.” American Political Science Review 111 (3): 535–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bubeck, Johannes, and Marinov, Nikolay. 2019. Rules and Allies: Foreign Election Interventions. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108652650CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, Sarah Sunn, and Prather, Lauren. 2017. “The Promise and Limits of Election Observers in Building Election Credibility.” The Journal of Politics 78 (3): 921–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, Sarah Sunn, and Prather, Lauren. 2018. “Who’s There? Election Observer Identity and the Local Credibility of Elections.” International Organization 72 (3): 659–92.10.1017/S0020818318000140CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, Sarah Sunn, and Prather, Lauren. 2019. From Monitoring to Meddling: How Foreign Actors Influence Local Trust in Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Manuscript.Google Scholar
Bush, Sarah Sunn, and Prather, Lauren. 2020. “Political Side-Taking by Outside Powers and Mass Attitudes Towards International Economic Engagement.” International Organization 74 (3).10.1017/S0020818320000156CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chanley, Virginia, Rudolph, Thomas J., and Rahn, Wendy M.. 2000. “The Origins and Consequences of Public Trust in Government: A Time Series Analysis.” Public Opinion Quarterly 64 (3): 239–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corstange, Daniel, and Marinov, Nikolay. 2012. “Taking Sides in Other People’s Elections: The Polarizing Effect of Foreign Intervention.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (3): 655–70.10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00583.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1971. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Delavande, Adeline, and Manski, Charles F.. 2012. “Candidate Preferences and Expectations of Election Outcomes.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (10): 3711–15.10.1073/pnas.1200861109CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drutman, Lee, Diamond, Larry, and Goldman, Joe. 2018. Follow the Leader: Exploring American Support for Democracy and Authoritarianism. Washington, DC: Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/follow-the-leader.Google Scholar
Esaiasson, Peter. 2011. “Electoral Losers Revisited—How Citizens React to Defeat at the Ballot Box.” Electoral Studies 30 (1): 102–13.10.1016/j.electstud.2010.09.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Ryan. 2017. “International Law and the US Response to Russian Election Interference.” https://www.justsecurity.org/35999/international-law-response-russian-election-interference/.Google Scholar
Hathaway, Oona A., Crootof, Rebecca, Levitz, Philip, Nix, Haley, Nowlan, Aileen, Perdue, William, and Spiegel, Julia. 2012. “The Law of Cyber-Attack.” California Law Review 100 (4): 817–85.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Marc. 2004. Why Trust Matters . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyde, Susan. 2011. The Pseudo-Democrat’s Dilemma: Why Election Observation Became an International Norm. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.10.7591/cornell/9780801449666.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyde, Susan D., and Marinov, Nikolay. 2014. “Information and Self-Enforcing Democracy: The Role of International Election Observation.” International Organization 68 (2): 329–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelley, Judith. 2008. “Assessing the Complex Evolution of Norms: The Rise of International Election Monitoring.” International Organization 62 (2): 221–55.10.1017/S0020818308080089CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreps, Sarah E., and Das, Debak. 2017. “Warring from the Virtual to the Real: Assessing the Public’s Threshold for War over Cyber Security.” Research and Politics 4 (2): 1–8.10.1177/2053168017715930CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreps, Sarah E., and Schneider, Jacquelyn. 2019. “Escalation Firebreaks in the Cyber, Conventional, and Nuclear Domains: Moving Beyond Effects-Based Logics.” Journal of Cybersecurity 5 (1): 1–11.10.1093/cybsec/tyz007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeper, Thomas J., and Slothuus, Rune. 2014. “Political Parties, Motivated Reasoning, and Public Opinion Formation.” Advances in Political Psychology 35 (s1): 129–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1998. “A State of Trust.” In Trust and Governance, eds. Braithwaite, Valerie and Levi, Margaret. New York: Russell Sage, 77–101.Google Scholar
Levin, Dov H. 2016. “When the Great Power Gets a Vote: The Effects of Great Power Electoral Interventions on Election Results.” International Studies Quarterly 60 (2): 189–202.10.1093/isq/sqv016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, Dov H. 2018. “Voting for Trouble? Partisan Electoral Interventions and Domestic Terrorism.” Terrorism and Political Violence DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2017.1383243.Google Scholar
Levin, Dov H. 2019a. “A Vote for Freedom? The Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions on Regime Type.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 63 (4): 839–68. DOI: 10.1177%2F0022002718770507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, Dov H. 2019b. “Partisan Electoral Interventions by the Great Powers: Introducing the PEIG Dataset.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 36 (1): 88–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, Milton, and Taber, Charles S.. 2013. The Rationalizing Voter. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139032490CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marinov, Nikolay. 2013. “Voter Attitudes When Democracy Promotion Turns Partisan: Evidence from a Survey-Experiment in Lebanon.” Democratization, 20 (7): 1297–321.10.1080/13510347.2012.690096CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Diego A., and Shapiro, Jacob N.. 2019. “Trends in Online Foreign Influence Efforts.” Working Paper, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa. 2014. Why Electoral Integrity Matters. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781107280861CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2018. The Public, the Political System and American Democracy. April 26. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Reiter, Dan, and Stam, Allan C.. 2002. Democracies at War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, Graeme. 2015. “Political Orientation, Information and Perceptions of Election Fraud: Evidence from Russia.” British Journal of Political Science 47 (3): 589–608.10.1017/S0007123415000356CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Lee, Greene, David, and House, Pamela. 1977. “The ‘False Consensus Effect’: An Egocentric Bias in Social Perception and Attribution Processes.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 13 (3): 279–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shulman, Stephen, and Bloom, Stephen. 2012. “The Legitimacy of Foreign Intervention in Elections: The Ukrainian Response.” Review of International Studies 38 (2): 445–71.10.1017/S0260210512000022CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpser, Alberto. 2013. Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections: Theory, Practice, and Implications. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139343824CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, and Turner, John C.. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, eds. Austin, William G. and Worchel, Stephen. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole, 33–47.Google Scholar
Tenove, Chris, Buffie, Jordan, McKay, Spencer, and Moscrop, David. 2018. Digital Threats to Democratic Elections: How Foreign Actors Use Digital Techniques to Undermine Democracy. University of British Columbia. https://democracy2017.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2018/01/DigitalThreats_Report-FINAL.pdf.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael, Weeks, Jessica, and Yarhi-Milo, Keren. 2020. “Public Opinion and Decisions about Military Intervention in Democracies.” International Organization 74 (1): 119–43. 10.1017/S0020818319000341CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Joshua A. 2007. “Enough! Electoral Fraud, Collective Action Problems, and Post-Communist Colored Revolutions.” Perspectives on Politics 5 (3): 535–51.10.1017/S1537592707071538CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellman, Elizabeth Iams, Hyde, Susan D., and Hall, Thad E.. 2018. “Does Fraud Trump Partisanship? The Impact of Contentious Elections on Voter Confidence.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties 28 (3): 330–48.10.1080/17457289.2017.1394865CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Tomz and Weeks Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/E3BAO5
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Tomz and Weeks Supplementary Materials

Tomz and Weeks Supplementary Materials

Download Tomz and Weeks Supplementary Materials(PDF)
PDF 6.6 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.