Topic: Public Opinion and Foreign Electoral Intervention
Speaker: Prof. Michael Tomz (Stanford University)
https://web.stanford.edu/~tomz/
Time: 2019 / 5 / 23 (Thursday) 3:00 – 5:00 pm
Venue: Conference Room I, Research Center for Humanities and Social Science (RCHSS), Academia Sinica
Abstract:
Foreign electoral intervention is an increasingly important tool for influencing politics in other countries, yet we know surprisingly little about when citizens would tolerate foreign efforts to sway elections and when they would condemn them. In this paper, 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 far 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. Nonetheless, Americans are unwilling to respond militarily to electoral attacks on the United States, even when their own political party is targeted. Together, our findings suggest that electoral interference can be an effective tactic for dividing and weakening an adversary without running the risks of escalation associated with conventional military intervention.
Organizer: Center for Survey Research, RCHSS, Academia Sinica
Contact: srcsr@gate.sinica.edu.tw (02)2789-8132 Claire Hsieh