Public Opinion and Foreign Electoral Intervention
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 f...
Saved in:
Published in | The American political science review Vol. 114; no. 3; pp. 856 - 873 |
---|---|
Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York, USA
Cambridge University Press
01.08.2020
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
Cover
Loading…
Summary: | 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. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 0003-0554 1537-5943 |
DOI: | 10.1017/S0003055420000064 |