State Visits and Leader Survival

Malis, Matt; Smith, Alastair

doi:10.1111/ajps.12520

Cited by 32 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…5 During his trip to Uzbekistan in October 2018, Russian President Putin held a joint press conference with Uzbek President Mirziyoyev, laid flowers at the Monument of Independence and Humanism, and joined Mirziyoyev to launch the site-selection project for the country's first nuclear power plant. 6 Public diplomacy is unlikely to be the primary reason leaders travel internationally, as closed-door negotiations with host leaders affect security (Malis and Smith 2021;McManus 2018) and economic (Nitsch 2007) relationships and the timing and destinations of these trips are often driven by domestic factors (Lebovic and Saunders 2016;Ostrander and Rider 2018). Still, given the intense constraints on their time, the fact that visiting leaders often spend significant time on public outreach while abroad suggests they believe this type of public diplomacy brings substantial benefits.…”

Section: High-level Visits As Public Diplomacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Host leaders usually have their own domestic incentives to produce publicly visible and positive visits, which may shore up their own domestic support (Malis and Smith 2021;McManus 2018). 9 As invited guests of the administration in power, visiting leaders typically enjoy some level of endorsement from their host, increasing their legitimacy in the eyes of the foreign public.…”

Section: Host Leader Incentives and Media Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Does Public Diplomacy Sway Foreign Public Opinion? Identifying the Effect of High-Level Visits

Goldsmith

Horiuchi

Matush³

2021

Am Polit Sci Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although many governments invest significant resources in public-diplomacy campaigns, there is little well-identified evidence of these efforts’ effectiveness. We examine the effects 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 9 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 influence of public diplomacy. These findings suggest that public diplomacy has the potential to shape global affairs through soft power.

show abstract

Section: High-level Visits As Public Diplomacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Host Leader Incentives and Media Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Public Diplomacy Sway Foreign Public Opinion? Identifying the Effect of High-Level Visits

Goldsmith

Horiuchi

Matush³

2021

Am Polit Sci Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Schelling (1960)). More recent research further demonstrates that a wide variety of actions serve as signals that inform adversaries and allies about the strength of international commitments (Fuhrmann and Sechser, 2014;Malis and Smith, 2021;McManus, 2014McManus, , 2018McManus and Nieman, 2019;McManus and Yarhi-Milo, 2017). We seek to connect research on such signals to alliance dynamics to clarify when states will take advantage of their alliances and reduce military spending and when they will retain or increase their military power through domestic means.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Alliances, signals of support, and military effort

DiGiuseppe

Shea

2021

European Journal of International Relations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Do alliances allow states to share defense burdens and reduce military spending? Despite expectations that alliances should lead to decreased military spending, the empirical record offers mixed findings. We argue that not all alliances are reliable; thus, only allies that receive signals of reassurance will rely on the external security of allies and subsequently reduce their military spending. Compared to states that do not receive additional signals, these reassured allies will have greater confidence that an ally will come to their aid. As a result, third-party aggressors are deterred and the demand for military spending will decrease. We test this argument with an analysis of US signals of support, alliance commitments, and military spending. We find that American alliances without additional signals of support have a negligible effect on military spending. Yet, we observe that alliances are negatively associated with military spending when signals of support are present. Additional tests indicate that alliance commitments, coupled with strong US signals, are also associated with lower military spending in the rivals of US allies. Our results potentially help explain the mixed evidence in the arms-versus-allies and burden-sharing literatures and further demonstrate that extra-alliance signals play an important role in the practice of International Relations.

show abstract

“… 1. This number refers to the total number of days spent visiting foreign leaders abroad, plus total number of days hosting visits from foreign leaders in the USA, divided by total days in office. See Malis and Smith (2019). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 4. See Malis and Smith (2019) for a more thorough discussion of the reputational cost of backing failed regimes. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A global game of diplomacy

Malis

Smith

2019

Journal of Theoretical Politics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Diplomacy always occurs in the shadow of domestic political competition. We develop a model of top-level diplomatic exchange between an incumbent and a foreign leader, embedded within a global game of regime change, and examine four mechanisms that induce a relationship between diplomatic visits and regime survival. First, the foreign leader chooses to visit incumbents who are ex ante more secure in office (a selection effect). Second, because the foreign leader’s decision is based partly on private information, the citizens update on the revelation of that information (a learning effect) and are discouraged from mounting a challenge. Third, the foreign leader can bolster the incumbent’s strength in office with a transfer of material support (a strengthening effect). The latter two effects are then amplified by the complementarities in the citizens’ strategies (a multiplier effect). Contrary to standard global games results, we show that increased precision in the public information transmitted strategically by the foreign power induces a unique equilibrium, as citizens coordinate on the foreign leader’s action. Our findings explain why leaders are so eager to receive state visits from major world powers.

show abstract

State Visits and Leader Survival

Cited by 32 publications

References 30 publications

Does Public Diplomacy Sway Foreign Public Opinion? Identifying the Effect of High-Level Visits

Does Public Diplomacy Sway Foreign Public Opinion? Identifying the Effect of High-Level Visits

Alliances, signals of support, and military effort

A global game of diplomacy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About