Public Opinion & Foreign Policy

Micro-level conflict processes are inextricably linked to public opinion. In a series of papers on foreign policy, I investigate mass attitudes on gender, climate change, and conflict, emphasizing how behavioral factors like stereotypes, identity, and emotions shape perceptions and beliefs.

Gender stereotypes. With Joshua A. Schwartz, I develop and test a theory of how gender stereotypes shape the public’s evaluation of leaders in international crises (IO 2020). Women leaders who back down from threats activate descriptive stereotypes about women’s ill-preparedness for high office, yet women are punished less than men for initiating militarized threats. Across a series of survey experiments, women leaders prove better able to tie hands — an efficient mechanism for establishing credibility — but face a harder time backing down, a framework that reconciles why women’s leadership is associated with peace even though women are as or more likely than men to initiate conflict. Extending the logic that “only Nixon could go to China,” we also show that women pay a “gendered peace premium” when pursuing conciliation (ISQ 2023): because women are stereotypically perceived as dovish, conciliatory proposals initiated by women are seen as less prudent and less in the national interest than identical proposals by men, with higher costs imposed on out-partisan women — though policy success attenuates the disadvantage.

Conflict and norms. How strong are the “taboos” against normatively proscribed weapons? With Jonathan A. Chu and Joshua A. Schwartz, I show that because norms are morally salient, some respondents who privately reject them still voice support to avoid social sanction. Using a list-experimental technique to detect these “insincere norm-holders” across three surveys of the U.S. public, we find that accounting for them nearly doubles the share of Americans willing to use chemical weapons in war (JCR 2022). With Michael C. Horowitz, I examine servicemembers’ attitudes using a declassified survey of enlisted U.S. soldiers in Hawaii in 1944 — a hard test of the chemical-weapons taboo, fielded during total war against an adversary that had itself employed chemical weapons (JOP 2024). Up to 91% of soldiers supported using chemical weapons against the Japanese, but troops subjected to simulated gas attacks in basic training were significantly less supportive: visceral experiences can mobilize support for weapons taboos even in permissive environments. In ongoing work with Horowitz, I use declassified “American Soldier in World War II” surveys fielded in summer 1945 to show that combat exposure reduced soldiers’ support for an active U.S. role in postwar global affairs — including the formation of the United Nations and Marshall Plan aid to allies — while increasing support for a punitive peace imposed on the Axis powers, absent any evidence of generalized out-group hostility.

Climate change. With Sabrina B. Arias, I study how the public views migrants displaced by climate disasters — who occupy an intermediate position between economic migrants and refugees — and whether disaster exposure mobilizes support for climate action (JOP 2022; APSR 2024). I discuss this work further under Migration & Forced Displacement.