Peer Reviewed Publications

We Only Care What You Do, Not Who You Are: Reexamining Human Rights and Public Support for War (with Weifang Xu and Qing Wang). Forthcoming at the Journal of Experimental Political Science.

Abstract: Does the public apply a "double standard" for human rights abuses based on the identity of the perpetrator? Research shows that individuals are more supportive of military action against states that violate human rights. However, other studies claim that condemnations of violations are often contingent upon the strategic relationship with the perpetrators. In this paper, we bridge these different strands of literature by examining whether the effect of foreign states’ human rights practices on public support for war depends on the alliance status of the violator. To investigate this interaction, we conducted two pre-registered experiments which independently randomized the state's human rights practices and U.S. alliance status. Both experiments reveal that the alliance status of the human rights violator has a negligible effect on support for war. Consequently, our findings challenge the prevailing notion that the public applies a double standard for human rights violations.

Presented at ISA 2024.

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​Awareness of Executive Interference and the Demand for Judicial Independence: Evidence from Four Constitutional Courts (with Amanda Driscoll and Martín Gandur) Forthcoming at the Journal of Law and Courts.
Abstract: Awareness of courts has long been theorized to engender enhanced support for judicial independence. Previous research gives us a good theoretical understanding of how awareness might function to foster support for judicial independence, but only under the best of circumstances. We argue that interbranch politics influences what aware citizens know and learn about their court, and we theorize how awareness interacts with individual-level and context-dependent factors to bolster public endorsement of judicial independence in previously unappreciated ways. We fielded surveys the United States, Germany, Poland, and Hungary, countries which diverge in the extent to which the environments are hospitable or hostile to high courts, and whose publics vary greatly in both their awareness of courts and perceptions of executive influence with the judiciary. We suggest that in hospitable contexts, awareness correlates with support for judicial independence but said association depends on perceptions of executive influence. In hostile contexts where executive interference is common, more aware citizens are more apt to perceive this meddling, and although it might undermine trust in the judicial authority, it does not diminish their demand for judicial independence. Together, these findings underscore that public awareness and support for judicial independence is greatly informed by the political environment in which high courts reside.

Presented at SPSA 2022

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Campaign Principal-Agent Problems: Volunteers as Faithful and Representative Agents (with Jon Green, Hans J.G. Hassell, and Matthew R. Miles). Political Behavior. 2022. Link.

Political campaigns in the United States supplement media with volunteer-based direct voter contact. Prior research argues that campaigns should want moderate volunteers to minimize principal-agent problems that hinder effective communication with persuadable voters. We find that campaigns do not uniformly prefer moderate volunteers. Using interviews with campaign practitioners, a conjoint experiment, and a correspondence experiment, we show instead that campaigns have weak preferences for volunteers whose ideology is proximate to the candidate’s ideology. Campaigns are concerned about maximizing volunteer effort and work-hours and view volunteer ideological proximity as a signal of enthusiasm and dedication. However, such preferences for ideological proximity fade with stronger indicators of commitment, and do not manifest in real-world volunteer recruitment decisions. Rather than being concerned with principal-agent problems associated with faithfully communicating the candidate’s message to persuadable voters, campaigns are primarily concerned with the more pressing principal-agent problem of volunteer shirking.

Presented at APSA 2021

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Conditional Cash Transfer Programs and Child Labor (with Gabriel Cepaluni, Amanda Driscoll and Marco Antonio Faganello) World Development. 2022. Link

Child labor is a pernicious problem throughout the developing world, but conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) could reduce the number of working children. We evaluate the effectiveness of CCTs at attenuating child labor based on our analysis of a massive administrative dataset on Brazil’s applicants to social programs between 2001 and 2015. We use Multiples (twins, triplets, etc.) as an instrument for receiving the Bolsa Família stipend. Receiving the stipend does not offset the cost of an exogenous increase in family size, does not reduce child laborers’ participation in the workforce and does not improve educational outcomes for child laborers in households with Multiples births. Instead, contextual and familial factors appear to shape program efficacy in mitigating this troubling practice.

Presented at SPSA 2021

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​Under Review

Irrelevant Events, Mood, and the Good Citizen (with Brad T. Gomez) 

Abstract: Research suggests that voters' ability to hold politicians accountable might be compromised by irrelevant events influencing their political opinions and responsibility attributions. However, skepticism exists regarding these findings due to methodological limitations, such as the use of aggregate data and small sample sizes. Moreover, the evidence linking changes in mood to the impact of irrelevant events on political opinions is sparse. We employ a national survey experiment using a parallel encouragement design. This study aims to measure the direct effects of irrelevant events on political opinions and assess the mediating role of mood. Our research expands the notion of good citizenship by examining not only support for incumbents but also political participation and perceptions of the national economy. Through our experimental design, we achieve more accurate measurements of individuals’ connection to the irrelevant event and mood, a comprehensive exploration of political outcomes, and a direct examination of mood’s mediating effect.

Presented at MPSA 2022, EPOVB 2024, MPSA 2024​

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Preferences or Principles? The "Noncompliance Penalty" and the Limits of Public Support for the Rule of Law (with Amanda Driscoll and Martín Gandur, Jay N. Krehbiel, and Michael J. Nelson)
Abstract: Under what conditions will individuals support government noncompliance with written law? This question strikes at the heart of democracy: a bedrock principle of the rule of law is that politicians who fail to comply with written law will face consequences. Drawing on a pair of survey experiments fielded in two consolidated democracies, we introduce the concept of the noncompliance penalty, the loss of public support for an executive action that contravenes the written law. We find that this penalty increases if individuals profess support for the rule of law but decreases if government noncompliance advances their policy goals. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that citizens with the strongest commitment to the rule of law are most accepting of noncompliance if it advances a policy they support. This finding has important implications as scholars try to understand whether the public will punish politicians who fail to adhere to the rule of law.

Presented at MPSA 2022

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Working Papers

The Cybersecurity Dilemma: Signaling Benign Intentions

Abstract: Under what conditions can a state signal its benign intentions for investing in its cybersecurity? There is a growing need for states to bolster their cyber defenses, but states face additional challenges when navigating a potential cybersecurity dilemma. Due to its inherent secrecy, many traditional solutions to the security dilemma-such as offense-defense differentiation-fall short in the cyber domain. Instead, I argue that states can use public commitments to standards of behavior to send costly signals of their benign intentions. Using a pre-post 2*2 factorial survey experiment on the U.S. public (N=1,500), I explore the efficacy of the (multi-)unilateral adoption of two cyber norms, banning cyber attacks on civilian infrastructure and disclosing software vulnerabilities, on mitigating the cybersecurity dilemma. I find that both policies significantly reduce threat perception and disclosing vulnerabilities significantly increases belief in defensive intention and some preliminary evidence that avoiding civilian targets can reduce support for retaliatory cybersecurity spending. These results imply that states can make necessary cybersecurity investments while credibly signaling their benign intentions.

 

Value Clash in Preferences for U.S. Alliance Partners. 

Abstract: Scholars show that the U.S. public prioritizes shared values (e.g., human rights)
at the expense of security advantages. I challenge this finding by arguing that both shared values and concerns about maintaining U.S. power are relevant determinants of foreign policy preferences. To test my theory, I utilize a conjoint experiment wherein subjects choose between paired profiles of potential allies whose attributes differ in their alignment with U.S. values and ability to enhance U.S. security. The conjoint experiment provides robust evidence in support of my expectations: while respondents do desire to follow liberal ideals when evaluating possible allies, geopolitical advantages are salient in their decision-making. This blending of liberal concerns while still emphasizing practicalities about geopolitics underlines the ideational pragmatism respondents use to evaluate U.S. alliance policy. Click here for a draft.

Received Best Practicum Award

Presented at SPSA 2023, MPSA 2023

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Cyber Threats and Audience Costs.

Abstract: When issuing threats, leaders often use audience costs to signal their threat's credibility. Audience costs rely on the public's ability to verify whether the leader carried out the threat. While public verification is easy for some actions like military deployment, it is difficult for covert action like cyber attacks. Leaders may issue threats that imply a retaliatory cyber attack is likely, but avoid taking responsibility for a cyber attack (e.g., President Obama after the Sony Pictures cyber attack). Extant scholarship on audience costs focuses solely on threats that can be verified by the public, but we do not know if threats are costly signals when the public cannot verify that the leader followed through. I explore this question using a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of the U.S. public (N=1200). While I do not find evidence of traditional audience costs, I do find that individuals show a strong preference for consistent foreign policy. As evidence that the president carried out a threat for covert action increases, so does presidential approval-even if the president outright denies responsibility. The implication that leaders can more easily get away with empty threats under the guise of maintaining plausible deniability is concerning given the increasing salience of cyberwarfare.

Click here for a draft.

Presented at APSA 2023

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Non-Refereed Publications

Taylor Kinsley Chewning, Amanda Driscoll, Jay Krehbiel, and Michael Nelson. 08-02-2021. "IOP@FSU Field-Advancing Research: Americans United in Their Support for Local Government Management of the Pandemic." Wicked Problems, Wicked Solutions. [Blog]
 

Taylor Kinsley Chewning, Bailey Johnson, Amanda Driscoll, Jay N. Krehbiel, and Michael J. Nelson. 2020-08-14. "COVID-19, Crises, and Public Support for the Rule of Law Teaching Modules." Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]. [Modules] [In Press]

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Taylor Kinsley Chewning, Amanda Driscoll, Jay N. Krehbiel, and Michael J. Nelson. 2020."Coronavirus fatigue is the biggest threat to Germany's success story in this pandemic." The Loop: ECPR's Political Science Blog. [Blog] [In Press]

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