Kelly Matush, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science at Florida State University, recently authored an article in Cambridge University’s British Journal of Political Science titled, “Harnessing Backlash: How Leaders Can Benefit from Antagonizing Foreign Actors.” Below is a summary of the article written by third-year student Maya Topiwala (B.S. International Affairs ’23).
In “Harnessing Backlash: How Leaders Can Benefit from Antagonizing Foreign Actors,” FSU Assistant Professor of Political Science Kelly Matush, Ph.D., examines how leaders can sometimes use bad international public diplomacy to improve their domestic support.
Dr. Matush presented her research at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, the Midwest Political Science Association’s Annual Conference, and the International Studies Association’s Annual Convention.
“I’m so honored to have presented my research to such a wide variety of professionals in the field of political science,” Dr. Matush said. “It was exciting to share a new perspective with the research community on how “cheap talk” public diplomacy can be a powerful political tool.”
Public diplomacy is generally assumed to be aimed at increasing foreign sentiment or support for a policy. However, there are many instances where we observe dramatic public diplomacy failures. This paper argues that this can be a deliberate and successful political strategy employed by political leaders. In certain circumstances, leaders can exchange foreign backlash or condemnation for a boost in domestic approval.
Dr. Matush uses a simple signaling model to explain when a foreign backlash can be a credible signal of the leader’s goals, potentially increasing domestic support.
One example is the case of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s 2015 visit to the United States to oppose a multilateral agreement with Iran. Survey evidence demonstrates that Netanyahu provoked a negative backlash from the American public and political elites that aligned with the Democratic party.
To form a majority coalition, Netanyahu needed to win support from far-right Israeli voters, whose preferences were antithetical to the U.S. Democrats Netanyahu alienated with his speech. After the visit to the U.S., there was an increase in Israeli support for a coalition led by Netanyahu’s Likud party.
This paper demonstrates that in some circumstances it is rational for a leader to engage in provocative public diplomacy designed to alienate valuable international actors. This behavior can improve their domestic political prospects, outweighing the costs to international cooperation.
This theory provides a new way of understanding a leader’s motives to engage in public diplomacy.
Future research should examine the scope of this mechanism and how it might play out in a broader set of cases. Additionally, as populism increases globally, researchers should investigate the impact of domestic political movements on uncooperative international public diplomacy.
Figure 3. Israelis who voted for a right-wing coalition party in 2013 increased their support for a Likud-led coalition in the period following Netanyahu’s speech (p < 0.05). Vertical bars are 95% confidence intervals. Marginal effects from Appendix Table C2.
Matush, K. (2023). Harnessing Backlash: How Leaders Can Benefit from Antagonizing Foreign Actors. British Journal of Political Science, 1-17. doi:10.1017/S0007123422000370