Does it matter that an ally is democratic during crises? Public diplomacy and attitudes towards international allies in times of crisis
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Can public diplomacy in times of crisis shape citizens’ attitudes towards international politics? Using a survey experiment in Italy, we evaluated whether information cues about public diplomacy efforts by the United States and China to assist the country in dealing with the COVID-19 emergency shifted the importance citizens attached to Italy’s international allies being democracies. We found that citizens who receive positive cues about USA efforts to assist Italy report a stronger preference for Italy interacting with democracies. At the same time, when they received positive cues about China’s efforts to assist Italy, they discounted the importance attached to international allies being democracies. We further found that these effects are conditional on the participants’ support for democracy at home. We argue that these findings are consistent with a cognitive dissonance framework where citizens update their attitudes to decrease dissonant cognitions when they receive information that challenges prior beliefs or expectations.
Institutions: University of Genoa, Leiden University, University of Milan
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4403402558