The Dog That Barks: Understanding Propaganda Campaigns on Interstate Disputes

• In Event: Propaganda and Misinformation

Abstract

When and why do authoritarian states allow or even promote domestic media coverage of interstates disputes, compared to when they discourage or censor such coverage? The frequent involvement of authoritarian states in some of the world’s most dangerous disputes calls for a better understanding of their domestic constraints and motivations. As authoritarian governance becomes increasingly popular around the world, research on how authoritarian governments shape domestic public opinion on foreign policy issues has also received heightened attention. The National Security Strategy of the Trump Administration and the 2018 Worldwide Threat Assessment of The U.S. Intelligence Community stress the “influence campaigns” used by “many countries” via state-controlled media “to shape foreign perceptions, and to influence populations.” This paper develops and tests a theory that explains propaganda campaigns as strategic state actions in response to two conditions – existing public opinion and state foreign policy intent. When public opinion and state policy intent diverge, leaders use propaganda to align them, exploiting either propaganda’s mobilizing or counterintuitively pacifying effects. A medium-n congruence test of 19 Chinese diplomatic crises and process tracing one of these cases, using primary sources and computerized text analysis of the Chinese official newspaper People’s Daily, render strong support for the theory.

Author

• Frances Yaping Wang, Singapore Management University