Do Unto Others? Americans Attitudes on Conducting Electoral Interventions Abroad

• In Event: Foreign Election Interference

Abstract

Foreign partisan electoral interventions (or election interference) have become a common topic of discussion in the U.S. since the discovery of the Russian intervention of this kind in the 2016 U.S. elections. However, there has been far less discussion of American meddling of this kind around the world, even though the United States has a long history of intervening in other country’s elections, especially during periods of international competition like the Cold War. Some analysts have predicted, or even called for, the United States to resume this sort of foreign partisan electoral interference during a renewed period of great-power competition. Yet evidence about what drives public support for U.S. foreign electoral intervention is scarce. This paper, using a new set of surveys and experiments recently conducted in the U.S., tests hypotheses about what drives support and opposition to U.S. electoral interventions abroad.

Authors

• Paul Musgrave, University of Massachusetts

• Dov H. Levin, University of Hong Kong