Turning the Tables? Status Stability and Race in the International System

• In Event: Race and Racism in Foreign Policy

Abstract

How do citizens update their perceptions of state rankings in the international system? States and their citizens value high status. They are willing to take costly actions to raise or maintain their international ranking compared to other states. While existing research focuses on violent conflict as the means through which status is increased, we examine how less-costly, nonviolent events can be status-conferring. We focus particularly on "role reversals" where states act in a way that is contrary to what their perceived position in the status hierarchy entails. The numerous political disruptions in 2020 allow us to field realistic information experiments on online samples of US-based respondents where we frame foreign aid acceptance and election monitor acceptance as status-reversing events. We find that states offering assistance to the US are awarded with higher status, while the US's status decreases in response. However, while the nominal rankings of states (ranked from 0-100) change in response to status-reversal treatments, for white respondents, the comparative rankings of states remain unchanged (US remains more highly-ranked than, for example, China). White respondents artificially inflate the numeric rating given to states uninvolved with the status-changing event in order to preserve the relative ranking of states. Black respondents, in contrast, integrate the information treatment about status-reversing actions by the United States into their comparative rankings of states in the international order. We argue that white respondents have a vested interest in upholding the status quo of the international order that affects their ability to assimilate new evidence to the contrary. Social and political psychologists have long argued that groups struggle to update their beliefs when evidence contradicts or threatens social status; we extend these findings to the international realm.

Authors

• Cleo Marie O'Brien-Udry, Yale University

• Lauren Elizabeth Ferry, University of Mississippi