Experimental Evidence on Status Attribution in International Relations

• In Event: Security Institutions

Abstract

Status has been long considered a central component of international relations. While the various belligerent as well as peaceful status-seeking strategies have been carefully documented, less consensus exists among scholars on how to demonstrate that a country gained status. I suggest that one way to obtain a more complete understanding of status attribution in international relations is by focusing on individual-level perceptions. To capture how perceptions held by others shape a country’s status, this project uses a novel measure of status—an opinion-based rating scale. This measurement strategy is utilized in a survey experiment to evaluate whether countries might be able to gain status from serving as mediators of militarized conflicts. The experimental results, based on a sample of 1,499 United States citizens, show that mediators of militarized conflicts were attributed greater status and that countries with weak military power benefit from mediation the most.

Author

• Filip Viskupic, South Dakota State University