Abstract
Do publics in countries that rely on another state for security reduce support for cooperation when that state behaves inconsistently? We examine this question using a survey experiment in Taiwan, where the possibility of a territorial conflict with another U.S. rival, China, is a central security concern. We present respondents with information about inconsistency in U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine: a verbal commitment to defend Ukraine from Russia followed by a failure to act. To isolate the effect of inconsistency, we compare these respondents to those who read about the same failure to act but received no prior commitment cue. Across all pre-registered outcomes, estimated effects are substantively small and statistically indistinguishable from zero. Exposure to inconsistency does not appear to shift Taiwanese attitudes toward foreign policy cooperation with the United States. These findings suggest limits to when foreign policy signals translate into policy-relevant opinion change across national contexts.
Citation
Tsai, Shu-An, Kelly Matush, and Yusaku Horiuchi. n.d. “U.S. Inconsistency and Foreign Public Opinion: An Experimental Test in Taiwan.” Working paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6896798