International Status Concerns and Domestic Support for Political Leaders

Abstract

We study how international status concerns among the public affect support for political leaders, arguing that because status competition is pervasive in social life and because international status competition entails high-profile displays of scientific or martial savvy, the public is likely to be attuned to the status implications of foreign policy crises. We test this argument in seven survey experiments across four issue areas. The results show that adverse outcomes in world affairs increase expectations of international status loss and, through that mechanism, reduce presidential approval. Analysis of open-ended survey responses reveals that the public views international status in much the same way that international relations scholars do: it is multidimensional, positional, and instrumentally useful. Taken together, our results suggest that the public's international status concerns have significant implications for leaders and offer new insight into how the public parses the implications of events abroad.