Image featuring the Italian Political Science Review's logo with the text 'Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica' and '#OpenAccess' overlayed on a blue background.
#OpenAccess from @ipsr-risp.bsky.social -
Oppenheimer and public support for arms control negotiations - https://cup.org/4rn6WHf
- @tomwetienne.bsky.social & @profonderco.bsky.social
#FirstView
Find the paper here: cambridge.org/core/journals/italian-political-science-review-rivista-italiana-di-scienza-politica/article/oppenheimer-and-public-support-for-arms-control-negotiations/AC1F16280E120F37F1B936034EC62562
All code and data are also public.
Contradictory results? Our interpretation is that the film highlights the danger and power of #nuclearweapons, increasing support for managing them through negotiations without unilateral disarmament — consistent with the EU’s emphasis on #armscontrol over #disarmament
The pattern overwhelmingly holds in the universe analysis: strongest movement is on support for arms control. Meanwhile, the majority of our analyses on the other dimensions produce insignificant results.
We're well aware that causal interpretation from observational data is tenuous, especially given our many researcher degrees of freedom in these analyses. So we run a universe analysis mapping all analytic choices we made and the outcomes they produced.
A difference-in-differences analysis confirms these patterns.
Using IPW and PSM to correct for these biases, we find the film increased support for #armscontrol negotiations, but not for unilateral #disarmament, opposition to #nuclearproliferation, or opposition to #nuclearweapons use.
First, we show that younger respondents, men, and those with high education were more likely to see the movie.
We test their expectations using three approaches our data allow: propensity score matching, inverse probability weighting, and difference-in-differences.
Both the #armscontrol and #nucleardisarmament communities hoped the film would rekindle public debate about #nuclearweapons. Indeed, according to narrative persuasion theory, movies are prime vehicles to move attitudes.
Thanks to a happy accident, @profonderco.bsky.social and I collected two datasets on attitudes toward #nuclearweapons before and after the release of #Oppenheimer. This inadvertent design lets us test whether the film shifted attitudes toward #armscontrol and #nucleardisarmament. 🧵
Left vs Right is becoming personal 🔴🔵
New cross-national evidence by N. Lin, L.P. Santoso & R.T. Stevenson shows voters in Western democracies are developing emotional attachments to the Left and Right as social groups, but how will this impact voting?
To me, this is more about the impact of #ideology & #antiAmericanism on security than about #nuclearweapons per se.
It provides a backdrop for my dissertation research, which investigates the nature and consequences of US-based political identities abroad (outside of the US).
4. More generally, our study sheds light on how populism may impact alliances and international organisation with pooled or delegated sovereignty.
Take-aways:
1. #Populists are not inherently pro–nuclear weapons.
2. Their support hinges on who controls the weapons and against whom they are used.
3. These findings have implications for #NATO’s #deterrence posture
Only when the nuclear weapons are not framed as US-owned or used against Russia do we observe a populist affinity for nuclear weapons.
When nuclear weapons are framed as US-owned and used against Russia, populist support drops sharply, as predicted by our theory.
To directly test the common assumption that populists favour nuclear weapons, we experimentally vary both US ownership of the weapons and the target state.
In a population-based survey experiment in 🇳🇱, we show that populists' opposition to the nuclear sharing arrangement stems from the US ownership of these weapons.
Without priming the US, this negative relationship disappears, but is still not significantly positive.
We find that populists are indeed no more favourable to nuclear weapons.
We test this using original survey data from all five European nuclear-sharing states (🇧🇪 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇳🇱 🇹🇷)
+ a population-based survey experiment in the Netherlands.
We say that populist publics in Europe should therefore be less, not more, supportive of #nuclearsharing -- precisely because it constrains national #sovereignty and hands over control to the #US
They simultaneously display an affinity for #Putin's #Russia:
"European populists find in Russia not only an ally in their pursuit of authoritarian and anti-pluralist policies, but also the ideal counterpole for their anti-American and anti-establishment attitudes."
Populists harbour more #antiAmerican sentiment:
"As the hegemonic superpower, the United States is frequently seen as the epicenter of a global elite. [...] Anti-Americanism is often driven by opposition to US military dominance."
Importantly, power is delegated not to just any political establishment, but to the #USA & a US-led #NATO, whereas the weapons primary use is as a deterrent against #Russia.
"Populists may view the sharing arrangement as a foreign imposition by elites, leaving decisions about the use of these weapons in the hands of an international bureaucracy rather than the sovereign will of the people."
This is at odds with two core dimensions of #populism: anti-elitism & popular sovereignty
We argue that this expectation should not hold in European #NATO nuclear-sharing states. Under NATO #nuclearsharing, nuclear weapons stay under #US control, meaning sovereignty over powerful security decisions is effectively outsourced to Washington & NATO.
👋Announcing my arrival to Bluesky by sharing my newest paper in @isq-jrnl.bsky.social. Together with
@profonderco.bsky.social, @sdestradi.bsky.social, and Andre Krouwel, I test the common assumption that populists are inherently inclined to support #nuclearweapons
academic.oup.com/isq/article/...