Research

I study the impact of public opinion on counterinsurgency tactics. Specifically, I examine government efforts to avoid public backlash for counterinsurgency efforts both abroad and at home. In a secondary agenda, I study the interaction between domestic politics and foreign policy, emphasizing the role of domestic politics in foreign policy making.

Working Papers

• Pave the Way to Diversion: Increased Saliency of Foreign Policy at the Times of Economic Hardships. (with Efe Tokdemir).
  • Abstract:

    Most studies in diversionary use of force literature focus on drivers (e.g., economic crisis, presidential approvals) and target selection (e.g., rivals, human rights abusers, etc.), yet treat the public as passive followers of politics, who are ready to consume with whatever they are fed. This paper strongly challenges the ``passive audience'' assumption and theorizes about the preconditions of diversionary use of force by building a bridge between the motivations and actions to divert. We argue that when leaders have incentives to resort to the use of force abroad for diversionary purposes, they first need to increase the salience of foreign policy issues in the public sphere to pave the ground for the public to take the bait. We test this argument in the context of the US, using a mediation model between economic difficulties and the use of force abroad through increased salience of foreign policy issues by collecting presidential speeches from 1945 to 2019. Our findings show that leaders do not treat the public as passive consumers, but attempt to shape their predispositions first to have them convinced about the policy. In so doing, our paper contributes to the diversionary use of force literature in both theoretical and empirical ends: we do not only advance the theoretical mechanism by arguing that leaders also need to prepare the public for their strategy, but also provide a more accurate test by adopting a mediation model instead of a moderation one in testing the novel theoretical mechanism.

Work in Progress

• Counterinsurgency Calculus: Unraveling Curfew Strategies in Conflict-Ridden Territories.

• Framing Extremist Domestic Terrorism and Public Support for Counterterrorism. pre-analysis plan

• Allies in Action: Public Support for Counterinsurgency through Collaboration. pre-analysis plan

• Foreign Meddling by Adverse Side-Taking. (with Eddy Yeung).