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Which members of the mass public distinguish between great powers? Theories of soft power and international status often assume great-power competition for hearts and minds around the world. But how do citizens actually think about the world’s great powers? What structures their positive or negative views? Does great-power competition and rivalry translate into positive sentiment towards one camp and negative sentiment towards another? Are preferences among great powers moderated by political ideology, such as preferences for democracy? In this paper I use mixed models and global survey data to assess whether individuals tend to distinguish among rival great powers such that, for example, a person who has a positive view of China will tend to have a negative view of the United States. I also test an alternative hypothesis, that favorability towards one great power is strongly associated with favorability towards other great powers, regardless of their degree of rivalry or alignment in global economic and security affairs. I examine whether this is moderated by factors such as education and democratic values.

About the Speaker

Benjamin E. Goldsmith is a Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University. His research is in the areas of international relations, global public opinion, and atrocity forecasting. His articles have appeared in leading journals including American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Politics, Political Psychology, and World Politics. His research has been featured in popular media including The Economist, The New York Times, Scientific American, and The Washington Post (Monkey Cage). He has received several major research grants including an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. He is the founding President of the Australian Society for Quantitative Political Science, and a member of the executives of the Pacific International Politics Conference and the Asian Political Methodology meeting. He is an editor of the Japanese Journal of Political Science and on the editorial boards of International Relations of the Asia-Pacific and the Journal of East Asian Studies.