Replication Data for: The Contagion of Foreign Policy Convergence: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Chinese Leadership Visits

Previous research on the sources of foreign policy convergence has focused exclusively on changes at either the dyadic level, between sender and receiver countries, or monadic level of these states. Although such approaches are helpful to understand how states affect foreign policy change in other countries, they generally overlook the third source of foreign policy convergence, that is, the indirect impact of significant events in neighbouring countries. I investigate whether and how leadership visits—a major diplomatic phenomenon—affect foreign policy convergence within and beyond host countries. Specifically, I argue that leadership visits directly facilitate foreign policy convergence in host countries and indirectly produce favourable diffusion effects in their neighbourhood. I develop an original dataset that tracks the visits of high-level officials between China and its foreign counterparts from 1978 to 2014. The results from spatial panel models support my proposed direct and indirect effects whereby Chinese leadership visits are positively associated with foreign policy alignments with China​ in both host countries and their neighbours.

既往关于外交政策趋同成因的研究，仅聚焦于双边层面（出访国与到访国之间）或单国层面的变化。尽管此类研究有助于理解国家如何影响他国的外交政策变迁，但普遍忽略了外交政策趋同的第三类成因——即周边国家重大事件所产生的间接影响。本研究探讨作为重要外交现象的高层领导访问，是否以及如何影响东道国及其周边区域的外交政策趋同。具体而言，本文主张高层领导访问可直接推动东道国的外交政策趋同，并间接在其周边区域产生正向扩散效应。本研究构建了一套原创数据集，追踪1978年至2014年间中国与外方高层官员的互访情况。基于空间面板模型（spatial panel models）的实证结果验证了本文提出的直接与间接效应：中国高层领导访问与东道国及其周边国家对华外交政策的契合度呈显著正相关关系。