Replication Data for "Strategies of Contestation: International Law, Domestic Audiences, and Image Management"

Paper abstract: International relations scholars frequently argue that violations of international law generate political costs for governments. Yet we know little about whether governments can evade responsibility for non-compliance, which may be a low-salience issue for domestic audiences. We propose a theory of image management whereby leaders strategically contest international law violations to influence citizen perceptions of the leader or government. Drawing on communications scholarship, we disaggregate government image into four underlying dimensions: morality, performance, lawfulness, and allegiance. A government's response to violations is designed to influence the dimensions of image valued by their political coalition. We develop a typology of response strategies and test their effects in a survey experiment examining violations of the torture, trade, and chemical weapons regimes. Our results offer fresh insights for compliance scholarship. Governments can mitigate backlash and leverage allegations of non-compliance for political ends, but their strategies are constrained by the foreign policy preferences of supporters. Data information: CSV file is original survey data from a survey conducted via the Lucid platform in May 2020. R code replicates paper and appendix.