Date:
Location:
Speaker
Andrew O’Donohue, "The Court of Public Opinion: How Competing Rhetoric about Trump's Prosecution Affects Political Attitudes"
Abstract
Prosecutions of political leaders may have double-edged effects on public opinion. While legal interventions may turn public opinion against law-breaking politicians, prosecutions may also increase support for the accused leader and encourage his supporters to seek retaliation. Crucially, political elites seek to persuade citizens with competing framings of political prosecutions. Whereas legal officials defend prosecutions as democratic accountability, accused political leaders routinely denounce prosecutions as anti-democratic. To understand the effectiveness of legal versus partisan messaging, we conducted a survey experiment with 3,000 self-identified Republicans and independents regarding the federal criminal prosecution of Donald Trump. The survey randomly assigned respondents to view a video of the prosecutor defending the legitimacy of the prosecution, a video of Trump denouncing the prosecution, or a placebo video. This research yields three core findings. First, contrary to existing theories about democratic norm violations and our own pre-registered hypotheses, we find little evidence that competing messaging about Trump's prosecution causes an overall increase in affective polarization or support for violating democratic norms. Second, we find that legal messaging from the prosecutor increases respondents' perceptions of the prosecution as apolitical and consistent with democratic norms; among independents, legal messaging also decreases intention of voting for Trump. Finally, however, the prosecutor suffers a "shoot the messenger" effect: exposure to legal messaging dramatically reduces favorability toward the prosecutor, especially among Trump supporters. Our research thus illuminates a tradeoff: While greater public engagement by prosecutors may increase public support for Trump's prosecution, prosecutors themselves risk becoming disliked, polarizing figures.
The American Politics Research Workshop (Gov 3004) meets all academic year, Tuesdays, 12:00 - 2:00 PM, in CGIS K354. This workshop presents an opportunity for graduate students and Harvard faculty to present and receive feedback on their current research. The workshop highlights key theoretical and empirical findings from Harvard affiliates on topics related to American politics.
All interested Harvard affiliates are invited to attend.