Democratic backsliding damages favorable US image among the global public

Abstract

US democracy appears to have weakened during the 21st century. Scholars have raised concerns that this democratic backsliding will reduce favorable views of the United States among foreign citizens in other democracies. In turn, observers predict that the eroded global image of the United States will undercut its ability to win foreign policy cooperation from international partners. We assess these views using three multinational survey experiments fielded in 12 countries with 11,810 respondents. The results show that information about US democratic backsliding indeed decreases respondents’ favorability toward the United States. However, in our exploratory analysis, we find little evidence that it decreases support for cooperating with the United States. While America’s global image may suffer from international reporting focused on the degradation of its longstanding democratic system, its ability to garner support for critical policies seems resilient in some important partner countries.