How foreign information campaigns shape US public pronouncements about civil wars
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221095887 |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
How foreign information campaigns shape
US public pronouncements about civil wars
Benjamin T Jones
Department of Political Science, University of Mississippi
Eleonora Mattiacci
Department of Political Science, Amherst College
Abstract
Governments involved in civil wars often seek to shape foreign perceptions of the conflict and of the government’s
role in the conflict. To this end, for example, many such governments have engaged in public diplomacy campaigns
(PDCs) in the United States since the end of the Cold War. Specifically, these governments have hired US public
relations (PR) and lobbying firms to present favorable narratives of themselves and their role in the conflict. Through
PDCs, governments seek to shape US public pronouncements about the governments and the conflict itself. Are
PDCs effective tools to reach this goal? We argue that the effect of PDCs is divergent. PDCs help mobilize both
supporters and opponents of the sponsoring governments. In so doing, PDCs increase both positive and negative
public statements from US officials toward the civil war government. We compile data on PDCs in the United States
since the end of the Cold War. Our results have implications for research on foreign influence in foreign policy,
combatants’ moral hazard, and international norms about combatant behavior. Moreover, in order to gauge the
influence of foreign actors on domestic narratives of civil wars, it is crucial to consider how such foreign actors can
indirectly shape the discourse around conflict by mobilizing domestic factions.
Keywords
civil war, foreign intervention, matching, moral hazard, naming and shaming, public diplomacy, public statements,
third-party support signaling
The post-Cold War era has seen a dramatic rise in the
incidence of civil conflicts. Thus, civil wars have increas-
ingly garnered the attention of foreign publics and elites,
with the role that civil war governments play in the
conflict becoming more and more subject to interna-
tional scrutiny.
1
As a consequence, narratives tend to
form abroad regarding the events in an ongoing civil war,
attributing blame or praise to the warring parties and, at
times, advocating for different degrees of involvement in
the conflict. In the hopes of steering such narratives in a
favorable direction, or, at minimum, of preventing more
hostile narratives from taking root, civil war governments
have sought to shape them. Influencing the narratives in
this fashion is appealing to governments hoping to
increase the odds of winning support from outside actors
or preventing their enemies from gaining such support.
For instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo has
been involved in several long-running civil conflicts and
has faced mounting international criticism, including
from the United States, for human rights abuses and
concerns about an upcoming election (Wembi, 2019).
In response to these challenges, the government hired a
Corresponding author:
emattiacci@amherst.edu
1
For instance, with the diffusion of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’
(R2P) principle since the end of the Cold War, countries have faced
pressure to oppose governments jud ged as illegitimate because of
their failure to guarantee the safety of their population (Evans &
Sahnoun, 2002).
Journal of Peace Research
2023, Vol. 60(5) 839–852
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433221095887
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