The International Balance of Power and Voting Behavior

At Oxford, I intend to investigate the relationship between major shifts in the international balance of power and the political life of democracies, particularly in terms of election outcomes. Previous research in this field has shown, for example, that major external impulses (e.g. the rise of a new superpower, or institutional changes within one) can cause reactions in other countries, including regime changes. The theory behind this is that political elites react to these shocks either through emulation (by reproducing a model that seems successful - e.g. the wave of democratization following the fall of the Soviet Union and the United States' being the only remaining world superpower) or through containment and repression of emulation (e.g. the reactions to the perceived threat of a Bolshevik revolution in many Western countries in the 1920-30s). My contention is that similar arguments could be made for voters in democracies: the effects of these international shocks should be visible in terms of election outcomes. For instance, one question that my research would aim to answer is whether we can partly explain the recent surge of nationalism and extremism in Western democracies with the re-emergence of Russia and China (neither of which is a liberal democracy) as superpowers and the progressive end of a unipolar, U.S.-led global order. Voters might see in authoritarianism a successful model to emulate (which might explain Vladimir Putin's popularity among many Western conservatives), and thus support extremist and nationalist parties. On the other hand, it is also reasonable to hypothesize an opposite reaction by members of the electorate who mobilize to counter the threat of authoritarianism and nationalism. Therefore, external shocks might cause quantifiable outcomes such as shifts in the average voter's ideology or an increase in polarization.