Elite cues and noncompliance

Dickson, Zachary and Hobolt, Sara (2024) Elite cues and noncompliance. American Political Science Review. ISSN 1537-5943

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Abstract

Political leaders increasingly use social media to speak directly to voters, but the extent to which elite cues shape offline political behavior remains unclear. In this article, we study the effects of elite cues on noncompliant behavior, focusing on a series of controversial tweets sent by US President Donald Trump calling for the “liberation” of Minnesota, Virginia, and Michigan from state and local government COVID-19 restrictions. Leveraging the fact that Trump’s messages exclusively referred to three specific US states, we adopt a generalized difference-in-differences design relying on spatial variation to identify the causal effects of the targeted cues. Our analysis shows that the President’s messages led to an increase in movement, a decrease in adherence to stay-at-home restrictions, and an increase in arrests of white Americans for crimes related to civil disobedience and rebellion. These findings demonstrate the consequences of elite cues in polarized environments.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-p...
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Methodology Government
Subjects:	J Political Science > JC Political theory H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Date Deposited:	16 Aug 2024 10:52
Last Modified:	16 Aug 2024 18:09
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/124577

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