The literature on global performance indicators underscores the role of private global assessments in shaping policymakers’ decisions and evaluations of countries’ performance. Yet, the informational foundations of these measures have often been understudied. My dissertation fills this gap by studying the politics of knowledge dynamics of global democratic standards by focusing on the influential case of the Freedom House's (FH) Freedom in the World (FITW) report. I study the evaluative authority of assessments. I focus on testing competing claims about the role of state-led reports in shaping private democratic assessments. For this work, I examine Freedom House’s (FH) private democratic reports and empirically test their mutual influence with U.S.-led evaluations. Furthermore, I use mixed methods to assess the allocative authority of democratic assessments, analyzing whether they serve as benchmarks that shape foreign policy evaluations and decisions. My work draws on archival evidence to provide qualitative process observations identifying meaningful instances of use and reliance of FH indicators in specific DoS bureaus, U.S. agencies, and programs. Moreover, I rely on government reports, program data releases, and public information to build a dataset of U.S. foreign assistance programs, which I use to assess how FITW scores and categories affect eligibility and allocation in U.S. foreign assistance programs.
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(Second Dissertation paper)
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While emerging work has provided insights into how countries' preferences are being shaped by the rise of China, the foreign policy implications of the limited but progressive rise of semi-peripheral countries have been left mostly unexplored. In this paper, I examine how the rising performance of these countries is perceived by Americans. Also, I examine its implications for their foreign policy preferences towards them. I rely on evidence of global political and economic trends, public officials’ statements, and two online experiments to gauge the foreign policy implications of the political and economic rise of semi-peripheral democracies and autocracies. Results show that the political rise of countries, rather than the economic rise, triggers more negative reactions and stronger support for U.S. retaliatory action towards rising countries. Similarly, rising democratic states are given more leniency when compared with rising autocracies, with more support for retaliatory action to prevent their rise, mostly through economic and diplomatic means.
How do individuals react towards their incumbents when their states underperform in global metrics compared to their peers? I argue that given Europe's deep economic and social integration as well as economic malaise after 2008, relative economic performance considerations among European countries gained increased relevance to domestic populations. I claim that internationalist dispositions amplify international comparisons with key reference countries as benchmarks for Europeans to assess the performance of their governments and institutions. Internationalist dispositions amplify comparisons with key benchmark countries, influencing public satisfaction with governments. Relying on data from fifteen European countries (2002–2019), I find that individuals’ international orientations moderate the perception of economic performance gaps between European countries, negatively affecting Europeans' satisfaction with their governments.
Co-authored with Büşra Nur Karakoç and Stephen C. Nelson.
Do rhetorical frames used by politicians to deflect blame or to claim credit have any impact on public attitudes when economic times are tough? When consumer prices soar, the public’s confidence in the ability of semi-authoritarian governments to competently steer the economy should collapse. However, the causes and consequences of inflation are complex, and some people may be swayed by the incumbent government’s efforts to pin the blame for economic problems on misfortune (such as natural disasters and international commodity price shocks) and “bad” actors (such as domestic political opponents). A survey experiment reveals that when people are exposed to rhetorical frames that blame high inflation on international factors beyond the incumbent’s control, they are less likely to assign full responsibility for the economic problem to the government. This result shows that even during economic hardship, shaping individual perceptions of international conditions can have discernable implications for their governance evaluations.
2019. Regionalism and Democracy: A Review of Mercosur’s democratic clause, with Lucas Chiodi and Carla Gebetsberger, Debates Latinoamericanos, 17(35).
2019. The need to strengthen social cohesion and global governance dynamics, in The G20 Agenda at the Argentine and Japan Meetings. What to expect from South Arabia G20?, Konrad Adenauer Foundation-CARI: Buenos Aires.
2019, April 19. La Argentina y su relación con el mundo, Diagonales (Argentina).
2018. A vision about regional contribution to a more effective global governance: the case of the multilateral international trade system, with Félix Peña, Think 20 Communiqué - Global Solutions Journal.
2017, October 4. Argentina frente a un mundo cambiante, Diagonales (Argentina).
2016, August 26. Asia, primer objetivo para la política exterior argentina, with Gino Pauselli, La Nacion (Argentina).