Seminar Series - 'From riot police to tweets: How world leaders use social media during contentious politics'

Here, we demonstrate its validity by examining two key explanations in the study of elite communication: the diversionary theory of foreign policy and the relationship between regime type and responsiveness to domestic publics. We test these hypotheses using a novel dataset that contains all social media posts (Facebook and Twitter) published by any head of state or government in all U.N.-member countries since 2012. We rely on a combination of automated translation, dictionary methods, and supervised machine learning to characterize leader rhetoric along a series of key dimensions. Our findings show that leaders try to divert attention from national crises, such as social unrest and a declining economy, by emphasizing foreign policy issues; and that the greater degree of accountability associated with democratic institutions creates incentives for leaders to be more responsive to domestic audiences.