Recent years have seen intensifying US coalition-building efforts among partners and allies to address common concerns about the People’s Republic of China. This has moved beyond classic military balancing in Asia to focus on the economic, technological and ideological dimensions of competition and rivalry with China, in the process bringing a different cluster of states ‒ particularly in Europe ‒ to the fore in US China strategy.

In this paper (co-authored with Meir Alkon, Fordham University) we develop and test the concept of ‘political demonstration effects’: the idea that information about a foreign country’s regime type and regime performance, whether positive or negative, may influence foreign publics’ attitudes towards democracy in general and support for democratic norms in their own country in particular.