Research
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Naima Green-Riley, Joshua D. Kertzer, Chryl Laird, and Julian Wamble, “Black and White Beyond the Water's Edge: Racial Gaps in Foreign Policy Preferences,” American Journal of Political Science, Forthcoming.
Historically, research on racial differences in American political attitudes has focused heavily on domestic politics. Recent work indicates that Black and White Americans often hold differing views on the use of force abroad and free trade; however, this article shows that racial gaps on international affairs are not confined to the realm of security or economics. Leveraging a unique dataset of 1,504 foreign policy questions from nearly 19,000 Americans surveyed from 1975–2018, we show that Black attitudes toward foreign policy are shaped by four political priorities: securing political rights and freedoms, skepticism about the exercise of state power, equitable access to resources, and empathy for marginalized groups. Racial gaps in foreign policy attitudes exist well beyond issues explored in previous scholarship, and they persist even controlling for partisan polarization. Citizens’ experiences with race shape the way they think about the world and America’s role in it.
Paper | Supplementary Material
Naima Green-Riley and Andrew Leber, “Whose War is it Anyway? Explaining the Black-White Gap in Support for the Use of Force Abroad,” Security Studies, 2023.
Building on long-standing work on a “gender gap” in war support, this article documents a recurring “race gap” in which Black Americans display less enthusiasm for war than their White counterparts. We compile time-series data on public opinion during the Iraq War collected from over fifty national polls and successive waves of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to assess potential explanations for the gap. We show that concerns about casualties best explain lower levels of support for war among Black Americans. Feelings of political alienation and preferences for domestic spending serve as more salient contributors to Black disapproval of war during the George W. Bush years. Meanwhile, having a family member in the military does not explain lower Black support for war. Black antiwar rhetoric suggests that our casualty sensitivity and alienation findings stem from linked fate attitudes and concerns about fairness and “just-ness” of the war effort among Black Americans.
Paper | Supplementary Material | Replication Files
Naima Green-Riley, Dominika Kruszewska-Eduardo, and Ze Fu, “Teargas and Selfie Cams: Foreign Protests and Media in the Digital Age,” Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2021.
This study explores the impact of repression of foreign protests and the media source reporting the news upon American foreign policy preferences for democracy promotion abroad. We use two survey experiments featuring carefully-edited video treatments to show that even short media clips presenting foreign protests as violently repressed increase American support for targeted sanctions against the hostile regime; however, these treatments alone do not inspire respondents to political action. Furthermore, we do not find evidence that mobile treatment magnifies the effects of violence.
Book Chapters
Naima Green-Riley, “What are the implications for the U.S. as China reshapes its overseas image?” The China Questions II, Harvard University Press, 2022.
Work In Progress
Naima Green-Riley, “How Perilous are Paper Fans? Public Diplomacy through Confucius Classrooms and Implications for Chinese Influence,” Working paper
Naima Green-Riley, ““Backlash to Budget Cuts: U.S. Foreign Aid Cancellation and Cooperation Preferences in Foreign Publics,” Working paper
Naima Green-Riley, “Beyond Nationalism: Psychological Authoritarianism and Chinese Public Attitudes on Foreign Policy,” Working paper
Naima Green-Riley, Joshua Kertzer, Pablo Barberá, Andrew Guess, Simon Munzert, and JungHwan Yang, “News from Afar: Foreign Media and U.S. Public Opinion,” Working paper