Distract and Divert: How World Leaders Use Social Media During Contentious Politics

Abstract

How do leaders communicate during domestic crises? We provide the first global analysis of world leader communication on social media during social unrest. We develop a theory of leaders’ digital communication strategies, building on the diversionary theory of foreign policy, as well as research on the role of democratic institutions in explaining elite responsiveness. To test our theory, we construct a new dataset that characterizes leader communication through social media posts published by any head of state or government on Twitter or Facebook, employing a combination of automated translation and supervised machine learning methods. Our findings show that leaders increase their social media activity and shift the topic from domestic to foreign policy issues during moments of social unrest, which is consistent with a conscious strategy to divert public attention when their position could be at risk. These effects are larger in democracies and in particular in the run-up to elections, which we attribute to incentives created by democratic institutions. Our results demonstrate how social media provide meaningful comparative insight into leaders’ political behavior in the digital age.