How citizens update their preferences on foreign policy: experimental evidence on Western sanctions

Abstract

Abstract This study examines how citizens update their foreign policy preferences, focusing on the role of policy effectiveness in shaping support for economic sanctions. Economic sanctions often require sustained public support, which depends on perceptions of effectiveness. Using a two-stage experimental design, we investigate how individuals' preferences evolve when presented with information about effectiveness. We examine this updating behavior in “ordinary” times and in times of real-world foreign policy crisis. The study covers three major sanctioning countries—the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States—and four hypothetical scenarios. Our results suggest that citizens indeed update their preferences: effectiveness causes a moderate increase in support, while ineffectiveness causes a significant drop, showing clear negativity bias. For the U.S. sample, we repeated the experiment across four survey waves collected before and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a major real-world foreign policy crisis. We find that responsiveness to effectiveness information remained remarkably stable. This demonstrates that citizens update their policy preferences based on instrumental reasoning, showing great consistency across countries, scenarios, and even in times of crisis.