Does Public Diplomacy Sway Domestic Public Opinion? Presidential Travel Abroad and Approval at Home

Abstract

Political leaders travel abroad to attend bilateral and multilateral meetings, engage in public diplomacy, and send signals of commitment or deterrence. However, their incentive to use this foreign policy tool depends on how it is received domestically. We leverage a powerful dataset of daily surveys administered by Gallup during the Obama administration to examine whether U.S.  presidential trips abroad change domestic public approval. Specifically, we compare the presidential approval of 374,715 respondents interviewed just before or after each of Barack Obama's 51 diplomatic trips to 59 countries during his presidency. We find a small and short-term decrease in approval and increase in disapproval. We observe a similar pattern or no effect in more sparse monthly surveys available during the Bush, Trump, and Biden administrations.  Our results suggest that contrary to the common assumption made by scholars and practitioners, it is unlikely that presidents can leverage foreign travel for an immediate increase in a key indicator of their success---domestic public approval.

Keywords: public diplomacy, high-level visits, soft power, public opinion