Is it the Message or the Messenger? Examining Movement in Immigration Beliefs

Hassan Afrouzi, Carolina Arteaga and Emily K. Weisburst

No 31385, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: How do political leaders affect constituents’ beliefs? Is it rhetoric, leader identity, or the interaction of the two that matters? Using a large-scale experiment we decompose the relative importance of partisan messages vs leader sources, in the context of beliefs about immigration. Participants listen to anti-immigrant and pro-immigrant speeches from both Presidents Obama and Trump. These treatments are benchmarked to versions of the speeches recorded by an actor to control for message content, and to non-ideological presidential speeches to control for leader priming. Our findings show that political leader sources influence beliefs beyond the content of their messages in a special case: when leaders deliver unanticipated messages to individuals in their own party. This evidence supports the hypothesis that individuals will “follow their leader” to new policy positions.

JEL-codes: C90 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-mig and nep-pol
Note: POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Hassan Afrouzi & Carolina Arteaga & Emily Weisburst, 2024. "Is It the Message or the Messenger? Examining Movement in Immigration Beliefs," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, vol 2(2), pages 244-297.

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