Skip to main content

Why Summit Optics May Help De-escalate Public Appetite for Conflict

August 17, 2021
Max Plithides

Policy Brief

As competition between democracies and autocracies intensifies, will citizens of democracies pressure their politicians to take a more confrontational stance?

Download

In this policy brief, Max Plithides, Marvin Hoffenberg Research Fellow at the Center for American Politics and Public Policy at UC Los Angeles, argues that bilateral summits with autocratic leaders may help to defuse public pressure and anger. Analyzing results from a large-scale survey experiment, Plithides makes a case for the potential value of bilateral summits to reduce tensions with autocratic adversaries.

/