Discussant: Tao Lin, Ph.D. Student
“Triumphalism and the Inconvenient Truth: Correcting National Overconfidence in a Rising Power”
Abstract: Do people in a rising authoritarian power with pervasive propaganda and information control overestimate their country’s reputation, power, and influence in the world? Previous research on national overconfidence and grand self-imagery generally examines perceptions of hard power rather than soft power, and it focuses on the state or leadership level rather than the mass level. I show, with a survey conducted in 2020 and a pre- registered two-wave survey experiment in 2021, that the Chinese public overwhelmingly overestimates China’s global reputation and soft power relative to benchmark public opinion polls on China conducted around the world, even during a crisis. Importantly, informing Chinese citizens of China’s actual international image lowers their evaluations of the country and its governing system and moderates their expectations for its external success. These effects from simple information interventions are not fleeting, and they indicate that triumphalism and overconfidence can be meaningfully mitigated.