Structural Incentives for Politicians to Manipulate Domestic Opinions

<p dir="ltr">Why do democratically elected politicians increasingly employ false or biased information despite reputational risks? This dissertation argues that societal changes—including media fragmentation, rising affective polarization, and democratic decline—have lowered the reputational costs of manipulating domestic opinion. I develop a <i>Reputational Cost Theory of Disinformation</i> that integrates micro-level expected utility reasoning with macro-level societal and institutional drivers to explain shifting incentives for disinformation use.</p><p dir="ltr">The first empirical chapter tests the theory using Digital Society Project and Varieties of Democracy data from 84 democracies. Longitudinal regression analysis show that disinformation use is more prevalent in weaker democracies with fragmented media systems and higher levels of affective polarization. The second empirical chapter employs a vignette survey experiment in the United States (N = 4,207) to examine voter sanctions for disinformation. Results suggest that individuals with strong affective partisanship are less willing to penalize a co-partisan politician for using disinformation. Republican politicians face less punishment than Democrats, driven by stronger self-sanctioning among Democrats with strong partisan identity but moderate affective attachment. These findings point to a potential link between rising disinformation and affective polarization, while also revealing cross-partisan asymmetries that merit further investigation. Such asymmetries may help explain the disproportionate use of disinformation by right-leaning actors in the United States and worldwide.</p><p dir="ltr">The third empirical chapter draws on 29 semi-structured interviews with political elites in Sweden, Germany, and Czechia to explore mechanisms behind rising disinformation. Experts identify three perceived drivers of disinformation use: diminished risk of detection, reduced punishment upon exposure, and growing acceptability of falsehoods—developments attributed to technological change. They point to the digitalization of media and the public sphere as fostering more emotional and uncivil discourse online. This, in turn, heightens polarization and tolerance for falsehoods. External shocks—such as financial crises, migrant waves and pandemics—are cited as creating opportunities for the instrumental use of falsehoods and biased information. Weakening gatekeeping mechanisms and faster news cycles further reduce risks of detection, while some politicians have become more adept at manipulating facts without outright lying. Across all three countries, interviewees repeatedly note that far-right, anti-establishment/populist parties face lower voter sanctions for disinformation.</p><p dir="ltr">This dissertation fills a theoretical gap by examining political elites—an understudied yet pivotal actor in the disinformation landscape. This focus matters because the behavior of political representatives shapes the quality of the public sphere and democracy at large. The findings contribute to literatures on polarization, disinformation and democratic backsliding.<br></p>