The Electoral Effects of a Diplomatic Stand-Off: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Using the "unexpected event during survey design" approach as an identification strategy, we look at the causal effect of the diplomatic stand-off between Turkey and the Netherlands which took place after a Turkish minister was prevented from campaigning for the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum in Rotterdam. We do so using online panel data collected during the course of the 2017 Dutch parliamentary election campaign which coincided with the events surrounding the stand-off. In particular we look at the effect on party leader evaluations, political attitudes and vote intentions, and perform a number of robustness checks aimed to address issues associated with causal inference and external validity.