How do international laws affect citizens' willingness to accept refugees? In full and partial democracies, citizens' attitudes can influence national policy. A growing literature suggests that international institutions can influence citizens' attitudes on foreign policy issues, and therefore lead to policy change, but those studies are almost entirely confined to domestic human rights and U.S.‐based respondents; none consider refugee policy. Using data from a survey experiment administered in September 2017 via face‐to‐face interviews with 1,335 citizens of Turkey, we investigate how international norms affect citizens' willingness to accept refugees. Our findings are surprising: reminding people about the government's responsibility under the Refugee Convention to accept refugees triggers a backfire effect, decreasing support for accepting them. This effect appears driven by respondents who support the incumbent AKP Party and by lower‐educated respondents. We therefore provide evidence that international refugee law—and perhaps international institutions generally—can trigger a political backlash, undermining the very policies that they promote.

中文翻译：

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民族主义者对国际难民法的强烈反对：来自土耳其调查实验的证据

国际法如何影响公民接纳难民的意愿？在全部和部分民主国家中，公民的态度会影响国家政策。越来越多的文献表明，国际机构可以影响公民在外交政策问题上的态度，从而导致政策变化，但是这些研究几乎完全限于国内人权和美国的受访者。没有人考虑难民政策。我们使用2017年9月进行的一项调查实验的数据，通过与1,335名土耳其公民进行面对面访谈，我们研究了国际规范如何影响公民接纳难民的意愿。我们的发现令人惊讶：提醒人们政府根据《难民公约》承担的接受难民的责任会引发适得其反的后果，减少接受他们的支持。支持现任AKP派对的受访者和受教育程度较低的受访者可能会产生这种影响。因此，我们提供的证据表明，国际难民法乃至整个国际机构都可能引发政治反弹，破坏他们所倡导的政策。