Despite growing scholarly interest in international rankings, we know little on how the public perceives them. Do rankings bring citizens to favor compliance with international standards? Or do citizens simply dismiss the rankings? We examine these questions through the Israeli public’s response to the U.S. tier ranking of efforts against human trafficking. A survey experiment finds that Israel’s demotion from Tier 1 to Tier 2 leaves Israelis unfazed; a demotion to Tier 3 produces a surprising backlash effect, reducing Israelis’ support for anti-trafficking efforts. While this should have been a likely case for demonstrating the intended impact of rankings, we show that rankings might, in fact, meet a dismissive or defiant public response. This finding suggests caution in the assessment of international rankings’ domestic impact, and it carries implications for the design of rankings to reduce the risk of a backlash.

尽管学术界对国际排名越来越感兴趣，但我们对公众如何看待它们知之甚少。排名是否会让公民支持遵守国际标准？还是市民干脆不理会排名？我们通过以色列公众对美国打击人口贩运努力等级排名的反应来研究这些问题。一项调查实验发现，以色列从第 1 级降到第 2 级，以色列人并不担心；降级到 Tier 3 会产生令人惊讶的反弹效果，减少以色列人对打击人口贩运工作的支持。虽然这应该是证明排名预期影响的一个可能案例，但我们表明排名实际上可能会遇到不屑一顾或挑衅的公众反应。这一发现表明在评估国际排名的国内影响时要谨慎，并且它对排名的设计具有启示意义，以减少反弹的风险。