Ambivalent Albion,Ambitious Ally: Britain's Decision for No Separate Peace in 1914

When Britain entered the First World War it did so as an especially hesitant belligerent. One month later, the British enthusiastically signed the Treaty of London, stating that the Entente powers would prosecute the war in common and that none would pursue a separate peace. Why would a state long known for jealously guarding its ability to maintain a free hand initiate a binding alliance that restricted its war termination prospects after one month of combat? And what were the effects of its decision to do so? Answering this question requires not only that we examine British decision making but that we understand No Separate Peace Agreements and why states sign them. I hypothesize that a state will initiate a No Separate Peace Agreement when it has reason to fear that one of its cobelligerents may defect. I also hypothesize that No Separate Peace Agreements will cause states to reconcile war aims with their allies, agreeing to different terms of peace than might have been necessary to satisfy any one of them individually. Using new archival documents, I analyze a case study of British decision making in the early weeks of World War I and find substantial support for the hypotheses.     

De Facto States in International Politics (1945–2011): A New Data Set

Sovereign states remain the primary units of analysis in conflict research. Yet, the empirical record suggests that the international system includes a wider range of actors whose behavior is relevant for conflict outcomes. This article introduces De Facto States in International Politics (1945–2011), a new data set dedicated to understanding the behavior of de facto states—separatist statelike entities such as Abkhazia. I begin by explaining why de facto states deserve attention. Further, I provide a definition of the de facto state that separates it from cognate phenomena. Thereafter, I offer an overview of the data set and illustrate its utility by demonstrating how it contributes to the literatures on war and state making, civil war, and rebel governance.     

Negotiating Military Alliances: Legal Systems and Alliance Formation

Do domestic legal systems affect states' propensity to form military alliances? This article, building upon the existing research in international relations, adopts a socio-legal approach to understanding international treaty making. By focusing on the essence of international negotiations—communication between states' representatives—I argue that negotiating parties who share a common legal language have a common a priori understanding concerning concepts under discussion. Domestic laws operating within states impact the process of creation of international law embodied in treaties. Empirical analyses show that states with similar legal systems are more likely to form military alliances with one another. Additionally, domestic legal systems influence the way that states design their alliance commitments. In general, my findings suggest that the influence of domestic laws does not stop at “the water's edge.” It permeates the interstate borders and impacts the relations between states, especially the treaty negotiating and drafting process. International negotiators bring their legal backgrounds to the negotiating table, which influences both their willingness to sign treaties and the design of the resulting agreements.     

Transnationalizing democracy promotion: The role of Western political foundations and think‐tanks

Promoting democracy has developed into a common activity performed by a variety of actors in the post‐cold war world. While it is states and international institutions that receive most of the attention devoted to this increasingly important issue‐area, other non‐state actors also engage in democracy promotion. This article examines the activities of two such actors: political foundations ‐ quasi‐governmental organizations established in a number of advanced states ‐ and think‐tanks ‐ private institutions traditionally engaged in research and policy advocacy. It argues that the role and impact of these actors deepen the transnationalization of democracy promotion, which has important consequences for the international politics of democratization and international relations more generally.     

Threats at Home,Threats Abroad: Bargaining and War in the Shadow of Coups and Revolutions

I analyze a two-level game in which a leader bargains over the spoils of international bargaining with a domestic opposition that can threaten her with a coup or revolution. While fighting an international war shrinks the domestic pie, it also alters the distribution of domestic power. This has three main implications. First, if war will undermine the opposition, fighting may be so attractive that leaders demand more for peace than foreign states are willing to give, leading to war. Second, if war will bolster the opposition, leaders accept harsh terms to avoid fighting—strategic selection that has implications for the observed relationship between war and political survival. Finally, prospective shifts in the distribution of domestic power caused by war can reduce the effects of international asymmetric information, though the result may be to increase or decrease the chances of war.     

Political competition and foreign policy power sharing

In this essay I examine the intersection of domestic and international politics in the formation and conduct of foreign policy. 1 develop a three‐actor model that allows us to specify the incentives for power sharing under different assumptions about the distribution of preferences and capabilities between a government, a domestic opposition, and a foreign state. The model generates several interesting hypotheses about the interaction of policy goals and the willingness of actors to share power. In particular, I show that under certain conditions there are important asymmetries whereby doves may be more willing to share power than hawks. Importantly, this willingness is endogenous to the model and comes from the alignment of preferences in the policy space, rather than from an a priori value for the democratization of foreign policy making. The model also suggests several hypotheses about the circumstances under which states have incentives to meddle in the foreign policy processes of other states.     

What wars and ‘war bodies’ know about international relations

What happens when the ‘international’ as a distinct social space is approached from the perspective of war rather than war from the perspective of the ‘international’? Tarak Barkawi's question (Millennium, 39:3, 2011, 701–706) is best answered by attempts to understand war not as part of inter/intra-state relations but as a socio-cultural, trans-historical institution that impacts on the ‘everyday’ lives of men, women and children. In this article I argue that war is not a disruption of the ‘everyday’, an abstraction that has a definite beginning and end, something we enter into and exit. Instead, it can be captured in daily and mundane lived experiences of people and in powerful emotions that constitute ‘self’, community and the ‘other.’ Drawing upon my research on wars in South Asia, I particularly reflect on how war shapes the banal and the fervent and how cultural and political narratives of ‘war bodies’ perform the ‘international’ in a variety of ways. Most significantly I want to draw attention to how international relations as a scholarly discipline is so deeply engaged with war and yet seems to have an estranged relationship with it.     

The Dearth of Jointly Dyadic Democratic Interventions

The Democratic Peace Proposition, which states that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other, has been questioned by scholars who claim that such pacific behavior among free states does not apply to lower forms of conflict. In particular, Kegley and Hermann contend that democracies intervene in the affairs of other liberal states via overt military acts or covert machinations. In many cases, they argue that dyadic democratic interventions (DDIs) occur more frequently than would be expected given the number of jointly democratic dyads in the international system. I examine their research design and suggest changes to their concepts of states, interventions, and regime type, as well as their sample size and definition of dyads in the international system. I implement these changes and retest such arguments on a sample of interventions from 1945 to 1991. I find 11 cases where a democracy intervenes against another democracy, but these cases are rare in comparison to interventions conducted by democratic and/or autocratic states in undemocratic states, or by autocratic states against democratic states. Furthermore, these DDIs are less likely to occur than the presence of democracy in the international system would suggest.     

Promotion of democracy as a foreign policy instrument of ‘Europe’: Limits to international idealism

The promotion of democracy abroad was a much published issue in ‘European’ foreign policy during the 1990s. Based on five case studies, this article argues that the policy had very clear limitations to it. The limits were mainly imposed by the high priority given to security, and secondly they were the result of the institutional structure and the political‐bureaucratic culture of the European Community. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the policy declarations on democracy were not important to the European Community/European Union and to the member states. The issue was definitely important, but that was because it served other purposes. First, the promotion of democracy abroad was conceived as one among a number of instruments promoting European security in the post‐cold war era. Secondly, promotion of democracy internationally contributed to the higher profile in world affairs that Europe had sought since 1958. And thirdly, this international profile might have pushed the integration process forward within Europe.     

Power, sovereignty, and the great republic: Anglo-American diplomatic relations in the era of the Civil War

Historians have tended to view the American Civil War (1861-65) as a milestone in Anglo-American relations. It marked the transfer of dominance from Great Britain to the United States in the Western Hemisphere. As Great Britain backed the losing side overwhelming American power brought about a British withdrawal. This article argues that this is a very oversimplified interpretation of their relations in this period. Britain did not intervene in the Civil War because it was not good policy; throughout the British relied on deterrence because, save for the war years, American power could not be translated into military power. The British secured most of their policy objectives thanks to a combination of prudent and conciliatory conduct, and a desire to avoid war, but also due to calm resolution that belied belligerent and sometimes outlandish public statements. British leaders have often been criticized for hypocrisy and double standards, but such criticisms seem unfair. Their belief that the Civil War was futile resulted from a humanitarian desire to halt the killing. It should be remembered that although the nineteenth century witnessed many local conflicts, great wars seem to have disappeared. It therefore appeared to be a laudable objective to attempt to arbitrate in what turned out to be the greatest war after 1815. It is also important to recall that Europeans were less interested in this conflict than the Americans themselves, and that preoccupation with affairs closer to home led to hasty and erroneous judgements.     

International terrorism? Indian popular cinema and the politics of terror

The first decade of the twenty-first century has been marked by the decisive entry into our media landscape of the so-called global war on terror, with countless films and TV series from all over the world addressing the issue of international terrorism. Even Indian popular cinema, which has been addressing the issue of domestic terrorism since the late 1980s with films such as Roja (Ratnam, 1992), Drohkaal (Nihalani, 1994), Maachis (Gulzar, 1996), has, since the new millennium, begun to tackle the topic of international terrorism. In this article, I will analyse the shift in the construction of the terrorist discourse in Indian popular cinema from a domestic to an international perspective in order to highlight the close proximity between the two, as in fact, the “global war on terror” narrative seems to offer Indian filmmakers the possibility to simultaneously address international and domestic terrorism. In particular, I will refer to Karan Johar’s film My Name Is Khan as a text which, while discussing the consequences of the American war on terror on its minorities, problematises the official discourse on terrorism and its neo-Orientalist character. It also draws a parallel between the situation of minorities in the United States and India. In so doing, the film triggers a reflection on the state of the Indian nation and questions the state of the secularist values of newly independent India after decades of communal violence.     

Promoting trade through private law: Explaining international legal harmonization

A large body of research examines states’ efforts to increase international trade through public law, that is, by forming preferential trade agreements (PTAs) that lower governmental barriers to trade. Scholars, however, have overlooked another mechanism through which states seek to facilitate trade: international harmonization of private law. Underlying legal harmonization is the assumption that cross-national variation of commercial law impedes trade; by contrast, similarity of laws across countries encourages trade by reducing uncertainty and transaction costs. I argue that the harmonization of private law acts as a substitute for the public-law channel of stimulating trade: countries with limited PTA partnerships make up for this deficiency by joining initiatives for private-law harmonization. This argument is tested by analyzing the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods-one of the primary instruments of legal harmonization. Indeed, countries that are party to shallow PTAs or have few PTA partners are more likely to ratify this private-law convention. Overall, this article urges scholars of trade and international law to broaden their research agenda to include private law.     

The New Law of War: Legitimizing Hi–Tech and Infrastructural Violence

This article examines how humanitarian laws of war have been recast in light of a new generation of hi–tech weapons and innovations in strategic theory. Far from falling into disuse, humanitarian law is invoked more frequently than ever to confer legitimacy on military action. New legal interpretations, diminished ad bellum rules, and an expansive view of military necessity are coalescing in a regime of legal warfare that licenses hi–tech states to launch wars as long as their conduct is deemed just. The ascendance of technical legalism has undercut customary restraints on the use of armed force and has opened a legal chasm between technological haves and have–nots. Most striking is the use of legal language to justify the erosion of distinctions between soldiers and civilians and to legitimize collateral damage. Hi–tech warfare has dramatically curbed immediate civilian casualties, yet the law sanctions infrastructural campaigns that harm long–term public health and human rights in ways that are now clear.     

Preemption in the Bush Doctrine: A Reappraisal

This article argues that the elevation of preemption to a cardinal status in the Bush Doctrine following September 11, 2001 resulted from a larger strategic consideration—to convince rogue states to discontinue their weapons of mass destruction programs and their sponsorship of terrorism. Dismantling the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq as a demonstration of preemptive action was seen as necessary to ensure the forceful and credible conveyance of this message to other rogue states, especially Iran and North Korea. I call this strategic logic behind publicizing preemption, "demonstrative compellence." Because the logic of preemption in the Bush Doctrine relied heavily on the Iraq war and its demonstrative force, it has little relevance to the future conduct of U.S. foreign policy and should not be described as revolutionary.     

Radicalism of the Hopeless: Refugee Flows and Transnational Terrorism

We examine whether refugee flows increase transnational terrorism in states to which refugees flee. Recent studies find that refugee flows contribute to the spread of interstate and civil war, but to a far lesser extent have studies examined how refugee flows could lead to other forms of political violence. We discuss two ways in which refugee flows can lead to transnational terrorism: how conditions in camps contribute to the radicalization of refugees; and how poorly host states treat refugees. We then conduct empirical tests using data on worldwide international refugee flows and transnational terrorism. Specifically, we model the effect of refugee flows on transnational terror attacks within a directed dyad framework to account for characteristics of origin and host states. Using a rare-events logit model, along with count models to check robustness, we find that refugee flows significantly increase the likelihood and counts of transnational terrorist attacks that occur in the host country, even when controlling for other variables. Given the prominence of refugee flows and populations worldwide, the results suggest that states with significant refugee populations and the international community at large should take measures to address the conditions in refugee camps, as well as the treatment of refugees by host states in order to prevent transnational terrorism.     

Italian foreign policy in the post-cold war period: a neoclassical realist approach

Abstract

Drawing on a neoclassical realist approach, this article analyses the foreign policy conduct of different Italian governments from 1994 to 2008. Pressured by the post-cold war international system, these governments have been compelled to raise Italy's profile within the international system. However, the way in which successive governments have responded has differed markedly. By looking at variables located at the domestic level – elite perceptions of the distribution of power and government instability – it is possible to explain these differences. Neo-classical realism is seen as an advance on Waltzian neo-realism precisely because it allows room for domestic as well as international (or systemic) variables, and because it has a very specific focus on foreign policy as such.     

Electoral Reforms and Peace Duration Following Negotiated Settlements

One of the most common features found within peace agreements is provisions that call for post-civil war elections. Unfortunately, the initial post-war elections often increase the risk of civil war recurrence. While past research has consistently confirmed this finding, it focuses only on one element of the democracy. Rather than focusing solely on elections, this article examines the laws surrounding the electoral process. Specifically, I examine how changes in electoral laws that are called for in peace agreements impacts the risk of renewed civil war. Building on research that examines the context of post-civil war elections, I argue that reforms to electoral laws that precede the initial post-war election substantially reduce the risks associated with that election. This proposition is supported with evidence from survival models of peace failures following the establishment of comprehensive peace agreements from 1989 to 2010, demonstrating that electoral reforms reduce the risk of civil war recurrence.     

European and Asian responses to the US-led ‘war on terror’

This article seeks to establish a context for the other contributions to this special issue. Using the lens of strategic culture, the article tries to explore how states from Europe and Asia have responded to the US-led ‘war on terror’. It argues that the nature of the threat from international terrorism requires states in Europe and Asia to develop a range of external and internal policy responses. Europe has been able to react to this changing strategic environment more successfully because of the pre-existing pattern of interstate cooperation as well as the organizational framework of the European Union. The United States has been more successful in imposing its counterterrorism priorities upon particular Asian states due to the absence of mature frameworks for international cooperation within the region.     

Rationalist state,revolutionist EU and realist war: Austria in international society

This article examines Austria's position as a small, neutral state in the international society as framed by the English School. This examination is chiefly done in the face of the effects of great power conflicts and their impact on Western Europe's society of states. In doing so, the article provides insights to the fundamental puzzles concerning the ways power is managed between states, great and small alike. The article surveys how war (such as in South Ossetia in 2008) and war-like incidents affected Austria's position in the international society and the understanding of its place in great power conflicts between East and West. I argue that neutrality, despite European integration in the context of a peaceful international society, remains a political option for small states such as Austria. This option is especially lively if there is a domestic sentimental attachment to it and sticking to it does not undermine domestic or European and international foreign policy rationale and interests.     

The Power of the Chair: Formal Leadership in International Cooperation

This article addresses the influence wielded by the formal leaders of international cooperation—those state or supranational representatives that chair and direct negotiations in the major decision bodies of multilateral organizations and conferences. This is a topic that so far has received limited systematic attention by IR theorists, who have tended to treat bargaining parties as functionally and formally equivalent, leaving little theoretical space for formal leadership. Drawing on rational choice institutionalism, I introduce a theory that develops a coherent argument for the delegation of authority to the chairmanship, the power resources of negotiation chairs, and the influence of formal leaders over outcomes. I assess the explanatory power of this theory through evidence on formal leadership in three alternative organizational settings: the European Union, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations environmental conferences. I find in favor of the chairmanship as a source of independent influence in international cooperation. Formal leaders perform functions of agenda management, brokerage, and representation that make it more likely for negotiations to succeed, and possess privileged resources that may enable them to steer negotiations toward the agreements they most prefer.