Power Play: Mediation in Symmetric and Asymmetric International Crises

This study engages with the question: Do different types of natural disasters—droughts, earthquakes, floods, storms, and others—trigger political instability? It revisits an ongoing debate over the nature of association between disasters and conflict and reassesses this relationship using the model of conflict developed by the Political Instability Task Force as well as its data, measures of political instability, and methods of assessment. The study finds only marginal support for the impact of certain types of disasters on the onsets of political instability. The preexisting country-specific conditions, including the resilience of a state's institutions to crisis, account for most of the variance in the dependent variable. Once the characteristics of a state's political regime are taken into account, the effect of disasters weakens or disappears completely, suggesting that natural disasters become catalysts of political instability in only those states which are already prone to conflict.     

Credibility and Flexibility: Political Institutions,Governance, and Foreign Direct Investment

This article argues that the relationship between political institutions and foreign direct investment is both nonlinear and conditional upon status quo policies. The empirical analysis demonstrates an inverted U-shaped relationship between political institutions and foreign direct investment in developing countries, with four veto players being the most attractive institutional arrangement. Countries with too few or too many veto players are not favored because of either high policy uncertainty or high policy rigidity. In addition, the benefits and costs of credibility and flexibility vary in good times and hard times. The benefits of maintaining status quo tend to outweigh the costs in countries with good initial regulatory environment. The costs of maintaining status quo tend to outweigh the benefits when countries are more vulnerable to exogenous shocks.     

Explaining the number of rebel groups in civil wars

Why do multiple rebel groups form in some civil wars but not others? Since 1946, only half of all civil wars were fought by a single rebel group; the rest were fought by multiple groups. This article argues that this variation is determined by the incentives political entrepreneurs have to enter a war. The higher the demand for political change and the lower the costs of fighting, the more incentives entrepreneurs have to form their own group. Analyzing UCDP data for all civil wars between 1946 and 2015 I find that the two measures of demand – the number of identifiable ethnic or religious groups in a country and the size of the disgruntled population – have the most consistent effects, but that key measures of costs such as the size of the government military also matter. A detailed analysis of the Ethiopian case further reveals the influence of external intervention on the formation of rebel groups. These results suggest that rebel groups emerge in civil wars in rational, predictable ways related to the ease by which rebel elites can mobilize separate groups for fighting.     

Winners,Losers, and the Press: The Relationship Between Political Parallelism and the Legitimacy Gap

Recent work has explored how individual and institutional factors affect the gap in perceptions of political legitimacy between electoral winners and electoral losers, but has ignored the role that the political information environment, in general, and ideologically biased media, in particular, plays in exacerbating or diminishing this gap. By combining individual-level public opinion data in 28 countries, an expert survey on media systems, and a variety of country-level indicators, I find that higher levels of political parallelism in a country are associated with a larger winner-loser gap in institutional trust and satisfaction with democracy. The relationship is contingent on whether or not people are actually exposed to said media. This research, which links the study of political communication with the study of comparative political behavior, indicates that the increasing availability of partisan news around the world is a cause for concern.     

Targeted Sanctions in a World of Global Finance

This is the golden age of economic statecraft—and the study of economic statecraft. This is in large part due to the evolution of economic coercion from trade embargoes to targeted financial sanctions. Targeted financial sanctions are attractive because they can generate economic costs similar to those of more comprehensive sanctions, with fewer negative externalities. Over time, however, the intersection of economic sanctions with globalized capital markets will provoke three interesting research questions. First, do financial sanctions spare a target country’s population from negative humanitarian and human rights outcomes? Second, to what extent are financial sanctions an exercise in learning by both targets and senders? Third, will the United States’ use of financial sanctions trigger blowback against US primacy in the international financial system? These last two questions offer the prospect to linking research on economic statecraft with larger questions of international security and global political economy.     

Political Context and the Consequences of Naming and Shaming for Human Rights Abuse

Does being named and shamed for human rights abuse influence the amount of foreign aid received by the shamed state? Recent research suggests that the impact of public censure may depend on the political relationship between donor and recipient. We argue that donors deriving a direct political benefit from the aid relationship (such as a military advantage or the satisfaction of a domestic political audience) will ignore or work against condemnation, but donors with little political interest in the recipient (who give aid for symbolic or humanitarian reasons) will punish condemned states. We also argue that the size of prior aid packages can be used as a holistic measure of the donor’s political interest in the aid relationship because mutually beneficial aid packages are subject to a bargaining process that favors recipients with more to offer. We find that condemnation for human rights abuse by the United Nations is associated with lower bilateral aid levels among states that previously received small aid package, and with equal or higher bilateral aid to states already receiving a great deal of aid. The source of shaming also matters: We find that public shaming by human rights NGOs is not associated with decreased aggregate bilateral aid.     

The cost of complying with human rights treaties: The convention on the rights of the child and basic immunization

The determinants of compliance with human rights treaties likely vary according to the right in question, yet heterogeneity in the pathways through which ratification affects various human rights outcomes has received limited attention. This paper first develops an account of treaty compliance that incorporates the intrinsic benefits to the state of compliance, regime costs associated with certain rights, the political costs that NGOs, judges, and others are able to impose for non-compliance, and the fiscal and economic costs of compliance. The paper argues that for child survival rights, fiscal and economic costs are likely to be dispositive, and that as a result richer countries are more likely to comply. The paper then uses an instrumental variable approach to investigate whether ratification of the Convention of the Rights of the Child was associated with stronger effort at the country level on child survival rights. It finds that ratification of the CRC was correlated with a subsequent increase in immunization rates, but only in upper middle and high income countries.     

Can I stay a BIT longer? The effect of bilateral investment treaties on political survival

Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) have proliferated throughout the international system. While ostensibly commercial in purpose, do BITs have domestic political ramifications? I argue that BITs affect a leader’s tenure through their effect on the property rights environment in developing countries. BITs, by segmenting a country’s property rights environment for foreign and domestic firms, reduce the incentive for foreign firms to lobby for property rights protections in the host country thus leading to a stagnating domestic property rights environment. In autocracies, a stagnating domestic property rights regime benefits domestic business elites who can continue to stymie small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The political benefits of BITs, however, decrease as a country becomes more democratic. Using a dataset of developing country leaders over the period 1965-2011, I find support for my hypothesis that BITs are associated with a decreased hazard of losing office and that the effect diminishes with higher levels of democracy. My results highlight the consequences of the legalization of global investment on the domestic political economy.     

Fuel to the Fire: Natural Disasters and the Duration of Civil Conflict

Do natural disasters prolong civil conflict? Or are disasters more likely to encourage peace as hostilities diminish when confronting shared hardship or as shifts in the balance of power between insurgents and the state hasten cessation? To address these questions, this study performs an event history analysis of disasters’ impact on the duration of 224 armed intrastate conflicts occurring in 86 states between 1946 and 2005. I contend that natural disasters increase conflict duration by decreasing the state’s capacity to suppress insurgency, while reinforcing insurgent groups’ ability to evade capture and avoid defeat. First, disasters’ economic impact coupled with state financial outlays for disaster relief and reconstruction, reduce resources available for counterinsurgency and nation building in conflict zones. Second, the military’s role in administering humanitarian assistance can reduce the availability of troops and military hardware for counterinsurgency, prompt temporary ceasefires with insurgents, or both. Third, natural disasters can cause infrastructural damages that disproportionately hinder the state’s capacity to execute counterinsurgency missions, thereby making insurgent forces more difficult to capture and overcome. The combination of these dynamics should encourage longer conflicts in states with higher incidence of disaster. Empirical evidence strongly supports this contention, indicating that states with greater disaster vulnerability fight longer wars.     

“The United States Stands Ready to Be of Assistance”: On the Politics and Humanitarianism of Natural Disaster

This article asks how American understandings of foreign natural disaster have evolved over time. Are the political and humanitarian concerns surrounding disaster and disaster aid radically different now from what they were a century ago? Through an analysis of presidential statements and major newspaper editorials following foreign natural disaster, I find that there has indeed been significant change. Notions of post-disaster humanitarianism have broadened significantly, with, among other things, disaster aid going from being discussed as an act of charity to an understood responsibility. Furthermore, the political side of foreign natural disaster has moved beyond the political effects of disaster itself to include the political causes of “natural” disaster and the political causes and effects of disaster aid. These and other patterns are used to consider the relationship between politics and humanitarianism more generally.     

印度尼西亚:2010～2011年回顾与展望

2010年,印度尼西亚经历政治风波和地震、火山爆发等自然灾害事件的挑战,保持了政局和社会形势的稳定。经济增长率达6.1%,各项经济指标好于预期,发展前景乐观。外交上以"多交友,不树敌"和"全方位外交"为指导原则,强化与友好国家的合作,积极在国际事务中发挥其影响力。     

The economics and political economy of going beyond the GATS

This paper addresses the economic and political economy factors explaining why countries agree upon services commitments in regional trade agreements (RTAs) going beyond the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), what we call the commitments gap. Using a unique dataset comprising of detailed schedules of services commitments disaggregated by sub-sectors and covering almost all countries that are members of a services RTA, we are able to quantify the extent to which geographical, systemic as well as economic and institutional factors correlate with a country’s pattern of RTA commitments that go further than commitments made at the WTO. Strong explanatory variables are asymmetries between negotiating partners and market size, together with endowments in mid-skilled labor and institutional governance. Whereas some of these forces are strongly positively associated with commitments made beyond GATS, others are significant determinants that correlate negatively with a country’s commitment patterns in RTAs. We also find strong differences between services industries providing evidence that not all economic and political economy factors are of equal importance for all services. For instance, financial and construction services often diverge significantly from our general pattern of explanations.     

百年间国际政治经济秩序的转型压力——资本流动、产业——金融联系与自由秩序

当前,"新自由主义"国际秩序遭遇来自美国国内的严重冲击。这与一百年前,"古典自由主义"国际秩序遭遇来自英国国内的冲击十分类似。为何在一百年间,英美两国均遭遇国内对国际秩序的严重冲击?本文指出,各国不同的产业-金融联系是一项"关键前情"。在解除对资本跨国流动的管制后,英美两国疏远的产业-金融联系加剧了资本跨国流动带来的问题。由于缺乏国内利益纽带约束,能够"用脚投票"的英美两国资本生产意愿降低;相对当地政府以及普通民众的议价能力提升。资本分得更多的经济份额。由贫富分化引发的政治问题日益凸显。理性的政治家利用国内分化的政治结构,动员国内民众,给自由国际秩序构成巨大压力。与英美不同,德国等有着紧密产业-金融联系的国家,即便面临资本全球化浪潮,国内冲击自由秩序的压力相对较小。基于其政治经济安排的特点,中国能为维护国际秩序做出积极贡献。     

The Political Economy of National Debt Burdens, 1970–2000

Why did developing country governments find themselves mired in high debt by the end of the twentieth century? This paper develops a theoretical framework to understand the relationship between political institutions, resource wealth, and debt burdens. Hypotheses generated are tested on a time-series cross-section data set of developing countries from 1970–2000. Three main findings are reported: oil wealth has a positive relationship with debt; this relationship is weakly conditional on the country's regime type; and the relationship is independent of general commodity price volatility. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research for our understanding of the ‘resource curse.’     

Does plot size matter? Evidence from maize production in Babati District,Tanzania

Debates about optimal farm structure and size have a long history in agricultural economics. Agricultural and development economists argue for an inverse relationship between farm size and productivity, but debates around this remain inconclusive. This article provides a case from maize production in Babati District, Tanzania. The efficiency level of 122 sampled smallholder farmers was estimated and found to be 62.3%, suggesting 37.7% of inefficiencies. A U-shape relationship between plot size and efficiency scores was found. There was high efficiency at plots <2?ha, compared to 2?ha and 3?ha, followed by efficiency at plots >4?ha. Policies stimulating small- and large-scale farms in the country are imperative.     

Using Big Data and Algorithms to Determine the Effect of Geographically Targeted Advertising on Vote Intention: Evidence From the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election

We develop a new conceptualization of political advertising effects by looking at the effect of the marginal advertising dollar during the heat of presidential campaigns. We argue that in contrast to other studies investigating effects of political ads, our approach is more apt to capture the natural environment in which political ads are encountered during a presidential campaign. We focus on the intense inundation of political ads voters are confronted with in swing states in the weeks leading up to the presidential election, and argue that it is unclear a priori whether we should expect advertising to affect vote intention in that critical circumstance. We empirically validate this hypothesis using a trove of data from the 2012 campaign: daily polling in media markets around the country, detailed data on all registered voters in the country, all TV advertisements by market and exact airtime, and the entire Twitter corpus. We find that neither overall increases in advertising spending nor partisan imbalances in spending expanded the candidates’ electorate. In fact, total Designated Market Area (DMA)-level spending significantly moderates a negative relationship between spending advantages and advantages in vote intention, suggesting a boomerang effect of additional spending late in the campaign. In closing, we discuss the ramifications of our findings for future research, and stress the importance of research tracking advertising effects.     

Explaining IMF lending decisions after the Cold War

This paper empirically investigates the economic and political factors that affect a country??s likelihood to sign an arrangement with the IMF and the determinants of the financial size of such a program. Arguably the world and the global financial architecture underwent structural changes after the ending of Cold War and so did the role of the IMF. Hence, we update and extend the work of Sturm et al. (Economics and Politics 17: 177?C213, 2005) by employing a panel model for 165 countries that focuses on the post-Cold War era, i.e., 1990?C2009. Our results, based on extreme bounds analysis, suggest that some economic and political variables are robustly related to these two dimensions of IMF program decisions. Furthermore, we show that it is important to distinguish between concessional and non-concessional IMF loans.     

Bogus Refugees? The Determinants of Asylum Migration to Western Europe

This article analyzes the determinants of asylum migration to Western Europe. Potential asylum seekers balance the costs of staying versus the costs of migrating. Estimation results confirm that economic hardship and economic discrimination against ethnic minorities lead to higher flows of asylum seekers. However, political oppression, human rights abuse, violent conflict, and state failure are also important determinants. Migration networks and geographical proximity are important facilitators of asylum flows as predicted by theory and colonial experience, religious similarity, and casual contact with the developed world (aid, trade, and tourism) are not. Natural disasters and famines are also not statistically significant determinants. These events are typically short term and unexpected, whereas asylum migration to Western Europe requires preparatory planning. If Western European countries want to tackle the root causes of asylum migration, then they need to undertake policy measures that promote economic development, democracy, respect for human rights, and peaceful conflict resolution in countries of origin.     

International Norms and National Indigenous Politics: Mapuche Demands for Territory in Chile

Indigenous movements have increasingly turned to the global arena to achieve their political goals at the national level. Using the norm diffusion model, the present article analyzes the relationship between the international indigenous rights regime (IRR) and the conceptualizations of indigenous territory used by four Mapuche organizations in Chile over the last 10 years. We find that the organizations draw on the IRR to frame their demand for autonomous territories based on historical Mapuche practices. We identify two conceptualizations: (1) a larger territory with political but not economic autonomy and (2) a smaller natural-cultural space characterized by a distinctive economic logic.     

Racial animosity and political party partisanship in South Africa: the case of the African National Congress and the Black African majority

As it is in many countries, racial rhetoric is a feature of South African national government elections. The use of such rhetoric provokes the question, how much is political party support in the country driven by interracial animosities? Using the nationally representative public opinion dataset, the South African Social Attitudes Survey, this article looks at party closeness to the African National Congress (ANC) amongst the black African population. The ANC is one of the oldest and most powerful political parties on the African continent and currently dominates South Africa’s parliamentary government. Constructing four indexes of racial attitudes and behaviours, the article investigates whether partisanship with the ruling party can be predicted by racial animosity. The period under investigation is 2010–2014. Bivariate and multivariate quantitative techniques are employed to test the relationship between ANC partisanship and racial animosity. The results of this investigation show that racial enmity in the country is troublingly widespread. Public opinion analysis, however, found no correlation between racial acrimony and ANC partisanship. Other factors are driving black African identification with the country’s ruling party. The implications of these results for the study for political party support in South Africa are discussed and future avenues of research presented.