The Big Problem of Small Allies: New Data and Theory on Defiant Local Counterinsurgency Partners in Afghanistan and Iraq

Alliance politics are critical yet understudied in counterinsurgency interventions. Despite the importance of local allies, traditional research on alliances fails to account for the challenges of managing in-country counterinsurgency security partners or explain variation among which types of policy requests from large intervening allies are likely to result in compliance or defiance by local partners. When did US intervening forces have leverage in Iraq and Afghanistan, and when was American influence limited? Utilizing thousands of US government documents to analyze over 250 US demands of allies in Kabul and Baghdad, this paper reexamines established variables in the literature on inter-alliance bargaining—namely allied interests and dependencies—to offer a new model describing the interaction of these variables in asymmetric counterinsurgency partnerships. The theory predicts when large allies are likely to influence local partners and when these intervening forces will likely fail to coerce them.     

Immigration and support for redistribution: survey experiments in three European countries

In times of increasing globalisation scholars put considerable efforts into understanding the consequences of immigration to the welfare state. One important factor in this respect is public support for the welfare state and redistribution. This article presents results from a unique survey experiment and a panel study in three European countries (Norway, Germany and the Netherlands) in order to examine whether and how individuals change their preference for redistribution when faced with immigration. Theoretically, citizens with high incomes should be especially likely to withdraw their support for redistribution because they fear the increased fiscal burden, whereas other types of citizens might ask for more compensation for the increased labour market risks caused by immigration. The empirical evidence reveals that only respondents with high incomes and those who face low labour market competition withdraw support for redistribution when faced with immigration.     

The Issue of Abortion in Contemporary Brazil: An Analysis of Feminist Litigation in the Supreme Court

Feminist Legal Studies - This article discusses the issue of abortion in the context of the dispute between progressive and neoconservative political forces in Brazil. The article analyses ADPF...     

The Public as a Limit to Technology Transfer: The Influence of Knowledge and Beliefs in Attitudes towards Biotechnology in the UK

Transferring knowledge on new biotechnology applications in the European Union is restricted by limited public support. Explanations for this limited support lead us to examine the influence of knowledge and beliefs in shifting attitudes towards the uncertain consequences of unknown technologies. In addition, this paper looks at the role of perceptions of uncertainty as well as information channels. We denote as “knowledgeable” those attitudes that are held by informed individuals and as “rational irrational” those attitudes purely reflecting political and moral beliefs. The empirical analysis employs data from a UK sample of the 1999 Eurobarometer Survey 52.1. Results suggest that improving knowledge systematically raises individual support for clinical biotech applications such as animal cloning, while attitudes towards market-oriented biotech such as GM food remain systematically unaltered. When controlling for knowledge, significant factors within information channels were gender, perceptions of risk and, in certain applications, religiosity. Findings also support the hypothesis that knowledge driven attitudes arise from those applications where knowledge is shifted by perceived experience and thus perceived information costs are small. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Does Choice Bring Loyalty? Electoral Participation and the Development of Party Identification

Party identification is known to influence almost all aspects of political life. How this attachment develops across the adult life cycle, however, remains unknown. I argue that people reinforce their partisan predispositions by voting for their preferred party. Voting entails a choice over a set of alternatives. This choice is likely to induce rationalization. In so doing, it provides signals of group identity, which in turn strengthens people's partisan ties. Testing this hypothesis is made difficult because it implies a reciprocal relationship between partisanship and vote choice. I address this problem by using vote eligibility as an instrument of vote in a sample of almost equally aged respondents. The results indicate that elections fortify prior partisan orientations. Moreover, they do so not by increasing political information. Rather, it is the act of voting for a party that, itself, bolsters partisan attachment. This act leaves a long‐lasting imprint on people's partisan outlooks.