Regions of Hierarchy and Security: US Troop Deployments,Spatial Relations,and Defense Burdens

Recent work has begun exploring the effects of foreign military deployments on host-state foreign policies. However, research mostly focuses on dyadic relationships between major powers and host-states, ignoring the broader regional security environment of host-states. We develop a theory of spatial hierarchies to understand how security relationships throughout the region surrounding the host-state affect host-state foreign policy. Using data on US military deployments from 1950–2005, we show that regional security considerations condition how host-states respond to the deployment of military forces to their territory. Consequently, regional analyses are fundamental in understanding monadic and dyadic decisions about security, alliance behavior, and conflict.     

On Coase and COVID-19

European Journal of Law and Economics - From an epidemiological perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis. From an economic perspective, it is an externality and a social cost....     

Pathway to terrorist behaviors: The role of childhood experiences,personality traits,and ideological motivations in a sample of Iraqi prisoners

Radicalization to terrorism is a multifaceted process with no single theory or approach to explain it. Although research has focused on understanding the process, there is still a dearth of studies that examine an empirically driven pathway to terrorism behavior. This study examines a cross-sectional sample of incarcerated men convicted of terrorism in Iraq (N = 160). A questionnaire-guided interview included adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), conduct disorder (CD), antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), religious and political ideology, views about causes of terrorism, and the severity of terrorist acts. Path analysis was employed to examine the relationships between these factors and to identify the model with the best fit. After adjusting for age, employment, and location, results indicated that ACEs positively impacted CD, ASPD, religious guidance, and terrorism attitudes. ASPD positively affected political commitment and terrorism attitudes, but inversely affected current religious commitment. Political commitment inversely influenced terrorism attitudes. Religious commitment positively influenced the prioritization of religion in life, which subsequently impacted terrorism attitudes and behavior severity. Additionally, attitudes toward terrorism directly affected the severity of terrorism behavior. All paths in the final model were statistically significant at p < 0.05. Although these findings may be limited in generalizability due to the unique sample, results support the complex and interdependent nature of childhood and adult experiences on the development of both terrorism attitudes and the severity of terrorism behavior.     

On the Role of Process Forensics in the Characterization of Fugitive Gasoline

The need to determine the source(s) of fugitive gasoline in the environment is common when multiple candidate sources co-exist nearby to the discovery or when gasoline is discovered subsequent to a property transfer. Process forensics is the component of environmental forensics that relies upon a detailed understanding of the current and historic refining and engineering practices and how these practices would predictably have affected the chemical composition of the automotive gasoline manufactured at different refineries at different times. Since not all gasoline is ‘created equal’, when the detailed “chemical fingerprint” of a fugitive gasoline in the environment is interpreted in light of process forensics, a more thorough understanding of the production practices used to refine the fugitive gasoline can emerge. In some circumstances this knowledge can help to implicate a particular source(s) of the gasoline.