Do human rights offenders oppose human rights resolutions in the United Nations?

We investigate whether countries with poor human rights records oppose human rights resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly. An instrumental account of voting would suggest that these countries aim to weaken resolutions since they could be future targets of these policies. We estimate determinants of voting using 13,000 individual voting decisions from 1980 to 2002. Our results from ordered probit estimation show that a country??s human rights situation is irrelevant to voting behavior if regional dependence of voting is controlled for. The results also show that simple rules for aggregating voting choices can lead to misleading results.     

Introduction: Survey and Experimental Research in International Political Economy

Studies in international political economy (IPE) that use survey-response data sets and survey (or field) experiments have grown dramatically in recent years. New developments in survey and experimental methodology have arguably influenced IPE scholars not only to think more deeply about the microfoundations of the preferences, attitudes, and political behavior of key IPE actors but also to use survey or experimental methods to test causal claims and predictions. Yet the reasons for the rapid growth in survey and experimental methods in IPE are more multifaceted. We therefore seek to answer the following three pertinent questions in the introduction. First, what are the main substantive puzzles and issue-areas that IPE scholars analyze via survey and experimental methods in their research? Second, what are the main methodological advantages and drawbacks from using survey and experimental methods in IPE? Third, what are the key substantive theoretical and empirical insights that scholars have learned from recent research in IPE that employs either survey or experimental methods (or both)? In addition to answering these questions here, we also provide a summary of each article included in the special issue. The introduction concludes with a road map for future studies on survey and experimental research in IPE.     

Cross-border certified electronic mailing: A European perspective

Certified mail is the tool of choice in business processes and proceedings to deliver mail items in a secure and susbstantiated way. By returning a receipt, the sender has proof that a document has been delivered to the designated recipient at a certain point in time. Standard electronic communication systems like e-mail do not have the same evidential value as certified mail for traditional postal mail delivery. To benefit from the security advantages of certified mail delivery in the electronic world, in recent years governments have made several certified mail systems available on the Internet. Like postal certified mail delivery of documents in administrative or judicial matters, the certified electronic mail delivery in these systems is regulated by law. With ongoing (digital) globalization and the continuously increasing Digital Single Market in the European Union, there is a strong need for cross-border certified electronic mail. In the past the European Community has started several interoperability initiatives to couple existing certified electronic mail systems. Even if these systems can be made interoperable on a technical level, a harmonized legal basis is still missing. Therefore, the European community is currently working towards a new regulatory framework for trusted services including certified electronic mail. This article sheds light on both aspects and discusses the current state of affairs of cross-border certified electronic mail from both a technical (security) and legal perspective and explains the proposed new regulatory framework.     

Participation and voting in committees: Evidence from the ILO

Although many international organisations are formally built on the principle of ‘one country–one vote’, the lack of representativeness in decision-making may give a subgroup of members disproportionate influence. Using data on participation and voting in 51 decision-making committees of the International Labour Organization (ILO), we do find a bias in voting outcomes due to committee composition. Recent theoretical research has argued that voters with extreme preferences may self-select into committees. A procedure is proposed to test for this prediction. There is no indication that governments with extreme preferences are drawn disproportionately into ILO committees.     

Durch den Balkan nach Europa? Deutschland und Frankreich in den Jugoslawienkriegen

Starting from very different positions on the outbreak of violence in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, French and German policies slowly converged over time and even reached a similar position on the Kosovo crisis. Yet, both foreign policies did not concentrate on the conflict solution as such but were rather concerned with preventing any negative spill-over on the European integration process and Franco-German relations respectively. The first part of the article summarises the two foreign policies in three phases of the Yugoslavian drama: First, the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, second, the Bosnian war and third, the Kosovo crisis in 1998–99. By means of two heuristic criterea (behaviour towards institutions and conflict perception), both foreign policies are then compared analytically. Moreover, the striking differences in policies towards institutions and conflict perceptions motivate the generation of hypotheses in the next part. For France, we hold that identity theory might present a good approach in order to understand why French foreign policy was primarily driven by self-perceptions. Germany, by contrast, seems to be better suited to the application of role theory with its strong emphasis on alter-expectations. The article concludes by focusing on the perspectives of European integration and the Franco-German relations.     

Von „alten“ und „neuen“ Kriegen — Zum Gestaltwandel kriegerischer Gewalt

There is a growing debate in the field of conflict and peace research as to whether the ways wars are fought have changed since the end of the cold war. Whereas some claim to identify the emergence of a new type of war — the so-called new wars — others deny a fundamental transformation of warfare. This article intervenes in this debate by subjecting the thesis of the new wars to a first plausibility test. An analysis of three case studies on the wars in Cambodia, Afghanistan and Angola suggests that there has indeed been a transformation of warfare since the end of the cold war. In contrast to the warfare of the 1980s, in the 1990s one can observe a privatisation of the conflict parties, a criminalisiation of their war economies, an economisation of their motives and a brutalisation of their strategies.     

Duverger's concept: Semi-presidential government revisited

Abstract The article attempts to follow up the fate of the concept Maurice Duverger created to explain the regime of the French Fifth Republic: semi–presidential government. Duverger expounded the concept in his fundamental book Échec au roi in 1978, trying to illustrate the fact that regimes of this type worked quite differently in the seven Western and Northern European countries that institutionalized it. 'Semi–presidentialism' is now widely, but very often controversially, used. The recent appearance of such regimes in newly democratizing states points to the fact that this form of government is often the preferred solution in times of transition. A critical review of Duverger's concept seems expedient as the diversification of these regimes raises new and perhaps intriguing questions. Due to the rejection of Duverger's concept or its ignorance in parts of the European scientific community, it is necessary to defend it as an important tool for political analysis. Moreover, it opens the opportunity for the examination of fundamental problems in political science.     

Duverger's concept: Semi–presidential government revisited

The article attempts to follow up the fate of the concept Maurice Duverger created to explain the regime of the French Fifth Republic: semi–presidential government. Duverger expounded the concept in his fundamental book Échec au roi in 1978, trying to illustrate the fact that regimes of this type worked quite differently in the seven Western and Northern European countries that institutionalized it. 'Semi–presidentialism' is now widely, but very often controversially, used. The recent appearance of such regimes in newly democratizing states points to the fact that this form of government is often the preferred solution in times of transition. A critical review of Duverger's concept seems expedient as the diversification of these regimes raises new and perhaps intriguing questions. Due to the rejection of Duverger's concept or its ignorance in parts of the European scientific community, it is necessary to defend it as an important tool for political analysis. Moreover, it opens the opportunity for the examination of fundamental problems in political science.