International Studies Quarterly

Trumbore, Peter F.

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702002pmid: N/A

AbstractCurrent scholarship on the international relations of ethnic conflict holds that such domestic-level conflict can spread to become interstate conflict. Empirical research, theoretical discussions, and case studies have concluded that states suffering from violent ethnic conflict, specifically ethno-political rebellion, can be either the victims of aggression or themselves the aggressors when ethnic conflict spreads to the international level. From both a scholarly perspective and the standpoint of policymaking it is important to know which possibility is more likely. This paper examines the behavior of states involved in militarized interstate disputes to test two possibilities: first, that states contending with ethnic rebellion are more likely to be the victims of aggression by outside actors. Alternatively, that states contending with ethnic rebellion are more likely to take aggressive action against outside states. Statistical analysis of ethnic rebellion data and militarized interstate dispute data covering the period 1980–1992 finds that states suffering from ethnic rebellion are more likely to use force and use force first when involved in international disputes than states without similar insurgency problems.

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702007pmid: N/A

Joachim, Jutta

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702005pmid: N/A

AbstractHow, why, and under what conditions are NGOs able to influence state's interests? To answer these questions, I examine the process through which women's organizations succeeded in placing front and center on the UN agenda two issues that had been perceived as exclusively private: violence against women and reproductive rights and health. I develop a theoretical framework drawing on both the agenda-setting and social movement literature. I suggest that NGOs attempt to influence states' interests by framing problems, solutions, and justifications for political action. Whether they are successful in mobilizing support is contingent on the dynamic interaction of primarily two factors: (1) the political opportunity structure in which NGOs are embedded, comprising access to institutions, the presence of influential allies, and changes in political alignments and conflicts; and (2) the mobilizing structures that NGOs have at their disposal, including organizational entrepreneurs, a heterogeneous international constituency, and experts. I find that in the beginning of the agenda-setting process, the influence of NGOs is rather limited, their frames are highly contested, and structural obstacles outweigh organizational resources. However, over time the influence of NGOs increases. As they establish their own mobilizing structures, they become capable of altering the political opportunity structure in their favor, and their frames gain in acceptance and legitimacy.

Hays, Jude C.; Freeman, John R.; Nesseth, Hans

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702003pmid: N/A

We examine some of the consequences of financial globalization for democratization in emerging market economies by focusing on the currency markets of four Asian countries at different stages of democratic development. Using political data of various kinds—including a new events data series—and the Markov regime switching model from empirical macroeconomics, we show that in young and incipient democracies politics continuously causes changes in the probability of experiencing two different currency market equilibria: a high volatility “contagion” regime and a low volatility “fundamentals” regime. The kind of political events that affect currency market equilibration varies cross-nationally depending on the degree to which the polity of a country is democratic and its policymaking transparent. The results help us better gauge how and the extent to which democratization is compatible with financial globalization.

Paris, Roland

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702001pmid: N/A

AbstractThe anticipated growth of new communications technologies, including the Internet and other digital networks, will make it increasingly difficult for states to tax global commerce effectively. Greater harmonization and coordination of national tax policies will likely be required in the coming years in order to address this problem. Given that the history of the state is inseparable from the history of taxation, this “globalization of taxation” could have far-reaching political implications. The modern state itself emerged out of a fiscal crisis of medieval European feudalism, which by the 14th and 15th centuries was increasingly incapable of raising sufficient revenues to support the mounting expenses of warfare. If new developments in the technology of commerce are now undermining the efficiency of the state as an autonomous taxing entity, fiscal pressures may produce a similar shift in de facto political authority away from the state and toward whatever international mechanisms are created to expedite the taxation of these new forms of commerce.

Breuning, Marijke

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702004pmid: N/A

AbstractAnalogical, or case-based reasoning has received quite a bit of attention in the literature on foreign policy decision-making. There has been little attention paid to whether analogical reasoning does indeed predominate or to what degree abstract reasoning plays a role in the decision-making process. If decision-makers do not primarily reason by analogy (an empirical question), then the focus on such reasoning runs the risk of ignoring important aspects of problem formulation and the scope of possible solutions considered. Hence, this article investigates the degree to which decision-makers employ analogical and abstract reasoning.The empirical data are from the Senate hearing regarding the first American program for development aid. This case permits an empirical assessment of the consensus in the foreign aid literature that the Marshall Plan was the central analogy for this aid. In addition, it has been argued that in public discourse, decision-makers should be expected to use analogies as justifications for their preferences. The study finds a preference for explanation-based reasoning and discusses some of the implications of these findings.

Breuning, Marijke

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702004pmid: N/A

Analogical, or case‐based reasoning has received quite a bit of attention in the literature on foreign policy decision‐making. There has been little attention paid to whether analogical reasoning does indeed predominate or to what degree abstract reasoning plays a role in the decision‐making process. If decision‐makers do not primarily reason by analogy (an empirical question), then the focus on such reasoning runs the risk of ignoring important aspects of problem formulation and the scope of possible solutions considered. Hence, this article investigates the degree to which decision‐makers employ analogical and abstract reasoning. The empirical data are from the Senate hearing regarding the first American program for development aid. This case permits an empirical assessment of the consensus in the foreign aid literature that the Marshall Plan was the central analogy for this aid. In addition, it has been argued that in public discourse, decision‐makers should be expected to use analogies as justifications for their preferences. The study finds a preference for explanation‐based reasoning and discusses some of the implications of these findings.

Senese, Paul D.; Vasquez, John A.

doi: 10.1111/1468-2478.4702006pmid: N/A

This article develops a new unified territorial explanation of conflict that accounts for the possibility of certain factors affecting the rise of a militarized dispute, as well as the probability that a dispute will escalate to war. In the past, research linking territorial disputes to a relatively high probability of war outbreak has been criticized for underestimating the potential problem of sampling bias in the militarized interstate dispute (MID) data. This study utilizes newly available data on territorial claims going back to 1919 to determine, using a two-stage estimation procedure, whether the presence of territorial claims in the dispute onset phase affects the relationship between territorial militarized disputes and war in the second stage. It is found that territorial claims increase the probability of a militarized dispute occurring and that territorial MIDs increase the probability of war, even while controlling for the effect of territorial claims on dispute onset. The effect of territory across the two stages is consistent with the new territorial explanation of conflict and war and shows no sampling bias with regard to territory in the MID data.