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Interpellation, the production and hailing of subjectivities, is key to poststructuralist international relations (IR) theory and yet with some notable exceptions interpellation/hailing as an analytical concept remains somewhat undertheorized. This paper presents a Lacanian–Žižekian psychoanalytical theorization of interpellation in IR, while engaging with the ontology and epistemology of belonging. More specifically, this paper develops four major psychoanalytical concepts: void/lack, fantasy, jouissance, and desire, as it argues that void/lack at the subjective and objective levels renders interpellation possible and destabilises it, thus accounting for the im/possibility of belonging. This paper illustrates the psychoanalytical framework of interpellation by analyzing national-populism as manifested in the Brexit discourse in the UK as well as the interpellation in homonationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The summer of 2020 saw a global mobilization protesting the murder of George Floyd, during which statues glorifying white supremacy were toppled. Drawing on the narratives surrounding the removal of the Colston statue in Bristol and the Confederacy statues in New Orleans and Charlottesville, the paper examines the role of statues in the construction of political identities and social fantasies through Lacan's theory of anxiety. For Lacan, anxiety tells us what subjects identify as threatening or familiar is not a reflection of objective circumstances but individual desires. By proposing the concepts of working against anxiety and working with anxiety, the paper examines (1) fantasies that aim to re-establish the old narratives and identities that were challenged in the process of statue removal and (2) practices that dwell in the moment of anxiety in an attempt to repair historical violences. The paper makes three contributions: firstly, to the literature on anxiety, the paper shows why anxiety is not an emotion but a building block of subject formation. Secondly, to the literature on commemoration, the paper demonstrates how statues affirm some identities while negate others, re-producing (racialized) violence; and to the literature on resistance, the paper demonstrates how deeply entrenched anxieties continue to constrict social progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does foreign aid reduce violence during ongoing wars? In the policy community, there has been growing optimism about the prospect for aid to improve conflict-affected and fragile areas. We investigate whether foreign aid decreases, or even increases, violence during ongoing armed conflict. We advance a theoretical argument that concentrated foreign assistance allocated during ongoing armed conflicts increases military fatalities but decreases civilian fatalities. Using geographically coded data on all sub-Saharan African countries in conflict between 1989 and 2008, within a matching frontier design and supplemented by instrumental variable analysis, we find strong substantive and statistical support for our expectations about military conflict intensity though less support for the expectations about civilian fatalities. The paper provides novel insights about the effects of concentrated aid on military versus civilian conflict intensity, characterizes the effects at a sub-national level, and expands the spatial-temporal period of the analysis. We also probe the plausibility of the causal mechanism using interview evidence drawn from ex-commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army and generals of the Ugandan People's Defence Forces in northern Uganda. The paper offers both academic and policy insights, including that foreign aid allocated during ongoing wars may be more problematic than it is helpful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent data show systematic changes in the diplomacy and practice of war. Conquests, peace treaties, declarations of war, and state boundary changes have declined or disappeared. There are still wars, but they are increasingly fait accomplis , and their outcomes are often not recognized as legal. How can we explain this wide-ranging but seemingly contradictory transformation? Existing accounts, such as those based on a territorial integrity norm, do not adequately explain these changes. This paper uses norm dynamics theory to show that all of these changes can be explained as 'ripple effects' of war becoming illegitimate as a way to solve international disputes. The kinds of rhetorical justifications states can convincingly give for engaging in violence have changed. States are navigating this changed international social environment through legitimacy management behaviors. The paper specifies three types of ripple effect, Reframing, Displacement, and Consistency-Maintenance, corresponding to changes in what states say, the actions they perform, and how the audience reacts. We show how this theory unifies all of the existing data into a single explanatory framework. We also apply the theory to the decline of peace treaties to show how ripple effects play out in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, regime complexes are conceptualized as dynamic networks constituted by relations between international organizations (IOs). We introduce "IO positioning" as a conceptual lens for studying patterns and shifts in IO networks resulting from negotiations between IOs over their distinctiveness and social membership in complex organizational fields. We suggest that IO positioning has two constitutive effects. First, on the level of individual IOs, positioning affects IO identities within the field as these are (re)negotiated in relations with other organizations. Secondly, the positioning practices of IOs have constitutive effects on the contours of entire policy fields too; they form and shift the boundaries of regime complexes. Empirically, the paper examines the utility of our approach by analyzing the history, dynamics, and positioning effects of interorganizational relations between eight IOs in global health governance—an area of international cooperation that is commonly portrayed as exceptionally fragmented, complex, and densely populated. Examining relations between our eight IOs, we provide network analytical longitudinal data of in- and out-reporting by IOs derived from IOs' annual reports between 1970 and 2017. We triangulate our network analysis with data derived from semi-structured interviews with health IO professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rebel groups often develop governance during war by establishing administrative structures, engaging in taxation, and providing social services to the local population. Rebel governance structures, however, vary depending on the extent to which they include participatory arrangements. Some rebel groups allow civilian participation in their governance during the war, while others have highly hierarchical structures strictly limiting civilian participation. This paper examines whether and how the governance activities of rebel groups and participatory arrangements and institutions that they adopt during the war affect the durability of peace. I argue that participatory rebel governance can be particularly effective in establishing durable peace after the war. Civilian participation under rebel governance facilitates civilian political participation after conflict ends, which, in turn, discourages the use of political violence in response to grievances. Using rebel governance data between 1945 and 2012, I find strong empirical support for my argument. I then demonstrate the plausibility of the causal mechanism in the case of Indonesian and the Philippine civil wars. By establishing a strong positive empirical relationship between rebel wartime governance and the durability of peace, this paper identifies another important effect of rebel governance on conflict processes and outcomes in addition to its demonstrated effect on negotiations between warring parties and post-war democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens after border externalization? States and regional organizations of the Global North increasingly engage in transnational migration management that seeks to prevent potential irregular migration beyond their territory. Despite the impressive financial and political resources the involved actors mobilize to reach this goal, little is known about the effects of this strategy on their target states and populations. This paper conceptualizes border externalization as a spatial intervention that absorbs contingent migrant flows into an interplay of capital and race. It argues that the immobilization and differential integration produced through externalization can serve as a spatial fix for labor shortages in transit "migration" states. This differential integration disempowers the targeted migrant population and aggravates racial antagonisms. Hence, border externalization is not just a (by-)product of racist ideology and policy, but also intensifies racial hierarchies in the space it intervenes into. The paper studies this through the case of the "EU-Turkey Deal" and Turkey's Syrian refugee population, building on document analysis and primary interview data with industry representatives, farmers, NGO workers, and government officials. On a theoretical level, the paper thereby contributes to the recent trend that reinserts the border into global processes of racialized capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of foreign electoral shocks on currency markets. I develop a theory of signaling and uncertainty to explain why elections in countries with close economic ties should affect exchange rates. Methodologically, this paper focuses on several case studies, with the 2016 US election as a central case. I utilize an event analysis framework to measure the impact of the election on the Mexican peso by exploiting the plausible exogeneity of Donald Trump's tweets. I also measure changes in the peso using Trump's predicted chance of winning the election and show that the peso is weakest when Trump has the highest chance of winning the election. In addition, I include a series of robustness checks and analyses of other notable recent cases when electoral uncertainty affected currencies in other countries, including the 2018 Brazilian election. The results quantify the effect of foreign elections on exchange rates, building on the existing literature that focuses on how domestic elections shape currency markets. I conclude with a discussion of the external validity of the phenomenon demonstrated by the cases in the paper, charting future research on the topic and outlining ways to extend the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the turn of the twenty-first century, why did country after country in the developing world open their economies to the global market? This paper argues that increases in democracy were more likely to lead to trade liberalization when governments violated workers' basic rights to act collectively. Democracy empowered pro-trade domestic groups and therefore had the potential to lead to trade liberalization, but respect for labor rights empowered protectionist labor unions to launch protests and strikes that hampered such reforms. This paper supports these arguments with a multimethod approach that combines quantitative analysis of data from 126 developing countries from 1985 to 2010 with qualitative case studies of Argentina and Mexico. In general, the empirical evidence suggests that democracy and labor repression often worked together to facilitate the process of trade liberalization in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a long-standing debate over the ethics of targeted killing, with many scholars voicing concern over whether technological advancements and normative change are driving the normalization of these operations. Framed through social constructivism, they argue that the persistent use of these operations, combined with a lack of vocal opposition among states, makes a global norm cascade in favor of targeted killing increasingly possible. However, given the increasing number of states that have conducted these operations persistently over the past twenty years, why are these operations still bounded to violent non-state actors? This paper puts forward an alternative perspective that explains the bounded persistence of these operations via a novel construction of the international society/international system distinction found in the English School of International Politics. It argues that international society acts as a firewall against the generalization of these practices, compartmentalizing the potential norm erosion. In doing so, this paper not only reintroduces the theoretical utility of one of the more fundamental theoretical contributions of the English School, but also provides a new framework to understand interactions between members of international society and other violent non-state actors. El debate sobre la ética de los asesinatos selectivos viene de lejos y muchos investigadores han expresado su preocupación sobre si los avances tecnológicos y el cambio normativo están impulsando la normalización de estas operaciones. Enmarcados en el constructivismo social, argumentan que el uso persistente de estas operaciones, combinado con la falta de una oposición energética por parte los Estados, hace cada vez más posible una cascada de normativas globales a favor de los asesinatos selectivos. Pero, teniendo en cuenta, el creciente número de Estados que han llevado a cabo estas operaciones de forma persistente en los últimos 20 años, ¿por qué estas operaciones siguen estando limitadas a actores no estatales violentos? Este artículo propone una perspectiva alternativa que explica la persistencia limitada de estas operaciones a través de una novedosa construcción de la distinción de sociedad internacional/sistema internacional que se puede encontrar en la Escuela inglesa de política internacional, argumentando que la sociedad internacional actúa como un cortafuegos contra la generalización de estas prácticas, compartimentando la potencial erosión normativa. De esta forma, este artículo no sólo reintroduce la utilidad teórica de una de las contribuciones teóricas más fundamentales de la Escuela inglesa, sino que proporciona un nuevo marco para entender las interacciones entre los miembros de la sociedad internacional y otros actores violentos no estatales. Le caractère éthique de l'assassinat ciblé est l'objet d'un débat déjà ancien, et un grand nombre de chercheurs et chercheuses ont exprimé leurs craintes quant au fait que les avancées technologiques et les évolutions normatives puissent entraîner la banalisation d'une telle pratique. Via le prisme du constructivisme social, ces universitaires affirment que l'utilisation persistante de telles opérations et le manque d'opposition ferme exprimée par les différents États rendent de plus en plus probable une diffusion de la pratique de l'assassinat ciblé à l'échelle mondiale. Néanmoins, au vu du nombre d'États ayant régulièrement recours à ces opérations au cours des vingt dernières années, nous pouvons nous demander pourquoi celles-ci sont toujours limitées à des acteurs violents non étatiques. Cet article propose une perspective alternative démontrant la persistance de cette limitation au moyen d'une nouvelle interprétation de la distinction entre société internationale et système international, telle qu'élaborée par l'École anglaise des relations internationales. Il avance que la société internationale agit comme un pare-feu contre la généralisation de ces pratiques, limitant ainsi la potentielle érosion des normes. Ainsi, outre le fait de remettre en lumière l'utilité théorique de l'une des contributions les plus fondamentales de l'École anglaise, cet article propose un nouveau cadre d'analyse pour comprendre les interactions entre les membres de la société internationale et d'autres acteurs non étatiques violents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As countries integrate ever further into globalized production processes, scholars have found significant country-level variation in the extent to which women are able to increase their participation in the formal economy. In this paper, I improve on existing work by disaggregating globalization into its different processes, each of which has different expected effects on female labor force participation (FLFP). I examine how trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), and natural resource exports affect FLFP in a cross-national time-series analysis of 129 low- to middle-income economy countries over a twenty-eight-year period. A major contribution of this paper is to show an interaction effect between trade and FDI: I find that generally trade and inward FDI have a negative effect on FLFP that diminishes as they increase together, suggesting that export-oriented FDI creates more opportunities for women than domestic-oriented FDI and trade openness unaccompanied by significant foreign investment. I also find that the more positive effect of export-oriented FDI depends on the extent to which a country has experienced industrial upgrading, suggesting that gender segregation by industry also affects the extent to which global economic integration creates employment opportunities for women in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do states' positions across multiple and interconnected economic networks affect their power? The Weaponized Interdependence (WI) scholarship emphasizes that states centrally located in global economic networks have access to new sources of coercion. In this paper, we look at how their positions across multiple networks interact with each other to create new opportunities and vulnerabilities. We use network analysis to map the semiconductor supply chain and show that it can be viewed as four interrelated networks: (1) design, (2) raw material, (3) manufacturing equipment, and (4) assembled chips. We then highlight how states' centrality varies across these networks and how it shapes their respective opportunities for coercion. Looking specifically at the United States, we emphasize how its centrality in the design network enables it to weaponize chokepoints in the trade network of assembled chips. In so doing the paper makes three contributions. First, it highlights how interactions among multiple economic networks provide new opportunities for states to weaponize interdependence. Second, it contributes to recent attempts using network analysis to analyze structural power on the global stage. Last, it demonstrates how network methodology can help detect potential (ab)uses of WI and how the potential for weaponization evolves over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data form an increasingly essential element of contemporary politics, as both public and private actors extend claims of their legitimate control in diverse areas including health, security, and trade. This paper investigates data governance as a site of fundamental normative and political ordering processes that unfold in light of ever-increasing inter- and transnational linkages. Drawing on the concept of jurisdictional conflicts, the paper traces the evolution of data governance in three cases of transatlantic conflicts as diverging definitional claims over data. The paper argues that these conflicts reveal varying conceptualizations of data linked to four distinct visions of the social world. First, a conceptualization of data as an individual rights issue links human rights with the promotion of sovereignty to a vision of data governance as local liberalism. Second, proponents of a security partnership promote global security cooperation based on the conceptualization of data as a neutral instrument. Third, a conceptualization of data as an economic resource is linked to a vision of the digital economy that endorses progress and innovation with limited regulation. Fourth, a conceptualization of data as a collective resource links the values of universal rights and global rules to a vision of global protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resolving protracted, asymmetric, and ethno-national conflicts is a notoriously problematic process, and only a handful of such attempts have ended in success. This paper is the first comparative study examining the relevance of "politically motivated violent offenders" (PMVOs) in propelling the shift from a long and bloody armed struggle to a negotiated agreement; indeed, they play an indispensable role in the ratification and the eventual implementation of any such agreement. We compare the role of PMVOs in three cases of protracted conflict resolution processes in the 1990s—Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords. We argue that PMVOs constitute a distinguished socio-political actor characterized by high symbolic capital as the embodiment of the national struggle. This renders them a major source of political legitimacy, a necessary condition for attaining peace with hitherto sworn enemies and securing its implementation and stabilization. The paper analyzes the provisions within the respective agreements pertaining to prisoners' release as an incentive, or lack thereof, especially for organizations outside the peace process to cease violence. Whereas the British and South African governments fully recognized the PMVO issue, Israel's failure to recognize its importance was a major factor leading to the breakdown of the Oslo process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reevaluates the history of how some anti-war realists have assessed the relationship between democracy and armed conflict. To do so, I turn to a central realist figure: Kenneth Waltz. Drawing on newly available archival sources and his published work, I explore Waltz's shifting relationship with American democracy, foreign policymaking, and war. I focus on his career-long anti-war commitments, tracing his foreign policy engagements over the half century of his academic career. Early on, Waltz argued in favor of American democracy as a source of adaptive, effective foreign policy. Gradually, however, his views shifted. After the Cold War and especially after 9/11, his anti-war beliefs and belief in democratic foreign policymaking came increasingly into tension. He moved from defending American democratic foreign policymaking to calling for structural constraints from without. We see this in Waltz's late-life endorsement of the Iranian nuclear program, which was motivated not just by his well-known optimism about proliferation, but also by the hope that an Iranian nuclear arsenal would deter American intervention in the Middle East. Waltz's experience has implications both for how we read his body of work and for how we understand realist attempts to shape foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In countries receiving foreign aid, non-state justice systems rooted in custom or religion generally handle most legal disputes. This dramatically influences the prospects of international efforts to promote the rule of law, yet scholars have paid little attention to foreign policy toward non-state justice. This paper explores how the nine largest rule-of-law-assistance providers engaged non-state justice between 2008 and 2018, illuminating the theory behind, and the reality of, donor-state policy. It proposes a new classificatory typology of donor approaches to non-state justice detailing five strategies (denial, acknowledgment, acceptance, transformation, and rejection) and four goals (judicial reform, symbolic recognition, state-building, and counterinsurgency). It then explores how the nine largest rule-of-law-assistance donor states addressed non-state justice through a structured comparison of policy documents as well as case studies of the five donors with the most comprehensive approaches. Donors strongly favored risk-averse approaches, even when this made success unlikely. Certain policy goals—such as state-building or counterinsurgency—sometimes prompted riskier choices, but only with a compelling justification and a reasonable prospect of success. Overall, major rule-of-law donors displayed risk-averse, superficial policy, minimal stakeholder engagement, a failure to grapple with the nuances of legal pluralism, and a lack of evidence to support existing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several prominent international organizations (IOs) maintain decision-making structures that under-represent developing countries. This paper argues that individuals in developing countries are more supportive of engaging with IOs that give a greater voice to fellow developing countries. We posit that the balance of decision-making power influences support for IOs by improving perceptions of both input legitimacy and output legitimacy. Empirically, we focus on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and draw on original survey experiments in four developing countries: Argentina, China, South Africa, and Turkey. Results reveal that increased representation of developing countries increases public support for IMF participation. We also find consistent evidence that this effect works through an input legitimacy mechanism, specifically by improving perceptions of procedural fairness. These findings suggest that public support for IOs is affected by the balance of decision-making power within these organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The logic of territorial control is central to the study of internal conflict. Existing studies consider the consequences of territorial control without answering a critical question: what motivates rebel territorial control in the first place? Territorial control requires careful explanation. While it confers important benefits it is also costly to achieve and exposes rebels to state attack. This paper argues that benefits exceed costs when territorial control provides rebels with a reliable source of organizational supply. High-value lootable natural resources—resources available in abundance that are easy to extract and transport for sale—represent key components of a rebel's supply chain. To test the theory's implications, we introduce new cross- and sub-national time-series data on territorial control in sub-Saharan Africa and couple it with a new dataset of local natural resource values. We use an instrumental variable approach to address core endogeneity concerns. Results both substantiate our theoretical approach and provide evidence running contrary to existing arguments. These findings demonstrate that valuable natural resources, logistical supply constraints, and, more broadly, rebel military strategy, are critically important and need to be incorporated into work on civil war, territorial control, and rebel governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary times, scholars have increasingly turned to the research on norms to study behavior and identity transformation in international politics. This has led to understanding stigma as attached to global actors refusing to follow normatively shared expectations of social conduct. However, the field of nuclear politics has largely ignored this research in particularly identifying how noncompliant states manage their stigmatized identities, after engaging in acts of nuclear deviance against hegemonic norms. By combining and advancing the existing literature on international political sociology, constructivist approaches in international relations theory, and nuclear governance, this paper first argues that stigma should be understood as a position of relational power dynamics that recalcitrant states occupy in contesting dominant norms. Second, it conceptualizes a new category of stigma management as stigma redaction , whereby noncompliant nuclear states occasionally engage in corrective conduct to prevent their identities being permanently cemented as rogue by dominant powers. To contextualize both these arguments, this paper examines the empirical case of India's relationship with the United States, post India's nuclear test in 1974. In doing so, it furthers our understanding of sociological deviance in international politics through an interdisciplinary lens and contributes to the field of international security studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most international agreements are concluded for indefinite periods, the issues they address and parties' preferences are constantly evolving. In some cases, parties seek to close any growing gaps between negotiators' expectations and the changing context by updating their original agreement to its new circumstances. States have several formal tools at their disposal to do so, such as protocols, amendments, and addenda. We refer to this process as institutional adaptation. This paper seeks to explain why some agreements are adapted numerous times during their lifetime while others are not. It argues that state parties are more likely to adapt their international agreements when they acquire new information about their partners' behavior, preferences, or the state of the environment. We focus on two key elements facilitating this process. The first consists of unexpected variation in treaty participation, and the second concerns the design features of the agreement. Relying on event history analysis and an original dataset of design features and membership of 371 multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), we find that low levels of ratifications, high levels of accessions, highly institutionalized MEAs, and anticipatory design features are associated with more frequent institutional adaptation. These findings provide important lessons for the design of dynamic treaties. A pesar de que la mayoría de los acuerdos internacionales se celebran por períodos indefinidos, tanto las cuestiones que abordan como las preferencias de cada una de las partes evolucionan constantemente. En algunos casos, las partes tratan de cerrar cualquier brecha creciente entre las expectativas de los negociadores y el contexto cambiante actualizando el acuerdo original a las nuevas circunstancias. A este efecto, los Estados tienen varias herramientas formales a su disposición, tales como protocolos, enmiendas y adendas. Llamamos a este proceso adaptación institucional. Este artículo trata de explicar por qué algunos acuerdos se adaptan numerosas veces durante su existencia mientras que otros no se adaptan nunca. El artículo argumenta que es más probable que los Estados participantes adapten sus acuerdos internacionales cuando adquieran nueva información sobre el comportamiento, las preferencias o el estado del entorno de sus socios. Nos centramos en dos elementos clave que facilitan este proceso. El primero consiste en un cambio inesperado en relación con la participación en el tratado, y el segundo se refiere a las características de diseño del acuerdo. Teniendo en cuenta el análisis histórico de eventos, así como un conjunto original de datos en relación con las características de diseño y de adhesión de 371 acuerdos multilaterales sobre medio ambiente (MEAs, por sus siglas en inglés), encontramos que tanto los bajos niveles de ratificaciones como los altos niveles de adhesiones, los MEAs altamente institucionalizados y las características de diseño anticipatorio están asociados con una adaptación institucional más frecuente. Estas conclusiones proporcionan lecciones importantes de cara al diseño de tratados dinámicos. Bien que la majorité des accords internationaux soient conclus pour des durées indéfinies, les problématiques traitées et les préférences des parties évoluent constamment. Dans certains cas, les parties cherchent à refermer les écarts qui s'élargissent entre les attentes des négociateurs et l'évolution du contexte en mettant à jour l'accord initial pour prendre en compte les nouvelles circonstances. Pour ce faire, les États disposent de différents outils formels, comme les protocoles, les amendements et les addenda. Nous qualifions ce processus d'adaptation institutionnelle. Cet article tente d'expliquer pourquoi certains accords font l'objet de nombreuses adaptations au cours de leur durée de vie, et d'autres, d'aucunes. Il affirme que les parties étatiques adapteront plus certainement leurs accords internationaux quand elles acquièrent de nouvelles informations concernant le comportement, les préférences et l'état de l'environnement de leurs partenaires. Nous nous focalisons sur deux éléments clés favorisant ce processus : les variations inattendues dans la participation à un traité et les caractéristiques de la conception d'un accord. En nous fondant sur une analyse historique d'événements et un ensemble de données original sur les caractéristiques de conception et l'adhésion à 371 accords environnementaux multilatéraux (AEM), nous constatons que des niveaux de ratification faibles, des niveaux d'adhésion élevés, des niveaux d'institutionnalisation élevés des AEM et l'anticipation des caractéristiques de conception augmentent la fréquence de l'adaptation institutionnelle. Ces conclusions fournissent des enseignements importants pour la conception de traités dynamiques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a theory of incremental theoretical evolution connecting the practice of international politics with disciplinary IR. It theorizes how international political actors engaged in strategic local decision-making exert productive power over dominant scientific ontologies of the international system. We refer to the narratives emerging from these processes as strategic ontologies, defined as gradual reformulations of the subjects, objects, and relational logics of the international system according to positionally determined priorities. As strategic ontologies gain acceptance, their innovations endure beyond the context of their utterance, leading to meso-level theoretical evolution. We substantiate this account with comparative case studies of contested strategic ontologies that have yet to become dominant in either the international arena or IR theory. Without strategic ontology as an analytical lens, scholarship might miss embryonic theoretical innovations in the process of gaining traction. First, we examine how Israel and West Germany engaged in strategic ontological contestation when negotiating a reparations agreement following the Holocaust. Second, we analyze how states have used vulnerability in climate negotiations in 2020–2021 to recast global policy priorities. Recognition of strategic ontologies across contexts illuminates theoretical innovations in real-time and opens a path for dynamic new bridges between the academy and policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much of the English School has focused on liberal aspects of solidarism, forms of "illiberal solidarism" in contemporary international society remain underexplored. Drawing on archival material and elite interviews conducted in Central Asia in the period 2013–2019, this paper advances the claim that the Central Asian elites have developed the institution of authoritarianism in their region through the mechanisms of mimicry/emulation and praise/blame. By looking at specific discourses and practices over the last two decades, the paper discusses how the Central Asian governments have been using the new elements of the "democratic transition" in combination with the traditional legitimation offered by diplomatic recognition to secure authoritarian regimes in the democratic age, to create authoritarian state-centric solidarity in the region, and to make "avtoritet" and "stabil'nost'" fundamental pillars of the Central Asian regional order. The paper contributes to the English School literature by providing an initial account of illiberal solidarism and by showing how authoritarianism can potentially be an institution of specific regional international societies; to the authoritarian diffusion literature by demonstrating that authoritarianism can have a deontic component alongside considerations of domestic survival; and to the broader norm diffusion literature by focusing on the spread of illiberal values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to advance the study of the nexus of populism and foreign policy by showing the connection between the personality traits of the leader and the foreign policy behavior of the state that they represent. It focuses on the political personality profiles of two populist leaders who can be characterized as antiplural, Hugo Chávez and Donald Trump, as a way to empirically further substantiate the recent research agenda on populism in world politics. The paper builds the two populist leaders' political profiles through the use of the leader trait analysis approach. It contends that there are patterns in populist leaders' personalities that can act as key drivers of their noncooperative and conflict-inducing behavior in foreign policy. The results show the characteristics that appear as the strongest predictors of their behavior in the international arena are their low task orientation and high focus on relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces new data on the creation of subsidiary bodies (SBs) by members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) between 1972 and 2020. Delegation to SBs is one of the principal means through which the UNSC acts, and these bodies are designed to carry out crucial functions such as peacekeeping, implementing sanctions, and investigating crises. Yet, no research has systematically evaluated their creation, design, and use. Our dataset includes a typology of all proposed and created SBs as well as information about their purpose and design. After introducing the data, we empirically analyze the determinants of SB creation. Multivariate regression demonstrates that SBs are more likely to be created when the preferences of the permanent members are aligned. Moreover, stronger bodies are more likely to be created during periods of high preference alignment, while middle- and lower-strength bodies are less influenced by member alignment. These results provide unique evidence demonstrating how politics affects the choice of when and how the UNSC responds to global problems. Our data and analysis paint a picture of a more proactive UNSC than is commonly portrayed in the literature, and these data will enable scholars to further analyze UNSC action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions do governments discipline powerful multinational companies for breaching global corporate norms? Existing international relations theories have shown that peer monitoring and transnational advocacy are crucial strategies that shine a spotlight on norm violations. Despite the importance of those strategies, governments in the Global North have not consistently condemned their home-grown multinational companies for breaking norms related to climate or human rights in the Global South. This paper argues that the effect of such spotlighting is crucially moderated by electoral institutions, and legislators in proportional representation systems are more likely than those in majoritarian systems to push multinational companies to comply with global norms when such issues are in the spotlight. I find supporting evidence from the OECD Guidelines' Specific Instance process and case studies. This article shows that traditional strategies to promote norm compliance, such as transnational advocacy and peer pressure, work differently in different countries, and electoral systems in the Global North can have unintended distributional consequences for norm beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the incursions, or more accurately, the interventions of the Indian state into what are often called its "Northeast borderlands." It grapples with the specific space occupied by those who belong to this minoritized region in India. Theoretically, it works through conceptions of "sovereignty" and "intervention" to underscore what is at stake for those who lie within the remit of recognized state sovereignty but are nonetheless subject to brutal and invasive "intervention." The article engages Naga author Temsula Ao's writing on questions of "tribal" identity, globalization, and borders to situate India as a postcolonial "settler" state. Finally, it puts her work in conversation with Manu Karuka's notion of "counter-sovereignty" to highlight the ways in which even critical International Relations (IR) theory risks falling into the trap of reifying "sovereignty" and unwittingly giving credence to Westphalian and Euro-centric understandings of sovereignty at the expense of alternative and prior imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do consolidated democracies incorporate international human rights law (IHRL) treaties into national law? Existing research suggests contrastive accounts of the participation of democracies in IHRL regimes. While overall more likely to ratify, consolidated democracies are sometimes reluctant to accept demanding human rights commitments and less likely than both newly democratic and authoritarian regimes to incorporate international law in their constitutions. To theorize why established democracies commit to IHRL, this paper provides a comparative process tracing of the decisions to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into national law in Denmark and Sweden in the early 1990s. Why did these solid democracies with an exceptional commitment to human rights wait over 40 years to give domestic effect to a treaty they had helped create? Assessing rival theories of state commitment to human rights norms, the findings suggest that contextual developments in European law provided an opportunity for domestic political elites to seek insurance by incorporating the ECHR to place constraints on executive power. The argument qualifies claims about material strategizing or socialization to European norms as the primary drivers of incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are agreements between states and victims an effective way to achieve reparations for human rights violations? We identify and evaluate a legal instrument hitherto ignored in analyses of the Inter-American Human Rights System: compliance agreements. These agreements emerged as a tool to negotiate the implementation of recommendations made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to states responsible for human rights violations. In the first part of the paper, we theorize the role of agreements in securing state compliance, and discuss the problem of self-selection in legal settlements. We then document the emergence of this legal instrument and its novel role in the Inter-American System. In the third part, we provide statistical evidence from event history, matching, difference-in-differences, and sensitivity analyses showing that agreements increase the probability of compliance and cut the expected time to compliance by more than half. Agreements thus contribute to a potential solution for the perceived crisis of compliance in the Inter-American Human Rights System. However, the Commission must offer greater transparency to facilitate the evaluation of this mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on whether military humanitarian intervention and anti-atrocity norms, such as the responsibility to protect, cause perverse incentives, and provocative violence by a rebel group, has yet to reach a consensus. Specifically, existing theories are unable to fully explain why "emboldened" rebel groups provoke the government in some cases but not others. This paper reconciles this unresolved debate by arguing that it is not anti-atrocity norms but the temporary feasibility of humanitarian intervention that induces the potential rebel group to actually provoke the government. The inherent temporariness of the feasibility of large-scale intervention causes a commitment problem: An expectation of a temporary intervention shifts the balance of power toward a potential rebel and opens a quickly closing window of opportunity. A three-player game shows that, among other findings, a higher probability of humanitarian intervention alleviates the potential rebel's incentive to fight, implying that the criticism of anti-atrocity norms is a "false charge." The model also (i) explains why weaker groups can rebel in the shadow of external intervention and (ii) presents a novel implication that lowering the intervention cost can exacerbate the adverse incentive when a domestic commitment problem caused by the consolidation of government power is not severe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public views on international organizations (IOs) have become a matter of central concern. While actors in world politics increasingly try to legitimize or delegitimize IOs, scholars have begun investigating such phenomena systematically. This paper provides the most comprehensive IO (de)legitimation study to date. Building on cueing theory, and considering input as well as output legitimacy, I examine the isolated and combined effects of delegitimation and self-legitimation on public perceptions of IOs. I concentrate on government criticism and citizen protests as two salient practices of delegitimation. In investigating self-legitimation, I focus on IOs' public statements and institutional reforms. I study public opinion on the UN, World Bank, and WHO, as IOs of different functional scopes and levels of salience. In 2021, I conducted survey experiments on more than 32,000 citizens in ten countries worldwide (Australia, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Hungary, Indonesia, Kenya, South Korea, and Turkey) – weighted by age, gender, region, and education. My main findings are: Delegitimation by governments and citizen protests has some limited effectiveness, depending on the IO in question. While IO self-legitimization statements and reforms in themselves do not boost public support for IOs, they are generally effective at neutralizing delegitimation attempts by governments and citizen protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggesting that leader transitions increase the probability of war termination is based on the assumption that leader change is exogenous. However, the exogeneity of leader change needs to be tested, not assumed. This paper uses a bivariate discrete survival model to test the exogeneity of leader change and correctly estimate its partial effect on war termination. The paper extends the analysis by estimating a competing risks model of types of leader transitions. The evidence shows that leader change in large coalition systems never increases the probability of war termination, while leader change in small coalition systems never reduces the probability of war termination. In short, leader transitions in autocratic systems are more likely to bring interstate war to an end than leader transitions in democratic ones. The study also shows that the marginal effect of leader change fades away as the war progresses, and that war has negative duration-dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sanctions are among the most frequently used foreign policy tools to address human rights violations, but they can be highly politicized. Since the early 2000s, human rights sanctions have been increasingly triggered by standardized rankings of states' performances. While research on economic statecraft suggests that coercive measures based on cross-national assessments may be less influenced by strategic considerations, scholarship on rankings highlights how standardized performance indicators can also be political. This paper investigates whether sanctions based on standardized human rights assessments are also influenced by senders' strategic political and economic interests. Empirically, we examine the case of United States human trafficking sanctions that combines universal rankings in the first stage and country-specific sanctions waivers in the second. The analysis leverages novel data on all Trafficking in Persons (TIP) rankings by the US State Department and presidential sanctions waivers from 2003 to 2018. Despite the TIP report's reputation as a reliable indicator, we find that both stages in the process of imposing human trafficking sanctions are driven by strategic attempts to minimize the economic and political costs of sanctions for the US. These findings have broader implications for the reputation and effectiveness of other human rights rankings by the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States support transnational insurgents in an important variety of ways, from highly public efforts to transform the status quo to covert backing with limited ambitions. In this paper, we introduce a new theory to help explain variation in these strategies of external support. We argue that the offensive or defensive goals of state sponsors interact with their fears of escalation to shape how they support armed groups. Four strategies of state sponsorship emerge from different combinations of sponsor goals and escalation fears. We empirically investigate this argument with a unique medium- N study of Indian support and nonsupport for insurgents in South Asia. Based on fieldwork, primary sources, and specialized secondary literature, we uncover a rich landscape of links between India and armed groups in its neighborhood. We show a systematic connection between the strategies of support that India chooses with its aims in supporting rebels and its fears of escalation from doing so. However, there are mispredictions between our theory and empirical reality that we use in the conclusion to suggest new directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that attributes of diffusion objects, in their own right, shape the form and extent of policy diffusion. To date, diffusion scholarship focuses on actor-level attributes (e.g. connections, culture, physical proximity, etc.) to explain what is diffused and how much. Extending existing theory on the impacts of policies' textual properties on diffusion patterns, we argue that policies that are easier to understand, specific in their applicability, and that do not mandate specific behavior have their text diffused with less adaptation, regardless of the attributes of the authoring organization. We test our argument in the context of the global diffusion of corporate sustainability policy (CSP), analyzing a novel dataset of 1,429 CSPs from 100 countries, 20 international organizations, and 12 regional organizations over a 65-year period. Offering a precise measure of diffusion as the extent to which a source text is copied into an adopter text, we find statistical support for our hypothesis. We contribute to diffusion scholarship by helping to mainstream natural language processing methods and by theorizing how attributes of policy documents affect how much adaptation occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how authoritarian leaders employ trade openness as a response to rising inequality. Based on the Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade and models of democratic transition, I argue that unskilled laborers in authoritarian regimes can benefit from engaging in international trade, thus becoming more compliant to the authoritarian rules as their countries integrate into the world economy. Therefore, dictators in labor-abundant countries expand trade to neutralize democratization threats initiated by rising inequality. My argument uses supporting data from around eighty authoritarian regimes during the period from 1963 to 2003. I address endogeneity problems with dynamic panel data and instrumental variable regression models in this paper. My analyses suggest that economic globalization helps strengthen authoritarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the art world as a setting for hegemonic status or prestige politics. Powerful states engage in art world status-seeking but appear to face challenges distinct to the art world in so doing. To explain, I adopt a Bourdieusian forms of capital approach, framing the art world as a social field with distinctive contentious dynamics and symbolic politics. I argue states must work through art world networks and institutions to pursue status there, observing local rules in so doing. I frame art world prestige as symbolic capital—the overt, observable pursuit of which tends to undermine any gains. Hegemonic incumbents and challengers face differing such constraints. The existing global art world models rules and standards by homology on that of the current hegemon. A challenger must adapt to this status quo before they can revise it. I unpack these dynamics in the cases of America, China, and India. I focus on their shifting standing in the global art market and performances of national aggrandizement at a recurring global art world event: the Venice Biennale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests a new approach for looking at emotions. In the framework that is developed, emotions are practices that are performed in context and not only felt or had. On the theoretical side, three concepts inspired by Bourdieu's work are introduced: hexis, emotional sense, and emotional performance. On the methodological side, this framework is used to make sense of emojis in digital exchanges. Emojis are the literal display of an emotion "on paper"—or rather, on screen—and constitute a simplified way to read the emotional communication between individuals. They are not epiphenomenal. Given the widespread use of instant messaging applications, they are an accessible and effective means for individuals to perform emotions. In turn, this framework opens up the possibility to analyze better how and why mundane emotions matter in international politics. How diplomats use emojis on WhatsApp during negotiations at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva serves as an illustration. Often perceived as guided by rational calculations, diplomats also master informal and interpersonal skills to persuade, negotiate, and build connections. This fundamental social dimension of diplomatic work puts their (online) emotional practices at the center of their performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most influential arguments suggests that new democracies are more inclined than others to commit to international human rights treaties. This paper examines whether new democracies are more likely to commit not only to the basic, but also to the more demanding and constraining treaties. We argue that despite the strategic utility of costly commitments, new democracies are often unwilling to pay for the increased costs of more demanding and constraining treaties. We test our argument by tackling some of the trickiest inferential challenges. We employ propensity score weighting to address the nonrandom assignment of new democracies and further specify marginal structural models to account for dynamic confounding. Our analyses reveal intriguing findings. While new democracies commit to the broad human rights conventions more quickly, they are more reluctant than established democracies to commit to the more demanding and constraining protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global populist backlash is considered threatening to the multilateral order, but its impact on individual attitudes toward international organizations, like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is understudied. We bridge insights from research on the IMF and populism to develop a theoretical framework centered on three propositions. We argue that populist individuals should be more prone to blame the IMF for economic problems than non-populists, but that this effect is highly conditional on sovereignty intrusion, escalating when an IMF program exists and as the program becomes more onerous. In contrast, IMF scapegoating by populist politicians should be largely ineffective. Analyzing survey data from across the European Union and an original survey experiment in Greece, we find support for each contention. The paper advances understanding of the partisan politics of the IMF and shows that the implications of the populist wave for international order are more complex than often assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a dataset on disaggregated national military capabilities from 1970 to 2014, drawn from the International Institute for Strategic Studies Military Balance. While practitioners have long recognized the importance of what weapons states own, scholars have largely examined surrounding questions in piecemeal fashion due to data limitations. The Distribution of Military Capabilities dataset identifies the weapons portfolios of states over the past half century at various levels of aggregation suitable to a wide variety of research questions. This paper begins by explaining the value of data on disaggregated national military capabilities, the data's scope, and the data collection process, including the creation of a new modular typology of weapons categories consistent across time and space. I then identify some initial trends about changes in the distribution of military capabilities and their implications for China's military rise. These data allow scholars to better investigate important questions concerning power projection, military innovation, conflict outcomes, the use of force decisions, and interest group lobbying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the demand for independence appeared in the era of Decolonization. I argue that nationalist movements were more likely to emerge in places where the colonial authorities recruited the native population in World War II. The theory highlights the role of war veterans in creating the demand for independence and in facilitating it through organized collective action. Drawing on original World War II native recruitment data, an analysis of nationalist movements in sub-national units from 1945 to 1984 provides evidence consistent with the theory. The findings in this study help us better understand the rise of nationalist movements in the twentieth century and the political effects of military service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are leaders more likely to face militarized challenges earlier in their tenure? Existing studies posit contradictory hypotheses: new leaders can both invite challengers to take advantage of their inexperience and deter challengers by their strong incentive to establish a reputation for resolve. This paper seeks to reconcile these competing propositions by developing an argument that centers on the direction of foreign policy preference change associated with leadership turnover. I argue that foreign adversaries are likely to challenge a new leader in their rival state only when the newcomer is perceived to be more hawkish than the predecessor. The perception of a heightened risk of conflict accompanied with the emergence of a more hawkish leader in the rival state gives foreign adversaries a stronger incentive to seek for an early confrontation in which they can (re)demonstrate their own position to the new hawk. In contrast, when the newcomer is perceived to be more dovish than the predecessor, optimistic expectations of future interactions tend to restrain foreign adversaries from provoking the new dove, whose reputation concerns are high. A series of statistical analyses on post-WWII dyadic rivalries with democratically elected leaders on the target side yield strong evidence that supports this conditional hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A small body of scholarship has identified asymmetric rivalries as a phenomenon where two unevenly matched states are engaged in drawn-out security competitions or rivalries. Despite pointing out that many rivalries persist between states with significant power disparity, their conflict dynamics remain an understudied topic. Questions such as: why weaker states initiate conflicts against stronger states within a strategic rivalry, and why do some asymmetric rivalries de-escalate while others do not, have not been sufficiently addressed. In this paper, I argue that alliances embolden weaker states to initiate conflicts but also manage to facilitate a greater degree of affinity with their rivals on global and regional issues. Weaker states in a rivalry pursue alliances to equip themselves to fight against stronger rivals. At the same time, allies are also likely to act as a restraint on their partner fearing being dragged into their partner's conflicts thus contributing to rivalry de-escalation. These two factors lead to two different behaviors: a higher probability of conflict initiation by the weaker state on account of newfound support, and medium to long-term rivalry de-escalation, on account of the weaker state's ally's fears of chain-ganging and becoming embroiled in its partner's conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]