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This paper explores whether fixed exchange rate commitments and central bank independence have functioned more as institutional complements or as substitutes in achieving exchange rate stability. Focusing on the advanced industrial democracies in the post-Bretton Woods era, it argues that these two monetary institutions should have functioned in a non-complementary, but substitutable, manner with regards to this external policy goal. This argument is tested statistically using different measures of exchange rate variability and de facto exchange rate fixity. Finally, given evidence that fixed exchange rate commitments and central bank independence have not functioned as complementary institutions, this paper discusses why certain OECD (governments that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) governments nonetheless made fixed exchange rate commitments when their central bank was legally independent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents two sets of arguments: one theoretical and one analytical. The theoretical arguments concern the relationship between regional ordering and systemic change. The paper questions the usefulness of the unipolar conception of the contemporary system arguing that the interaction of the Great Powers cannot be understood without reference to regional dynamics. Thus, a unipolar system implies considerable potential for U.S. hegemonic intervention at the regional level but in East Asia, we find an equilibrium constructed out of both material and normative forces, defined as a concert, which presents a considerable restraint on all powers, including the U.S. The paper then proceeds to examine these claims through an analysis of the foreign policies of the U.S., Russia, and China over the North Korean nuclear problem that emerged after 2002. It finds that China and Russia have substantive common interests arising from internal and external re-ordering in which they look to strategic partnerships, regional multilateralism, and systemic multipolarization as inter-locking processes. The paper finds that they have collaborated over the Korean crisis to prevent a U.S. unilateral solution but that this should not be construed as a success for an open counterhegemonic strategy as it was only under the constraining conditions of East Asian concert, including the dynamics within the U.S. alliance systems, that this collaboration was successful. Nevertheless, the paper concludes that regional multipolarity and systemic unipolarity are contradictory: a system that exhibits multipolarization at the regional level cannot be characterized as unipolar at the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies often assume that empty sanction threats inflict reputation costs on senders. However, target response to senders' previous decisions whether to back down or impose sanctions remains unexamined. In this paper, I argue that the target of sanction threats looks to the sender's actions against prior resistant targets. When the sender has backed down recently, the target, inferring that the sender is prone to making empty threats, is less likely to acquiesce. Conversely, when the sender has recently imposed sanctions against a resistant target, the current target infers that sanction imposition is likely to follow resistance, and therefore, it is more likely to acquiesce, all else equal. In statistical tests of US sanction threats spanning 1971-2000, I find strong evidence that the target is less likely to acquiesce when the United States recently backed down from a sanction threat. I find somewhat weaker evidence that the target is more likely to acquiesce when the United States recently imposed sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the question of whether a country's exchange rate policy choices are influenced by membership in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). We argue that PTAs, by constraining a government's ability to employ trade protection, increase its incentives to maintain monetary and fiscal autonomy in order to manipulate the domestic political economy. Consequently, we contend that countries are less likely to adopt or sustain a fixed exchange rate when they have signed a PTA with their "base" country--the country to whom they have traditionally fixed the currency or the major industrial country to whom they have the most extensive trade ties. Likewise, countries that have signed a "base" PTA also tend to have more depreciated/undervalued currencies, as measured by the level of the real exchange rate. Using data on 99 countries from 1975 to 2004, we find strong support for these hypotheses. These findings shed light on the complex relationship between different types of macroeconomic policies in the contemporary world economy. More broadly, they speak to the question of whether international agreements are credible commitment mechanisms when close policy substitutes exist at the domestic level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Powerful states build different coercive tools to manage their broad foreign policy agenda. Do different coercive strategies help or hurt deterrence success? I analyze a simple crisis model where the Defender seeks to deter a Challenger from investing in a novel coercive technology through hassling and preventive threats. Subtle differences between my model and those of Schram, Bas and Coe, and others generate different logics that clarify the Defender's costs and benefits for building diverse coercive tools. Unlike others, I show that hassling can complement and undercut the threat of war in a one-shot, complete information crisis. I show that adverse effects arise when we want deterrence to hold the most: against technologically sophisticated rivals with moderately to severely opposed preferences. After I detail my model, I connect different core specifications to different empirical domains. This exercise helps connect formal theory to empirical research. I argue that my model best fits Defenders who want to deter Challengers from building novel coercive technologies in the modern era. I propose a novel approach for modeling policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although often omitted from final texts, armchair speculation is vital to much politics research. This article argues that thought experiments are a powerful tool for harnessing scholarly imagination with enormous potential for international relations (IR). To provide guidance for thought experiments' incorporation into IR research, the article begins by clarifying thought experiments' epistemological foundations and expanding existing best practices criteria for minimal-rewrite counterfactuals. Doing so enables consideration of the diversity of thought experiments useful to the discipline, ranging from alien invasions to zombie apocalypses. Then, the article outlines five ways in which thought experiments prove particularly useful in researching international politics: probing modal consequences of macro-level theories; refining concepts; formulating hypotheses; speculating about rare events; and conveying theories' real-world implications. To facilitate thought experiments' incorporation into mixed- and multi-methods research, the article's final section offers a novel typology to guide scholars in not only formulating new thought experiments, but also adapting and comparing them, including in conjunction with empirical methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacifism and anarchism have been until recently largely missing on the landscape of international relations (IR) theories, even though they help articulate valuable and nuanced reflections on core IR themes such as war and peace, the structure of the international order, and the multiple effects of political violence. In particular, an analysis grounded in the territory shared by pacifism and anarchism offers a focused vantage point from which an original contribution can be articulated around five main themes: the widespread fetishization of violence; the chronic sliding toward systemic militarism; the multifaceted manifestations of intersectional exploitation and domination enforced by states around the world; both current and potential alternative structurings of international politics; and reflections concerning political agency. This puts an anarcho-pacifist encounter with IR in a position to either develop further or dispute claims central to more established schools of IR theory. This article thus offers a normative reading of international politics, which adapts and develops arguments aired separately by anarchism and pacifism, demonstrates where they fruitfully overlap, develops anarcho-pacifism by extending its analysis specifically to international politics, and invites a reconsideration of established orthodoxies in IR theory by articulating a more radical, critical, and normative diagnosis of the Westphalian international order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on international migration suggests that partisan differences exist in regards to policies that regulate the conditions of migrants residing in host countries (migrant policies), but not in regards to policies determining the admission of new migrants (migration policies). We propose that partisan differences exist regarding migration policies, but that these differences are conditional on a party-labor relationship. In our empirical analysis, we use error correction models to examine asylum and labor migration policies in Western European countries from 1984 to 2006. We find that migration policies become more liberal as government partisanship moves to the left only when unskilled manual workers split their votes between left-wing and right-wing parties. The result implies that a strong relationship between left-wing parties and workers, which mutually benefits both groups in some areas (such as welfare), may be incompatible when conflicts arise between their interests concerning issues such as international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As governments lower traditional tariffs, they may use non-tariff barriers, such as antidumping ( AD) and countervailing duty ( CVD) laws, to protect domestic industries. Research on the US International Trade Commission ( ITC), an independent agency responsible for adjudicating AD/ CVD claims, finds mixed evidence of political influence in these cases. However, this research focuses predominately on the political influence of the petitioning industry. Applying theories of bureaucratic oversight, I posit that the ITC must be receptive both to petitioners and to firms that oppose trade barriers. Using an original data set compiled from ITC records of witness testimony in these cases, I demonstrate that domestic opposition to an AD/ CVD petition has a significant effect on ITC decisions. Moreover, members of Congress actively intervene on both sides of AD/ CVD petitions and have some influence on ITC decisions. These results suggest that AD/ CVD politics in the United States is better understood as a contest between competing domestic interests than a captured bureaucracy providing rents to protectionist interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crowded field of research has focused on the relationship between government ideology and welfare policy. In advancing this work, I refocus the debate on how the economic context can affect the manner in which governments shape welfare spending. In my analyses of social expenditures during times of economic booms and busts, I find that governments in recessions relax their ideological visions, while those in periods of prosperity have the room to make discretionary policy changes. By combining theories of government behavior with assumptions about preferences during diverse economic climates, these findings show how the economic environment affects governments' abilities to implement ideological policies. More importantly, this transcends the extant literature, resulting in a more complete picture of the relationship between politics and welfare policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments grant amnesties to rebel groups during civil wars and this is a puzzle. Why would the government offer an amnesty, which can be interpreted as a signal of weakness? In certain circumstances, offering amnesty is a rational policy choice. Governments should give amnesties when they are winning: the risk of misinterpreted signals is lessened, costs are low, rebel groups are weakened, and so amnesty can be used instrumentally to encourage defection or division among foot soldiers or as an incentive to leaders. Therefore, the government capitalizes on its military advantage and offers amnesty in a "stick then carrot" tactic. Using a database of amnesties during conflicts from 1990 to 2011, the article shows that governments are more likely to give amnesties following high rebel deaths. The use of amnesty during conflict is nuanced and context is important when understanding strategic choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realities of interdependence dictate that the ability of governments to pursue domestic policies effectively is influenced and constrained by developments in the international system. It is equally evident that the realization of international objectives depends meaningfully on domestic politics and economics. Our purpose in this paper is to lay the foundation for a Realist theory of state action which bridges domestic and international politics. We proceed by positing assumptions about state objectives and deducing strategies relevant to their pursuit. First, we examine conceptions of the state found in classical and structural Realism. Second, we present two models or "faces" of state action which relate the goals of state officials in one arena to the strategies available in the pursuit of such goals in the other. Third, building upon these two models, we put forth several hypotheses which explore the types of challenges to the state that arise in one arena that may trigger responses in the second. Fourth, we introduce variations in domestic and international structures and predict the choice of strategy made by the states across venues. Finally, a concluding section examines the implications of this effort for future Realist inquiry and the study of domestic and international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the apex of foreign policy making in all governments or ruling parties are actors with the ability to commit the resources of the government and the power to prevent other entities within the government from reversing their position—the ultimate decision unit. Although this decision unit may change with the nature of the policy problem and with time, its structure will shape a government's foreign policy. In this paper we propose three types of decision units: predominant leaders, single groups, and multiple autonomous actors. Each of these exists in one of several conditions that help to determine whether the decision unit affects foreign policy largely through the pre-existing knowledge, beliefs, and style of those participating in the unit (a self-contained unit) or whether factors outside the decision unit must be taken into consideration in understanding the results of the decisionmaking process (an externally influenceable unit). The hypotheses that self-contained units will engage in more extreme foreign policy behavior than externally influenceable units and that single group decision units will show more extreme foreign policy behavior than those comprised of multiple autonomous actors are examined using data from twenty-five nations during the decade from 1959 to 1998. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a global survey of cases of massive state repression since World War II. The universe of analysis includes sustained episodes in which the state or its agents impose on a communal or political group ‘conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part.’ We develop and use a typology which distinguishes between two categories of genocide (in which the victim groups are defined primarily in terms of communal characteristics) and four types of politicide (in which victim groups are defined in terms of their political status or opposition to the state). Forty-four episodes meet the operational guidelines developed here. Analysis of their properties and distribution shows that they occurred in all world regions, but with relatively few European and Latin American cases. Two or more began in each five-year period after 1945, with some clustering in the period of African decolonization; their median duration was five years. Aggregate fatalities were between seven and sixteen million people, at least as many who died in all international and civil wars in the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of literature in political science, sociology, and development economics asserts that specialization in the export of unprocessed goods hinders a nation's economic development. However, attempts to test that thesis empirically have been thwarted by the absence of a good measure of export processing. In this paper we introduce such a measure and use it to provide estimates of export processing for 73 (LDCs) in 1970 and 1980. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have long been aware of the need to improve our ability to predict the effect of divergent preference orderings on policy choices made by coalitions. More recently scholars have demonstrated the crucial role of differing assumptions about risk-taking preferences for predicting foreign policy choice. In this paper a theoretical approach for analyzing collective choice in the presence of risk and conflicting preferences is presented and then applied to a series of policy choices in Britain, France, and Germany in two historical periods: one, the three decades before World War I; the other, the decades after World War II. Although the specific cases examined all involve foreign and defense policy options that were embroiled in domestic disputes over extraction, the assumptions and hypotheses presented are designed to be applicable to collective decisionmaking in a wide variety of substantive areas. Indeed, they appear to provide a theoretically grounded interpretation for some characteristic patterns of policy choice that have long intrigued students of comparative foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues for conceiving international relations, including studies of world political order and disorder, as the intersection and union of behavioral-scientific, dialectical/Marxist and traditional approaches. Each is a tradition of scholarship, with dominant and inferior tendencies, visible in all parts of the scholarly world. A content analysis of Kornberg's collection of recent American international course lists shows a parochial behavioralism to dominate the instruction offered at our ‘leading’ universities. An intensive analysis of Waltz's influential treatment of radical/dialectical theorists shows many signs of the same myopia, as well as its consequences. Both epistemological and political differences in context are important for better, more ‘worldly’ and sophisticated research and teaching. Debates and convergences cutting across approaches or more specialized research programs are particularly important in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recent global uptick in white supremacist terrorism, governments continue to face accusations of not taking the threat seriously, either discursively or in terms of policy responses. Why do acts of white supremacist violence consistently fail to constitute turning points for policy change? Rather than considering acts of political violence as critical junctures for change, I argue that such acts instead reveal how persistent institutions of power actually are. I develop a theory of hegemonic components of national identity that links institutionalized white supremacy to the differential treatment of non-white perpetrators, even when they are deemed terrorists, through a process of institutional reproduction. Drawing on interviews with German national security elites, I show that even when white supremacist violence is treated as terrorism, both legally and discursively, it does not engender policy responses and attitudinal changes on par with those following other terrorist threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International relations scholarship typically treats foreign policy as a taken-for-granted analytical concept. It assumes either that all historical polities have foreign policies or that foreign policy originates in seventeenth-century Europe with the separation between the "inside" and "outside" of the state. It generally holds that foreign policy differs in essential ways from other kinds of policy, such as carrying with it a special need for secrecy. I argue against this view. The difference between "foreign" and "domestic" policy results from specific political processes; secrecy begat foreign policy. Growing domestic differentiation between state and civil society in the eighteenth century—articulated through a relatively free press operating in a nascent public sphere—enabled the emergence of foreign policy as a practical concept. The concept served to delimit the legitimate sphere of political discourse from the exclusive, executive sphere of king and cabinet. I explore these processes in Britain and France, important cases with different trajectories, one of reform, the other of revolution. Historicizing foreign policy like this serves to denaturalize the separation between different forms of policy, as well as the necessity of secrecy. Doing so cautions against the uncritical application of abstract analytical terms across time and space. jel code: historical international relations foreign policy conceptual analysis [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the relationship between income inequality and redistributive policies? This question carries with it important implications for both scholars of comparative politics and for core political dynamics in contemporary world politics. We contend that the current literature fails to provide satisfactory answers. It generally does not acknowledge heterogeneity in the relationship between inequality and redistributive policies across space and time, nor does it use cross-nationally comparable data on government redistribution and income. In this note, we compare the relationship between inequality and redistribution over time, as well as among clusters of developed and less developed countries. We use a number of statistical models to address the complexity of the relationship.We find a positive, short-term association between inequality and redistribution, controlling for endogeneity between redistribution and market income inequality. We also find that, over the long term, inequality increases redistribution in developed democracies, but appears to decrease it in a number of developing nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France took a hardline stance against Tehran's nuclear program. Yet for several decades, the French government adopted a softer line with regard to nonproliferation. France was the last permanent member of the UN Security Council to ratify the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In the 1960s and 1970s, Paris sold nuclear facilities to Israel, Iran, and Iraq, some of which had potential military uses. Why did France change its policy on nonproliferation? By reconstructing the evolution of France's position with respect to Iraq's and Iran's nuclear programs since the 1970s, this article explains how Paris shifted from reluctant loner to one of the main promoters of the norm of nonproliferation. The changing role of a second-tier power stems from transformations in the division of diplomatic labor inside and outside the state. Drawing on archival and interview data, we show how a group of French diplomats, followed by political leaders and nuclear scientists, mobilized the nonproliferation norm and carved out a role for France in the international system. Throughout this period, successive presidents faced fragmented domestic fields in which bureaucratic and political struggles shaped French policy. These struggles refracted the impact of the international system on France's slow and uneven convergence with the US position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States traditionally build walls to repel the armies of adversaries and consolidate control over territory. More recently, the growth in violence by nonstate groups has led governments to use fences to prevent insurgent activity and transnational terrorism. This practice, which has accelerated since the end of World War II, challenges liberal expectations of a borderless world. We use a new and unique data set on twentieth century interstate border barriers to evaluate the effectiveness of fencing as a defense against transnational terrorist attacks. The strategic nature of barrier construction makes the assessment of causal effects complex. However, our analyses suggest that fences reduce the annual relative risk of a terrorist attack by at least 67 percent. Much of the literature on transnational terrorism focuses on variables such as democracy, development, and distance--that is, factors that are difficult for policy-makers to manipulate. But our analysis suggests that fencing may provide an effective policy tool for leaders seeking to insulate their states from transnational terrorist attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does a state's ethnic composition affect its propensity to engage in diversionary conflicts? Recent empirical work examines the political conditions under which domestic unrest compels an embattled leader to initiate conflict abroad. We remain uncertain, however, of what social or demographic characteristics make states particularly prone to diversionary behavior. This article tries to address this gap, examining whether a state's ethnic structure conditions its leader's response to domestic discontent. Combining the expansive literatures on ethnic politics and diversionary war yields conflicting expectations here. I find that ethnically fragmented states are significantly more prone to initiating diversionary conflicts, and I show that the greater availability of "conflict opportunities" resulting from transborder ethnic-kin groups, in part, drives this effect. A brief case study illustrates these dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do the most senior national security policymakers want from international relations scholars? To answer that question, we administered a unique survey to current and former policymakers to gauge when and how they use academic social science to inform national security decision making. We find that policymakers do regularly follow academic social science research and scholarship on national security affairs, hoping to draw upon its substantive expertise. But our results call into question the direct relevance to policymakers of the most scientific approaches to international relations. And they at best seriously qualify the 'trickle down' theory that basic social science research eventually influences policymakers. To be clear, we are not arguing that policymakers never find scholarship based upon the cutting-edge research techniques of social science useful. But policymakers often find contemporary scholarship less-than-helpful when it employs such methods across the board, for their own sake, and without a clear sense of how such scholarship will contribute to policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When do international treaties cause domestic policy adjustments? While previous research emphasizes the consequences of treaty ratification, we argue that the need to secure entry into force can induce states to change their policies already before ratification. If a state expects benefits from a treaty, it can increase the probability of foreign ratification by implementing policies that benefit pivotal domestic players within its partner country. Accordingly, studies that focus on policy change after ratification underestimate the importance of treaties and partly misconstrue the causal connection between treaties and policies. We test the theory against data on the relationship between North-South preferential trading agreements ( PTAs) and automobile emission standards, finding that developing countries adopt automobile emission standards between the signature and ratification of North-South PTAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In examining the diffusion of social and political phenomena like regime transition, conflict, and policy change, scholars routinely make choices about how proximity is defined and which neighbors should be considered more important than others. Since each specification offers an alternative view of the networks through which diffusion can take place, one's decision can exert a significant influence on the magnitude and scope of estimated diffusion effects. This problem is widely recognized, but is rarely the subject of direct analysis. In international relations research, connectivity choices are usually ad hoc, driven more by data availability than by theoretically informed decision criteria. We take a closer look at the assumptions behind these choices, and propose a more systematic method to asses the structural similarity of two or more alternative networks, and select one that most plausibly relates theory to empirics. We apply this method to the spread of democratic regime change and offer an illustrative example of how neighbor choices might impact predictions and inferences in the case of the 2011 Arab Spring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do states ratify international treaties? While previous research has emphasized domestic political factors, we focus on power politics in situations in which powerful states disagree on the merits of a treaty. We argue that states supporting the status quo should discourage third parties from ratifying the treaty, whereas challenger states should entice them to do so. Based on this theory, we expect third parties' ratification decisions to be influenced by their dependence on the conflicting states. To test the theory, we use data on the conflict between the United States and the European Union over the regulation of trade in genetically modified organisms. The European Union created a new treaty, the Cartagena Protocol, to enhance biosafety regulation and propagate the 'precautionary principle' over the 'sound science principle' defended by the United States. Our quantitative analysis shows that ratification decisions of third parties were influenced by relations to and dependence on the clashing giants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What counts as evidence that the other side is sincere? Within mainstream international relations literature, scholars have focused on costly signals. We argue, however, that in the real world leaders do not simply look at costly signals, but they rely to an important extent on their personal impressions of other leaders, taking these as credible indicators of sincerity. Our approach thus builds both upon the literature on interstate communication and perceptions and upon more recent research in the field of neuroscience regarding affective information. To probe the plausibility of our theory, we focus on the indicators British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain used to evaluate Germany sincerity in the late 1930s and Ronald Reagan employed to make sincerity judgments about Soviet intentions in the late 1980s. Additionally, we briefly discuss the 1961 Vienna Summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev as an illustration of how personal impressions can also result in negative assessments of sincerity. Our findings suggest that personal impressions are an important, but up until now relatively ignored, source of evidence for leaders of their counterparts' sincerity with significant implications for threat assessments and policy choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The WTO system and democratic rights are unexpected bedfellows. The GATT/WTO requires governments to adopt policies that provide foreign products (read producers) with due process, political participation, and information rights related to trade policymaking. Because these nations also provide these rights to their citizens, a growing number of people are learning how to influence trade-related policies. As trade today encompasses many areas of governance, these same citizens may gradually transfer the skills learned from influencing trade policies to other public issues. Thus, the WTO not only empowers foreign market actors, but also citizens in repressive states. We use both qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine whether membership in the WTO over time leads to improvements in these democratic rights. Our qualitative analysis shows that these issues are discussed during accessions and trade policy reviews. Quantitative analysis examines how members of the GATT/WTO perform on these democratic rights over time. We use a cross-national time series design of all countries, accounting for selection issues of why countries become members of the GATT/WTO regime. We find that longer GATT/WTO membership leads to stronger performance on our metrics for political participation, free and fair elections, and access to information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research indicates that if third parties provide assistance to sanctioned states, the sanctions are less likely to be successful. However, the scholarship on the profile of sanctions busters and their motivations remains underdeveloped. Drawing on the realist and liberal paradigms, this piece develops two competing theories to account for third-party sanctions-busting. The hypotheses drawn from these theories build upon existing work on sanctions, the political determinants of international trade, and the effects of indirect interstate relationships. A quantitative analysis develops a new measure to identify sanctions-busting behavior for a dataset covering 77 sanctions cases from 1950 to 1990. The liberal and realist explanations are then tested. The results offer strong support for the liberal theory of sanctions-busting and less support for the realist theory. In particular, the analysis reveals a counter-intuitive finding that a sender’s close allies are more likely to sanctions-bust on the target’s behalf than are other states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty years ago not a single country had a policy against money laundering; currently, over 170 have very similar anti-money laundering (AML) policies in place. Why have so many countries with so little in common adopted the same policy so rapidly? This extensive diffusion is particularly puzzling given the lack of evidence that AML policies actually work. In explaining the international spread of AML policies, this article draws on recent literature from International Relations, sociology, comparative politics, and public policy dealing with policy diffusion and policy transfer, but also differs from most of this work in two key aspects: First, it is argued that the process of diffusion in the developing world has been much more power-based than voluntary. Second, the mechanisms driving policy diffusion (direct coercion, mimicry, and competition) are all shown to be discursively mediated exercises of power, rather than reflecting rational learning or brute material forces. Evidence is drawn from surveys, interviews, and participant-observation in developing countries from three regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some mediation episodes produce successful negotiated settlements between the disputants of international conflict while others fail to achieve success? This article examines how certain characteristics of a mediator, that is, a mediator’s information about the disputants and a mediator’s bias toward them, affect the success of mediation of international conflicts. By drawing a conceptual distinction between absolute and relative bias and measuring the type of information that is relevant for mediation success, I demonstrate that both the degree of bias a mediator holds toward the disputants and the degree of information a mediator has about the disputants are significant predictors of mediation success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As intergovernmental organizations (IOs) have grown in number and influence, there has been an increase in calls for their accountability, not just to governments but also toward the general public. One of the principal ways they can improve their accountability is by becoming more transparent, that is, offering more information to the public. Over the past decade, some IOs have adopted official policies and changed their practices concerning public access to information, while others have not. This study asks which IOs are likely to be transparent. To answer this question, it derives several hypotheses based on the existing international relations literature as well as the literature explaining government transparency in the domestic realm. The hypotheses focus on the roles of the principal actors affecting access-to-information from IOs: member states, IO bureaucracies and international nongovernmental organizations. This study tests these hypotheses across 72 IOs by using three newly developed measures of transparency. It finds that some of the main factors that explain IO transparency are analogous to those that have affected government transparency at the domestic level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite considerable moral and material differences among states, the concept of sovereign equality permeates international relations theory and, in particular, normative international relations theory. Most traditions of international ethics incorporate the idea of equality. John Rawls's Law of Peoples is representative of this tendency. The states party to Rawls's contractual model of international justice are assumed to be equal. Despite the inequalities among states, the choice to model states as equals is justified to the extent that they all possess some degree of moral agency. As moral agents, states possess an inherent equality that justifies modeling them as equal. Nevertheless, states as equal moral agents would take into account certain aspects of international inequality. In particular, they could recognize the role that Great Powers can play in maintaining order and establishing the preconditions for international justice. This piece explores the extent of equality in normative international relations theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars examining the cross-national mobility of capital have followed two distinct paths. Economists tend to focus on the determinants and economic effects of cross-country capital movements while political scientists largely concentrate on the political impact of capital mobility. This study fills an important gap in the literature by examining the effects of economic policy outcomes on capital inflows to developing countries, explicitly comparing the reactions of portfolio and direct investors. I find that portfolio investors are in fact sensitive to past government behavior and fiscal policy outcomes; portfolio investors reallocate funds as new information about government policy becomes available. Direct investors, on the other hand, are not sensitive to macrolevel economic policy outcomes but are concerned with political institutions. Countries with more stable and democratic political institutions attract more FDI. These findings have implications for developing country governments as they consider the sequence of market liberalizing reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do presidents incorporate the preferences of the public into their foreign policy decisions? Previous scholarship has begun to sketch out the sources of variation in the policy–public opinion linkage, but we still lack a clear understanding of the factors that increase or decrease presidential responsiveness. To better explore the relationship, we conceptualize presidential foreign policy making as a five-stage process—problem representation, option generation, policy selection, implementation, and policy review—arguing that the degree to which presidents are responsive to public opinion varies with fluctuations in public attentiveness. At stages in which public interest is high, presidents are more likely to incorporate mass preferences into their decision making than during stages of public quiescence. The key finding in our analysis of 34 foreign policy cases is that the public's “issue-attention cycle” varies systematically across foreign policy crises and noncrises. Examining these cycles of attention allows us to make predictions about the conditions under which public opinion is most likely to influence decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]