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Over the last two decades, significant advances have been made in understanding the elements that make up a theory of public opinion and foreign policy. These include identification of the dimensions of foreign policy attitudes, and the rationality and prudence of the public.Yet despite the advances in understanding public opinion, the theory of public opinion in foreign policy making, and the understanding and demonstration of the dynamics of the opinion-policy nexus long remained at the pre-theoretical stage. Recent developments in the field that provide basic theoretical insights have begun pushing it beyond the pre-theoretical stages. Holsti?s criteria and works of synthesis have pushed the field forward. The theoretical syntheses suggest and the research provides initial evidence for the hypothesis that public opinion constrains but does not set foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can national bureaucracies be held accountable for the implementation of policies that are decided by supranational institutions? Drawing upon the discourse on democratic accountability from public administration theory, in this paper I address this question in the context of the European Union (EU). More specifically, given the fact that the predominant majority of EU policies are implemented by the administrative mechanisms of member-states, a paradox of EU policy-making is that member-states often are not eager to implement those policies which they themselves have delegated to the Union for their more effective application. How can states be held accountable, and to what extent, for not implementing EU-determined policies? First, I define accountability as a property of a principal-agent relationship, in which the principal exercises control over the agent. In particular, by making a credible threat of sanction, the principal seeks to extract a credible commitment from the agent for the accomplishment of a delegated function. Second, I divide the EU policy-making process into its two main components, namely policy-formation and policy implementation. Third, I perceive the EU as a multi-tier governance system, in which two main principal-agent relations can be identified: on the one hand, national governments and national electorates delegate certain policy-formation functions to EU institutions, while on the other hand EU institutions, most notably the European Commission, delegate the implementation of EU policies to the governments and bureaucracies of member-states. Although the main focus of recent scholarship on democratic accountability in the EU has been on the first of these two principal-agent relationships, that is, on the accountability of EU institutions, I argue that the second relationship is of equal importance. We need to shift our attention to the examination of the accountability of the EU policy implementation process, in order to have a complete picture of how democratic accountability structures work in the EU. If policies are not implemented, what is the point of making them in the first place? I examine the mechanisms available to EU institutions, particularly the network of national ombudsmen that has been created around the relatively new EU institution of the European Ombudsman, as well as the Court of Auditors of the EU, for keeping member-states accountable for the implementation of policies that are formulated at the EU level. I conclude that the EU systematically ?copies? accountability structures from its member-states. In fact, when traditional mechanisms of democratic administrative accountability, such as ?ministerial responsibility,? fail to materialize at the supranational level, the EU turns to alternative mechanisms of ?softer power,? also present in the national polities, and in particular to ?fire alarm? (ombudsmen) and ?police patrol? (Court of Auditors) schemes, in order to deal effectively with the above paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the extent to which battle deaths, wealth, democracy, and the transformation of warfare affects the likelihood of victory and defeat in international war. The findings from the analysis of interstate warfare from 1816-1997 are juxtaposed with those of Rosen (1972), and extend those of Reiter and Stam (2002). Although some theorists argue that war has changed fundamentally over the last half century and that we are now witnessing a post-Cold War era of ?clashes of civilizations?, with respect to the demographic and economic factors that contribute to victory and defeat, it appears that the relationships Rosen uncovered for wars from 1816 to 1945 persist well into the 1990s. Findings from multivariate probit analyses show that both greater wealth and fewer relative battle deaths are powerful predictors to victory in war. Moreover, it appears that wealth more than democracy accounts for the greater propensity of democratic belligerents to win their wars, which challenges Reiter and Stam?s (2002) view that the success of democracies in war lies in their employment of more effective strategies or the alleged superior leadership ability of their troops. Interestingly, these relationships are not stable over time: both democracy and relative battle deaths seem to matter more in the post-1919 era as compared to the pre-1919 era, while the impact of wealth was more important in the pre-1919 era as compared to the post-1919 era. Also, while civilization membership is not significantly associated with war outcomes across the entire time period, it increases the likelihood of victory in the pre-1919 era, while it significantly decreases the likelihood of victory in the post-1919 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neorealist balance-of-power theory holds that the international system compels states, both great powers and weaker states, to adopt similar adaptive strategies?namely, balancing and emulation?or risk elimination as independent entities. Yet, in practice, states do not always emulate the successful practices of the system’s leading states in timely and uniform fashion. This paper further specifies the "resource extraction" model of the state in neoclassical realism. The level of external vulnerability, a composite of the relative distribution of power, the offense-defense balance, and geographic proximity, provides incentives for states to emulate the practices of the system’s leading states or to counter such practices through innovation. However, domestic variables, such as state power and national political power, path dependence, and ideology can facilitate or inhibit efficient responses to external threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neorealist balance-of-power theory holds that the international system compels states, both great powers and weaker states, to adopt similar adaptive strategies?namely, balancing and emulation?or risk elimination as independent entities. Yet, in practice, states do not always emulate the successful practices of the system’s leading states in timely and uniform fashion. This paper further specifies the "resource extraction" model of the state in neoclassical realism. The level of external vulnerability, a composite of the relative distribution of power, the offense-defense balance, and geographic proximity, provides incentives for states to emulate the practices of the system’s leading states or to counter such practices through innovation. However, domestic variables, such as state power and national political power, path dependence, and ideology can facilitate or inhibit efficient responses to external threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that out of the ?service learning? movement of the 1980s, a new form of scholarship is emerging known as the ?scholarship of engagement.? Engaged scholarship has two core components which are not fully captured by the concept of service learning: first, it includes other scholarly functions beyond teaching, including research; and second, it focuses on genuinely reciprocal collaboration with communities. This paper defines the scholarship of engagement, creates a taxonomy five forms of engaged scholarship, and documents practices associated with this movement. Informed by a problem-driven, pluralistic approach to engaged scholarship, this taxonomy suggests that the new forms of engaged scholarship each have important contributions to the civic renewal of American higher education, and together make up an exciting and growing movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The depiction of political issues in the media has long defied analytic understanding and description. Important work, such as Bennett’s Index Theory or Gans’ Paraideology Theory ? in which mass media professionals largely set the voices in their coverage to mirror that of mainstream government debate ? offer compelling visions, but are only intermittently supported by data. This paper suggests that such theories enjoy inconsistent support because they fail to consider the interaction between journalists’ incentives and the political climate. A theory is advanced here that the journalists’ objective to please their superiors, please themselves, limit negative feedback, and expend minimum energy, in other words to minimize costs and maximize benefits, relies on tactics that vary with the scope of consensus support for an issue. That is, for example, the inclination to insert drama into coverage, present the appearance of objectivity, and conform to popular opinion rises and falls based on the degree of political consensus present for the issue. As an issue approaches near universal support, a reporter is likely to have little inclination or ability to present drama or objectivity, but is also quite likely to conform to established popular consensus. Conversely, as an issue approaches a complete lack of political consensus, reporters are much freer to ignore popular opinion, but are more likely to present coverage consistent with the desire to insert drama and their own personal opinion. This theory is tested by analyzing U.S. media coverage on a sample of six political issues debated in Congress and reveals that combining journalists’ incentives with political consensus suggests a better way to understand the political journalism process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the question of whether the process of constitution-making merits consideration as an independent explanatory variable and proposes a framework for analyzing it. It understands constitution-making as consisting of three separate and recognizable phases: 1) Pre-constituent (or preparatory) phase; 2) the constituent (or decision-making) phase; and the 3) post-constituent (or implementation) phase. It conceives constitution-making as a series of interlocking processes which are sequentially connected via a series of mechanisms with each partial process having an impact on the subsequent phase, and examines the key issues in each stage. The argument places particular emphasis on coalitional politics, and claims that constitutions should be understood as the complex and often unexpected outcome of bargaining among political coalitions, the product of multiple designers with diverse values, beliefs and interests, cross cutting each other in multiple attempts at partial design. The paper uses the Andean cases as empirical bases for its conceptual framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To ensure a democracy, citizens must participate. Yet we know little about who participates in different fashions, and other than providing crosstabs of social-economic data and demographic factors we are unable to do any more than describe what has already happened. By incorporating the concept of external efficacy of participation we should be able to develop testable hypotheses about participative experiences and how long term attitudes toward participation may be influenced by those attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the literature on federalism has emphasized the relationship between national and subnational governments, but has overlooked the organization of power at the subnational level. Likewise, most of the debate on the separation of powers in presidential, parliamentary, and mixed systems has neglected the role of federalism in bolstering the separation of powers. In this paper, we argue federalism may be defined as a constitutional arrangement that creates executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government at the subnational level. This definition has important implications for the literatures on federalism and the separation of powers, two themes often treated in isolation. First, it directs the attention of students of federalism to the neglected subject of the separation of powers at the subnational level. Second, it directs the attention of students of the separation of powers to the issue of federalism. We show that the existence of institutional mechanisms that override the subnational separation of powers in federal systems is problematic for democracy and deserves further attention. We also point to the fact that by safeguarding the subnational separation of powers, federalism can strengthen democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the power of constitutional courts all over the world is increasing, we still know very little about support for emergent courts and especially support for supranational courts develops. So in order to better understand the development of support for constitutional courts, this paper compares the sources of confidence in constitutional courts in four cases. The comparison extends both cross-nationally and cross-institutionally by contrasting public support a well-established constitutional court ?the Federal Constitutional Court or Bundesverfassungsgericht in West Germany ? to support for three emergent courts ? the Bundesverfassungsgericht in East Germany and the European Court of Justice in both West and East Germany. Building on previous quantitative analysis that demonstrated a link between support for the national and the supranational link, the legitimacy transfer hypothesis is tested against additional, qualitative evidence that is lower in external validity, but higher in internal validity. These qualitative data consist of focus group interviews designed to explore why and how people might link support for national to support for supranational courts. Based on preliminary results from a series of focus groups conducted in West and East Germany, people do indeed make a functional connection between the national and the supranational court. Unlike the other institutions of government both courts are seen as neutral, technical arbiters of the law that are fundamentally trustworthy. The European Court of Justice is considered as the functional equivalent of the Federal Constitutional Court at a different level of government. There are some differences between East and West Germany, but they are slight. Even though the results are still preliminary, the evidence corroborates a functional connection between the two levels of courts, supporting the legitimacy transfer hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do rulers obey the constitution? This argument uncovers a paradox in Thomas Hobbes?s Leviathan that explains why rulers submit to the rule of law. Because rulers cannot enjoy absolute power and personal security at the same time, their need for security provides an incentive to respect the rule of law. Though sovereignty advances the personal and ideological ambition of leaders and may even produce law and order that frees subjects from the state of nature, rulers and their inner circle find themselves in a situation where they cannot escape the war against each other. Given the imbalance of power, contenders have no interest in resorting to violence were it not for the ruler?s threat. Because absolute power aggravates the security dilemma rulers who wish to escape the state of nature must assure their contenders? safety. Assurances are particularly credible if institutional arrangements check and balance the ruler?s power. The constitutional protection of contenders triggers an uneven cascade of rights to subjects and citizens, which may extend further as new groups participate legitimately in politics. Because the requirements of personal security provide a powerful incentive to rulers to accept limited power, constitutions and democracy are sustainable. However, as security requires the surrender of absolute power, the pay-off matrix is intransitive and remains indeterminate. Accordingly, neither democracy nor constitutions are universal. Relying on game theoretical proof and historical illustrations this argument locates the security dilemma, the traditional core of international relations theory, in democracy theory and also links work on the democratic peace with the emerging literature on self-enforcing institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal advisory committees may serve as an additional point of access to the policy process for regulated industries. This raises concerns about conflicts of interest in government policy decision-making. Recent scholarship has concluded that federal ethics laws protecting against conflicts of interest in the executive branch are wrongheaded and wasteful. This paper examines these issues with an example of the tobacco industry and the National Toxicology Program committees. A review of federal advisory committee law reveals that the rules governing committees have been reformed with legislation and executive orders several times. A qualitative analysis of previously confidential internal tobacco industry documents made public through litigation demonstrates that the tobacco industry responded to a regulatory proposal with a multi-part strategy. The industry challenged the substance of the regulation and its procedures, and then brought legal challenges to court. The tobacco industry position lost when environmental tobacco smoke was declared by the committee to be a known human carcinogen. A related lawsuit protesting the committee procedures lost, but this produced a particular legal precedent favorable to regulated industries. This case reveals that federal advisory committees and their proceedings provide another access point for business in the regulatory process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom paints the Warren Court as a hot-bed of activism ? Justices setting public policy, and attempting to reform American political and social institutions. The Justices are seen as separate from the political system ? an alternate means to the ends of social justice. Building on a larger project to develop a multi-dimensional theory of the role of precedent, this paper specifically focuses on the Warren Court and the ways in which the precedent and doctrine set by the Court influenced and constrained public policy choices made by Members of Congress with particular attention to civil rights, housing discrimination, the death penalty and the power of congress to investigate and subpoena witnesses in national and internal security cases in the midst of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The premise of being the world?s only superpower that has animated U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War is based on an illusion: the view that vastly superior military and economic capabilities among nations translates into virtually unchallengeable power. This paper elucidates how the United States in the presumed era of unipolarity is being challenged by polyarchic forces, and recommends an adaptive and constructive response. The emergent structure of world politics features the global hegemony of the United States within a polyarchic field of actors ? nation-states, subnational groups, terrorist networks, transnational religions, multinational enterprises, global and regional institutions. The cross-pressures to which countries are subject in this partially unipolar, partially polyarchic, system makes for fickle alignments and adversary relationships, in which today?s ally may well be tomorrow?s enemy, and one?s coalition partner on one issue may be one?s determined opponent on another issue. The United States continues to be the most influential actor, and often its cooperation or opposition can determine the fate of other nations? policies and programs. But as the twenty-first century progresses, the United States will hardly be in a position, even on matters affecting global peace and security, to call all the shots ? metaphorically or literally. As the United States, increasingly frustrated in its efforts to exercise the prerogatives of global hegemon, takes on a unilateralist mode of asserting and defending its interests, it will only exacerbate the polyarchic forces that are the sources of its frustration. A U.S. policy that combines ?modular multilateralism? with support of norms and structures of international accountability can reverse the decline in respect for U.S. leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, I seek out an answer to the question, ?Do we have enough empirical evidence to assume the existence of global civil society?? In order to subject the attributive hypothesis about the existence of the phenomenon to empirical tests, I develop a comprehensive conceptualization of global civil society based on extensive analysis of conceptual definitions offered in the literature, operationalize it, and collect data on all of the attributive components of the concept. The primary source of data for this research is an international web-based survey of global civil society organizations complemented by statistics and findings from other studies of global civil society. I use the secondary data to demonstrate the existence of the institutional infrastructure of global civil society and patterns of interactions within it. The purpose of the survey is to develop an understanding of how global civil society organizations, themselves, conceive of the space where their activities take place, what their goals, values, sources of legitimacy, rights, and responsibilities are. Examining the normative content of global civil society, the study is set to establish the extent to which the distribution of economic and political power in the world is reflected in the types of norms and principles constituting the normative content of global civil society and the ways, in which those rules and norms are set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intimately tied to our perception of presidential leadership is the influence a president wields in the legislative process. Setting the nation on a path, outlining an agenda, and using the art of persuasion to achieve success while in office are all at the heart of providing leadership. These are all things that presidents seek to do with a State of the Union address. The public looks to the president to solve a host of problems; expectations on the part of the public are high. Whether or not the president is able to address these needs through legislation is a critical component of the public?s perception of presidential leadership. One avenue, and a very public one, that a president uses to signal his legislative agenda to Congress is the State of the Union address (SUA). While the policies mentioned in this speech do not encompass the whole of the president?s legislative agenda, the policies mentioned indicate the items that the administration has chosen to highlight publicly before both Congress and the rest of the country. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson began the tradition of delivering State of the Union addresses during prime-time television viewing hours, thus dramatically expanding the pool of potential viewers among the public. At this point, the SUA became a potent tool for the rhetorical president to utilize in his role as chief legislator. We analyze SUAs from 1965 to 2002 using content analysis. Our interest in SUAs is twofold. First, the SUA is no ordinary speech. How does the speech function as a form of presidential-congressional communication in a public setting? It contains both substance in the form of requests for action and symbolism meant to inspire. It is a vehicle the president uses to exhibit rhetorical leadership of Congress through deliberative rhetoric, a form of rhetoric that exacerbates the expectations gap. Second, the president is no ordinary legislator. We analyze SUAs for evidence of when the president dons his chief legislator?s hat. He uses SUAs to aid in the fulfillment of two major goals that he, as chief legislator, shares with ordinary legislators: re-election goals and making good public policy. SUAs provide an excellent forum in which the president can claim credit for past accomplishments that further the re-election goals (and related legacy goals) of the president. To advance the president?s goal of making good public policy, the chief legislator in a SUA will ask for congressional action on his policy priorities. The Congress, however, typically gives the president some form of what he has requested less than half the time. We find that the eight presidents? median success rate for partial to full fulfillment of congressional policy requests is 43.3%. If one just considers instances where the president gets all of his request enacted, the median success rate is only 23.6%. This suggests that presidents are not particularly successful in convincing Congress to enact the legislation they highlight in their SUAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new European constitution, should it be adopted, will entrench a European Charter of Fundamental Rights. This will provide further justification for the ongoing harmonization and Europeanization of citizenship and social policies, processes which have been influenced by the judicial activism of the European Court of Justice. Indeed, observers have long referred to the ECJ?s ?constitutionalization? of the international treaties that provide the legal framework of European integration. As evinced by the introduction and evolution of European citizenship, the Europeanization of individual rights appears both well advanced and well founded. Nevertheless, as comparative examples from the United States and elsewhere elucidate, rights are ultimately only as secure as the political and institutional support they enjoy. The expansion of the rights of European citizenship is therefore reversible. The attempt to add a veneer of common European rights over well-established national rights based on dissimilar conceptions of the good life raises challenges, and problematizes the future of European rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How national governments interface with the IT industry can have an important influence upon the delivery of government IT projects, which in most advanced industrial countries will account for at least 1 per cent of GDP. Looking across seven countries (the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and Japan) we characterize the power of the IT industry in terms of three variables: patterns of contractual relations, the largest firms? market and technical dominance, and the extent to which government retains IT expertise or ?intelligent customer? capabilities. We assess the performance of government IT in terms of three factors: the extent of catastrophic project failures or cancellations, indications of the price competitiveness of government IT contracts, and the relative modernization of government IT compared with the private sector nationally. Using a ?fuzzy-set social science? approach we argue that an overall index of corporate power viz a viz central governments shows a clear negative association with government IT performance. Where governments are weakly placed in relation to powerful IT corporations, long-run performance outcomes are less satisfactory. Our cases also illuminate the different ways in which governments can ensure and maintain more balanced relationships with the IT industry, which in turn will foster better long-run results in the design and operations of government IT systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have made an extensive effort to understand both the sources as well as the effects of the recent wide-ranging changes to U.S. welfare policies. While the political science literature has focused on understanding the policy choices that states made, econometricians have sought to isolate the impacts of the policies on those subject to them. For the most part, these exercises have proceeded in parallel, with scant attention being paid on either side to the findings, as well as the cautions, that have emerged from each body of research. In this paper I begin to address this divide, bringing insights from the political science literature to bear on a central methodological issue that those employing quasi-experimental methods to evaluate policies face. While I do not conclude from this preliminary set of analyses that the political variables that political scientists have used to predict welfare policy choices threaten the validity of the conclusions that econometricians have drawn, I think the jury is still out: Further research may arrive at a less sanguine assessment of quasi-experimental research in this policy arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the causes and consequences of reactive ethnicity among Latino citizens in the United States. In particular, it examines the links among (1) perceptions of discrimination against oneself and/or one?s group, (2) whether one self-identifies in national (i.e., American), national origin (i.e., Mexican, Dominican, etc.), or pan-ethnic (i.e., Latino or Hispanic) terms, and (3) levels of political engagement. Reactive ethnicity occurs when real and/or perceived discriminatory treatment leads people away from thinking of themselves as Americans and instead strengthens their ethnic and/or national origin identifications. To date, however, empirical investigations of reactive ethnicity have relied primarily on regional data, have failed to distinguish adequately between discrimination against one?s ethnic group and against oneself personally, and have failed to distinguish adequately between those who identify in pan-ethnic terms and those who identify in national origin terms. Moreover, few studies have examined the consequences of reactive ethnicity with respect to political engagement. I address these limitations using data from the 2002 survey of Latinos by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Pew Hispanic Center. The results show that perceptions of discrimination against one?s group affect self-identification more than perceptions of discrimination against oneself. They also show that perceptions of discrimination against oneself (and to a lesser extent against one?s group) promote behavioral and attitudinal alienation from the political process, but that behavioral alienation can be mitigated when combined with attachments to Latinos or to one?s country of origin. Reactive ethnicity, in other words, can counteract the political alienation that results from the perception of discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars argue that political institutions affect economic and social inequality, while others claim that inequality affects institutions. Following most historical literature, we suggest that exogenous changes in technology, trade, or demography alter the value of factor endowments and thus change both inequality and institutions. We support this assertion with a welfare-maximizing model of endogenous institutional choice, with a series of historical case studies, and with an empirical examination of the history of franchise extension in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the more controversial claims in John Rawls?s The Law of Peoples is his conclusion that liberal peoples ought to tolerate certain nonliberal societies which he calls "decent peoples.? In this discussion, I first try to clarify the account of toleration in The Law of Peoples. I will suggest that the idea of toleration in this work is best seen as an institutional virtue, that is, an ideal that is meant primarily to regulate the basic structure of the Society of Peoples. This may be an obvious enough point to some, but I think it is a point worth explicating because overlooking it and mistakenly treating toleration as a directly intersocietal or interactional value has caused some confusion about how liberal criticism fits with the notion of respect that seems to underlie Rawls?s account of toleration. In the second part of the paper, I will suggest that a cosmopolitan conception of international toleration is not only more consistent with Rawls?s own fundamental liberal premises, but that it need not have interventionist implications as opponents of the cosmopolitanism conception might fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists commonly explain cross-national variation in international trade complaints according to differences in macroeconomic conditions and macroeconomic policy. Macroeconomic variables including exchange rates and GDP growth, however, fail to solve two puzzles related to antidumping (AD) complaints. First, they cannot account for why AD use is persistently higher in some countries than in others. Second, they cannot explain wide differences in industries? use of the policy despite high complainant success rates in most countries. In this paper, I argue that a country?s institutional context, including its electoral and social institutions, influences AD filings: institutions directly influence AD filings and interact with macroeconomic variables to condition the frequency of industry demands for protection. These hypotheses are tested on cross-national time series data from 19 OECD countries. The results indicate that institutional variables condition the effect of economic conditions on AD appeals. This paper demonstrates the value of unpacking broad categories of countries to consider ways in which both electoral and social institutions influence industries? political behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Cold War, western defense experts and intelligence had worried that the Soviet Union had a window of opportunity because of its military capability and expansionist ambition. Also in the Korean peninsula, many scholars have argued that North Korea has had a window of opportunity and has been ready to initiate a second Korean War at any moment due to its military capability and offensive intentions. However, both the Soviet Union and North Korea were weaker and declining nations compared to the United States and South Korea, so that it is logically wrong or statistically mistaken to argue that such weaker states had windows of opportunity. Due to the power gap, the Cold War ended peacefully and the Korean peninsula has enjoyed a long peace since the Korean War. However, this paper does not conclude that simple deterrence always works. Weaker states do not possess windows of opportunity due to the unfavorable balance of power, but they may still challenge stronger opponents and start war. To explain this, this paper draws on the recent development of prospect theory in international relations and proposes a few hypotheses about why and when the weaker fight the stronger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do rising levels of international interconnectedness affect the social, economic, and political condition of women? Competing hypotheses are easy to identify; indeed, a prudent answer to the question would be that some women will benefit from globalization and some will be hurt, or that the status of women will improve in some respects but not others. We advance the hypothesis that, on balance and over time, increasing cross-national exchange and communication lead to improvements in the status of women. We argue that both economic factors and ideational or normative effects support that proposition. Economic aspects of globalization bring new opportunities and resources to women. But equally important, globalization promotes the diffusion of ideas and norms of equality for women; though some societies resist such notions, others gradually abandon rules and practices that have functioned to subordinate and constrain women. Results of our analysis of data from 180 countries during the years 1975 to 2000 are consistent with the expectation that global norms and institutions make a difference for the quality of life and status of women. More often than not, when domestic cultures are more open to international influences, outcomes for women, as measured in health, literacy, and participation in the economy and government, are generally improved. We find that International norms and institutions can, at a minimum, give women one more source of leverage in pressing for domestic reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]