Search

I SHOULD BEGIN by congratulating Frank Resartus on his excellent essay 'Defeating the Equity Regime' (May). Resartus believes 'conventional right-wing jurisprudence' on 'just a handful of constitutional questions' could 'defeat [...]

Through the use of survey methods, the study presents the first systematic comparison of America-based international relations professors to think tank employees (TTEs) in terms of their preferred conduct of the United States in international affairs. The difference between the two groups in their support for military intervention is stark. TTEs are 0.47 standard deviations more hawkish than professors based on a standard measure of militant internationalism (MI). Controlling for self-described ideology mitigates this effect although it remains statistically significant. Beyond quantifying their relative foreign policy preferences, this study helps to resolve why TTEs tend to assume more hawkish policies. The authors find evidence that hawkishness is associated with proximity to power. Professors who have worked for the federal government score higher on MI, as do TTEs based at institutions located closer to Capitol Hill. In general, the results point to a self-selection mechanism whereby those who favor interventionist policies are more likely to pursue positions to increase their policy influence, perhaps because they know that powerful institutions are more likely to hire hawks. Alternative explanations for differences, such as levels or kinds of foreign policy expertise, have weaker empirical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public figures often apologize after making controversial statements. There are reasons to believe, however, that apologizing makes public figures appear weak and risk averse, which may make them less likeable and lead members of the public to want to punish them. This paper presents the results of an experiment in which respondents were given two versions of two real-life controversies involving public figures. Approximately half of the participants read a story that made it appear as if the person had apologized, while the rest were led to believe that the individual had stood firm. In the first experiment, hearing that Rand Paul apologized for his comments on civil rights did not change whether respondents were less likely to vote for him. When presented with two versions of the controversy surrounding Larry Summers and his comments about women scientists and engineers, however, liberals and females were more likely to say that he should have faced negative consequences for his statement when presented with his apology. The effects on other groups were smaller or neutral. The evidence suggests that when a prominent figure apologizes for a controversial statement, individuals are either unaffected or become more likely to desire that the individual be punished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Security Council (UNSC) has transformed from a body almost exclusively focused on conflict to one that addresses a wide variety of issues. Despite a series of powerful works in recent years showing how international norms have developed over time, we still lack clear understanding of why and when international institutions change their missions. This article argues that while international politics is usually characterized by inertia, shocks to the system, or focal point events, can compel rational actors to adopt new logics of appropriateness. Since 1945, the end of the Cold War and the signing of the Helsinki Accords stand out as such events. Through latent Dirichlet allocation, a machine learning algorithm used to classify text, UNSC resolutions between 1946 and 2017 can be divided into the subjects of War, Punitive, and Humanitarian. The topic Humanitarian exploded in frequency after the Cold War, and more refined models show that words related to human rights and elections similarly increased after Helsinki. These changes are rapid and occur in almost the immediate aftermath of focal point events, showing their importance for norm diffusion. The analysis also reveals another shift towards humanitarian topics in the mid-2000s, demonstrating the ability of topic modeling to uncover changes that have been missed by earlier kinds of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars who study public opinion and American foreign policy have accepted what Rathbun et al. (2016) call the "Vertical Hierarchy Model," which says that policy attitudes are determined by more abstract moral ideas about right and wrong. This article turns this idea on its head by introducing the Prejudice First Model, arguing that foreign policy preferences and orientations are driven by attitudes toward the groups being affected by specific policies. Three experiments are used to test the utility of this framework. First, when conservatives heard about Muslims killing Christians, as opposed to the opposite scenario, they were more likely to support a humanitarian intervention and agree that the United States has a moral obligation to help those persecuted by their governments. Liberals showed no religious preference. When the relevant identity group was race, however, liberals were more likely to want to help blacks persecuted by whites, while conservatives showed no racial bias. In contrast, the degree of persecution mattered relatively little to respondents in either experiment, and the effects of moral foundations were shown to be generally weak relative to those of prejudice. In another experiment, conservatives adopted more isolationist policies after reading a text about the country becoming more liberal, as opposed to a paragraph that said the United States was a relatively conservative country. While not necessarily contradicting the Vertical Hierarchy Model, the results indicate that under most conditions the Prejudice First Model presents a better lens through which to understand how foreign policy preferences are formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper tests the hypothesis that the expected partisan affiliation of refugee populations partially explains why white conservatives and white liberals have different attitudes toward refugee resettlement in the United States. Method: This was tested with a preregistered survey experiment that examined how attitudes toward refugee resettlement changed depending on the racial and political characteristics of a theoretical refugee population. Results: Conservative opposition to refugee resettlement can be weakened if conservatives are given reasons to believe those refugees will support the Republican Party. At the same time, liberal support for refugees drops when they receive the same information. Conclusion: Although white conservatives and white liberals exhibit different levels of racial prejudice, and this has consequences for their immigration and refugee policy preferences, their beliefs about how newcomers influence domestic partisan politics are also consequential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Article, the author argues against the standard view that there is no coherent and effective doctrine of intemational law regarding the interstate use of force. It is generally held that states interact with one another in a state of anarchy, at least when it comes to national security. After defining international law, I show that this is not completely accurate. Refiecting a status quo bias, classic invasions and territorial aggrandizement through force are illegal. Since 1945, states that have undertaken classic invasions have generally been sanctioned, and no state has taken territory from another by force since 1976. Part II presents a model that explains how norms not enforced by a centralized authority can have an impact on state behavior. I rely on political psychology and behavioral economics literature to show that the normative infiuence of law can cause states to refrain from attacking one another and the global community to sanction aggressors. The model as an explanatory tool is made even more plausible by investigations into earlier examples of the power of ideas to change state behavior and the finding that materialist or economic explanations of the status quo bias of international law are at best incomplete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the debate over the power of the U.S. Congress for humanitarian intervention and to declare war. It reviews the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers and proves that modern scholars accept the Founder's views on the likelihood of presidents to go to war and the assumption that the best war powers system is one of the producers of war. It reviews the works of international relations scholars and shows the consensus of an idealist strand in American foreign policy.