International relations
US Intelligence Assistance to Iran, May-October 1979
Mark Gasiorowski
Middle East Journal, Autumn 2012, Pages 613-627
Abstract:
This article describes a US initiative to provide intelligence to Iran in 1979, as radical Islamists were becoming increasingly powerful there and tensions were escalating with the United States. This initiative began in May 1979, when Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and other Iranian officials asked US embassy personnel for information on ethnically based uprisings that threatened the new Islamic regime. It culminated when a CIA officer gave two briefings in mid-October warning Iran's leaders that Iraq was making preparations for a possible invasion of Iran. It ended abruptly in November 1979, when radical Islamist students seized the US embassy in Tehran. Iran's leaders did not heed the US warning and were entirely unprepared for the Iraqi invasion of September 1980, which had a devastating impact.
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Aid: Blame It All on "Easy Money"
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Temporary membership on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has pernicious effects on the political and economic development of nations, particularly in nondemocracies. The leaders of rich democratic states often trade resources for the salient policy favors that UNSC members can deliver. This provides the leaders of temporary UNSC members with access to "easy money" resources. Such resources have deleterious consequences, particularly in nondemocracies, because they provide leaders with the means to pay off their coalition of supporters without reliance on tax revenues. While foreign aid is an important form of easy money bribe, it is but one of many. Empirical tests show loans are a substitute means for bribing UNSC members.
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Douglas Kriner & Francis Shen
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars have long analyzed the influence of combat casualties on public support for war. However, the mechanisms through which casualties - particularly local casualties - affect wartime opinion formation have received much less attention. We employ a novel survey experiment to test three mechanisms that might explain previously observed cleavages in war support between residents of high- and low-casualty communities. We find that subjects who read a news story concerning a casualty from their home state were significantly more likely to oppose the war in Afghanistan than were subjects who read an identically worded news story in which the fallen soldier was not identified as being from the respondent's home state. Moreover, this difference emerged regardless of whether the story followed the coverage patterns and emphasis typical of national or local media reporting. We conclude that the local connections triggered by learning of a home-state casualty, not the emotionally charged nature of local media reporting, is most responsible for generating opinion cleavages observed in previous research.
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Robert Johns & Graeme Davies
Journal of Politics, October 2012, Pages 1038-1052
Abstract:
Research on public support for war shows that citizens are responsive to various aspects of strategic context. Less attention has been paid to the core characteristics of the target state. In this comparative study we report survey experiments manipulating two such characteristics, regime type and dominant faith, to test whether the "democratic peace" and the "clash of civilizations" theses are reflected in U.S. and British public opinion. The basic findings show small differences across the two cases: both publics were somewhat more inclined to use force against dictatorships than against democracies and against Islamic than against Christian countries. Respondent religion played no moderating role in Britain: Christians and nonbelievers were alike readier to attack Islamic states. However, in the United States, the dominant faith effect was driven entirely by Christians. Together, our results imply that public judgments are driven as much by images and identities as by strategic calculations of threat.
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The Cuban Missile Crisis: A nuclear order of battle, October and November 1962
Robert Norris & Hans Kristensen
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 2012, Pages 85-91
Abstract:
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union walked back from the brink of a nuclear war. In this issue of Nuclear Notebook, the authors analyze the order of battle of nuclear forces that were available to military and civilian officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union in October and November of 1962. This detail, they point out, has remained widely overlooked by authors, experts, and researchers over the past five decades. Once these nuclear forces are defined, the authors write, the true nature of the crisis was even more serious and dangerous than previously thought.
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Assessing Uncertainty in Intelligence
Jeffrey Friedman & Richard Zeckhauser
Intelligence and National Security, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article addresses the challenge of managing uncertainty when producing estimative intelligence. Much of the theory and practice of estimative intelligence aims to eliminate or reduce uncertainty, but this is often impossible or infeasible. This article instead argues that the goal of estimative intelligence should be to assess uncertainty. By drawing on a body of nearly 400 declassified National Intelligence Estimates as well as prominent texts on analytic tradecraft, this article argues that current tradecraft methods attempt to eliminate uncertainty in ways that can impede the accuracy, clarity, and utility of estimative intelligence. By contrast, a focus on assessing uncertainty suggests solutions to these problems and provides a promising analytic framework for thinking about estimative intelligence in general.
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Investment, Opportunity, and Risk: Do US Sanctions Deter or Encourage Global Investment?
David Lektzian & Glen Biglaiser
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Complementing the effectiveness of US sanctions debate, the US government often prods US investors to disinvest from targeted countries, hoping to pressure sanctioned countries to back US foreign policy goals or face economic costs for their actions. Missing from the effectiveness of sanctions debate is the impact US sanctions have on third-party foreign direct investment (FDI). Using panel data for 171 countries from 1969 to 2000, we present the first empirical study on the effect of sanctions on global FDI. We find strong evidence that when US firms disinvest during US sanctions, global FDI significantly increases, providing the target country with a reliable source of capital replacement. The results suggest the limited effectiveness of sanctions for restricting capital flows to targeted countries and that US firms may ultimately bear the highest costs from US-imposed sanctions.
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Lijana Baublyte, Martin Mullins & John Garvey
Journal of Risk Research, October 2012, Pages 1101-1116
Abstract:
This study demonstrates that the basis of decision-making and risk selection in the London Political Risk Insurance (PRI) market is a combination of Art and Science with such factors as trust and reputation playing an important role. The study breaks new ground by uncovering and examining different methods and strategies of political risk underwriting employed in the insurance market, which does not rely on statistical tools as seen in more traditional insurance types. Adopting a grounded theory approach, the data was generated through 14 semi-structured and unstructured interviews conducted with PRI experts from five PRI companies and two leading political risk broking houses. The data also included documentation reviews and observations.
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Michael Koch & Benjamin Tkach
Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, August 2012
Abstract:
The ability of a government to prevent violence and threats against the state and its citizens depends on the government's ability to deter enemies from engaging in such tactics. Because deterrence relies on both capabilities and credibility it is not clear that governments that emerge within the same state are similarly effective at deterring attacks. We examine whether partisan politics and the decision to use force against an enemy or those thought to be associated with an enemy - in our case terrorists - affects successful deterrence. We test our expectations using data from the Israeli-Palestine conflict between the years 1979 and 2003. The results suggest that governments of the right are more effective at using force to deter future terrorist attacks.
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Types of Minority Discrimination and Terrorism
James Piazza
Conflict Management and Peace Science, November 2012, Pages 521-546
Abstract:
Qualitative research suggests that discrimination against minority groups precipitates terrorism in countries. This study adds to this body of research by determining which specific manifestations of minority discrimination - political, socioeconomic or cultural - are important and substantive predictors of terrorist activity. To do so, I conduct a series of negative binomial estimations and substantive effects simulations on a cross-national dataset of terrorist attacks and the treatment of minority groups in four specific areas: political participation and representation, economic status, religious and language rights. The results indicate that socioeconomic discrimination against minorities is the only consistently significant and highly substantive predictor of terrorism. The study concludes by discussing the implications of these findings to the scholarly literature on terrorism.
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Comparing the Foreign Aid Policies of Presidents Bush and Obama
Douglas Gibler & Steven Miller
Social Science Quarterly, December 2012, Pages 1202-1217
Objectives: We compare the rhetoric and actual foreign economic aid disbursements of the Bush and Obama Administrations.
Methods: We use U.S. foreign aid data from 2001 to 2013 (expected) to test our propositions.
Results: Our analyses suggest strong similarities but also key differences between presidencies. First, both presidents used aid to encourage development and democracy but also ignored the human rights policies of recipient countries. We actually find human rights abuse to be positively correlated with aid receipts, even after controlling for wealth and regime type; changes in rights policies have no effect in data for either administration. Second, overall aid disbursements have not increased under President Obama in real or percentage terms, again despite campaign and inaugural promises to do otherwise. Finally, our analyses confirm the proposition that the Bush Administration favored those countries that supported the war in Iraq - the "Coalition of the Willing" - by providing them with substantially larger aid allocations than would otherwise be predicted.
Conclusions: The Obama Administration has seemingly reversed the unstated policy of aid payments for U.S. partnership by penalizing Coalition members with aid allocations far below the rates predicted for other, similar countries.
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Youth Unemployment, Terrorism and Political Violence, Evidence from the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict
Raul Caruso & Evelina Gavrilova
Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, August 2012
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the relationship between youth unemployment and Palestinian violence. First a qualitative explanation of the underlying mechanism is given. Eventually, empirical results suggest that there is a positive association between the growth rate of youth unemployment and the brutality and incidence of violence, proxied by the numbers of victims, and incidents. Results also show that: (i) there is a negative association between the added value in the agricultural sector and both measures of violence; (ii) there is a positive association between the share of employment in agriculture and violence; (iii) there is a negative association between manufacturing added value and brutality of incidents. Results also suggest that male youth unemployment rather than female unemployment helps to explain Palestinian violence.
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An Easy Coalition: The Peacecamp Identity and Israeli-Palestinian Track Two Diplomacy
David Kellen, Zvi Bekerman & Ifat Maoz
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study presents a systematic transcript-based analysis of the dialogue occurring in a track two workshop attended by Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians. We hypothesized that participants from conflicting groups would form a shared superordinate identity in the course of the workshop. Our findings confirmed this hypothesis. Consistent with self-categorization theory, we demonstrate that the observed Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians mutually identified with the peacecamp, a collection of people and organizations that promote dialogue and conflict resolution efforts. In line with our expectations, and in contradiction to previous findings concerning communication between groups in conflict, participants demonstrated patterns of cooperative, counter-ethnocentric interaction. Through the paradigm of social identity theory, we explain these phenomena as the result of the participants' salient superordinate peacecamp identity. The study's findings offer an innovative theoretical contribution to the common ingroup identity model, showing that the reduction of intergroup bias can actually hinder the effectiveness of conflict resolution efforts. Specifically, by forming a superordinate identity, the observed participants are left less able to represents the needs, demands, and claims of their respective national groups and, hence, less able to produce ideas acceptable to their respective publics. The study also offers a practical contribution to the field of track two diplomacy, empirically verifying Hebert Kelman's assertion that when facilitators allow participants to form a cohesive group, they risk damaging both the quality of the workshop's ideas and the participants' ability to influence their leaderships (Rouhana and Kelman 1994; Kelman 1999, 2002).
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Coercion, Information, and the Success of Sanction Threats
Taehee Whang, Elena McLean & Douglas Kuberski
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article explores when and why sanction threats succeed in extracting concessions from the targeted country. We focus on two different, albeit not mutually exclusive, mechanisms that can explain the success of sanction threats. The first mechanism relates to incomplete information regarding the sanctioner's determination to impose sanctions and suggests that threats help to extract concessions by revealing the sanctioner's resolve. The second mechanism underscores the direct impact of common interest between the two countries and explains the success of sanction threats by the targeted country's greater dependence on this link between the two countries and the sanctioner's ability to exploit this dependence. We test the hypotheses using a new strategic structural estimator. Our results provide no evidence in favor of the informational hypothesis, while lending robust support for the coercive hypothesis.
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International Organizations as Policy Advisors
Songying Fang & Randall Stone
International Organization, October 2012, Pages 537-569
Abstract:
How can international organizations persuade governments to adopt policy recommendations that are based on private information when their interests conflict? We develop a game-theoretic model of persuasion that applies regardless of regime type and does not rely on the existence of domestic constituency constraints. In the model, an international organization (IO) and a domestic expert have private information about a crisis, but their preferences diverge from those of the government, which must choose whether to delegate decision making to the expert. Persuasion can take place if the international institution is able to send a credible signal. We find that this can take place only if the preferences of the IO and the domestic expert diverge and the institution holds the more moderate policy position. This result contrasts with conventional wisdom, which holds that the necessary condition for IOs to exert influence is support from a domestic constituency with aligned preferences. Our model suggests that, far from being an obstacle to international cooperation, polarized domestic politics may be a necessary condition for IOs to exert effective influence.
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The Geography of Nuclear Proliferation Networks: The Case of A.Q. Khan
Justin Hastings
Nonproliferation Review, Fall 2012, Pages 429-450
Abstract:
This article uses a geographic approach to examine one aspect of the nuclear black market: the coordinators who bring buyers and sellers together, and transport goods between them. The most important factor in determining the geographical structure of a proliferation network is the network coordinator's access (or lack thereof) to unique state resources. Coordinators with access to state resources and prerogatives can avoid embedding themselves in hostile countries or relying on commercial infrastructure, often leading to territorially diffuse logistical networks. Coordinators without such access are forced to rely on commercial infrastructure and favorable local political, economic, and social conditions, often resulting in territorially centralized logistical networks. This is illustrated through case studies of Abdul Qadeer Khan's supply networks to Pakistan, Libya, and Iran. The article concludes with some observations about the implications of a geographical approach for understanding nuclear proliferation networks.
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Wade Cole
Sociological Forum, December 2012, Pages 937-960
Abstract:
Much research has concluded that human rights treaties have a null or negative effect on governments' human rights practices. This article reexamines the influence of human rights treaties, with a focus on two kinds of treaty effects: direct - the effect of treaties on the countries that ratified them; and diffuse - the effect of treaties on countries regardless of ratification. My analysis of two prominent human rights treaties finds that they often reduce levels of repression and abuse over time and independently of ratification. Some of these effects are nonlinear, reversing direction as time elapses or as more countries become party to the treaties. These findings are interpreted with reference to world polity institutionalism in sociology, and especially the "Durkheimian" strains of this approach. Human rights norms as embodied in treaties operate as a kind of civil religion for world society. These norms not only have long-term direct effects among countries that ritualistically ratify human rights treaties, but they also diffusely impact countries irrespective of formal endorsement.
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Value Differentiation Between Enemies and Allies: Value Projection in National Images
Véronique Eicher, Felicia Pratto & Peter Wilhelm
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study aimed to investigate value projection between Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, and Swiss as a function of their group's stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Drawing on image theory, we assumed that images - operationalized by value projection - would be a function not just of features of the target group, but of the rater group's relationship with the target group. Value projection can be seen as an indicator of (de)humanization as values represent goals and desirable behaviors of a person. We therefore expected higher projection to ally than to enemy groups, whereas we expected no difference in projection to out-groups with neutral relations. Results show that allies did indeed project Security and Power to a higher degree to each other than to enemies, and enemies showed no, or even negative, projection onto each other. The ally of the enemy (Americans) was projected less negatively by Palestinians than vice versa, pointing to the higher complexity of third-party images as opposed to the more classical ally and enemy images. As expected, Swiss students showed almost no difference in projection to the different out-groups. These results confirm that the relationship between groups (e.g., alliance, enmity) rather than a consensual view of particular nations determines images.
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Converting the Iranian Heavy Water Reactor IR-40 to a More Proliferation-Resistant Reactor
Thomas Mo Willig, Cecilia Futsaether & Halvor Kippe
Science & Global Security, Fall 2012, Pages 97-116
Abstract:
This article assesses the feasibility and benefits of converting the Iranian heavy water research reactor, IR-40, from using natural uranium to low-enriched uranium fuel. Based on neutronics calculations for a detailed model of the two reactor configurations, a conversion would result in a smaller core with a subsequent reduction and degradation of plutonium production. It is argued that the proposed conversion will provide Iran with a research reactor that is better suited for scientific experiments and radioisotope production than in its original configuration. It is proposed to introduce the converted IR-40's fuel consumption requirements as a natural cap for Iran's future enrichment efforts.
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The Cost-Effectiveness of Armored Tactical Wheeled Vehicles for Overseas US Army Operations
Chris Rohlfs & Ryan Sullivan
Defence and Peace Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study uses for official use only data on US military operations to evaluate the large-scale Army policies to replace relatively light Type 1 tactical wheeled vehicles (TWVs) with more heavily protected Type 2 variants and later to replace Type 2s with more heavily protected Type 3s. We find that Type 2 TWVs reduced fatalities at $1.1 million-$24.6 million per life saved for infantry units, with our preferred cost estimates falling below the $7.5 million cost-effectiveness threshold, and did not reduce fatalities for administrative and support units. We find that replacing Type 2 with Type 3 TWVs did not appreciably reduce fatalities and was not cost-effective.
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Jonathan Strand & John Tuman
Foreign Policy Analysis, October 2012, Pages 409-430
Abstract:
This study examines the relationship between Japanese foreign aid disbursement and recipient state membership and voting in the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Focusing on 104 countries for the period 1994-2005, we investigate whether Japan gives more aid to IWC members that vote with Japan. The effects of the independent variables are estimated with a linear mixed regression model. Controlling for other possible influences on official development assistance (ODA) disbursements, and employing different measures of dyadic voting similarity, the study finds Japanese aid concentrates in members of the IWC that are microstates. The findings of the paper also indicate that microstate members of the IWC who align their votes with Japan are more likely to receive Japanese ODA. By demonstrating that Japan's strategy is focused on microstates, the study provides a more refined understanding of the mechanisms Japan employs to end the IWC's moratorium on commercial whaling.
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Individual Identity Attachments and International Conflict: The Importance of Territorial Threat
Douglas Gibler, Marc Hutchison & Steven Miller
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article provides some of the first individual-level evidence for the domestic salience of territorial issues. Using survey data from more than 80,000 individual respondents in 43 separate countries, we examine how conflict affects the content of individual self-identification. We find that international conflict exerts a strong influence on the likelihood and content of individual self-identification, but this effect varies with the type of conflict. Confirming nationalist theories of territorial salience, territorial conflict leads the majority of individuals in targeted countries to identify themselves as citizens of their country. However, individuals in countries that are initiating territorial disputes are more likely to self-identify as members of a particular ethnicity, which provides support for theories connecting domestic salience to ethnic politics. That conflict has variegated effects on identity formation suggests the relationship is not endogenous. Our within-case analysis of changes in Nigerian self-identifications further demonstrates that individuals are quite susceptible to the types and locations of international conflict.
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Welcome Guests, or Inescapable Victims? The Causes of Prisoner Abuse in War
Geoffrey Wallace
Journal of Conflict Resolution, December 2012, Pages 955-981
Abstract:
The treatment of prisoners varies enormously across wars. Why are some prisoners horribly abused, while others are cared for humanely? The author argues key attributes of the belligerents, alongside the nature of the conflict itself, provides the most convincing explanation for differences in prisoner abuse. Democratic norms and domestic institutional incentives lead democracies to exhibit more restraint when dealing with prisoners. On the other hand, states caught up in drawn-out wars of attrition, or those seeking territorial conquest, are much more likely to resort to prisoner abuse. The author tests this argument against a variety of common alternative explanations using a new data set on prisoner abuse across all interstate wars from 1898 to 2003. The author finds strong support for the role of both the regime type and the nature of the conflict, while the results also suggest several points of difference from existing research on wartime conduct.