States of Greatness
The Future Is History: Restorative Nationalism and Conflict in Post-Napoleonic Europe
Lars-Erik Cederman et al.
International Organization, Spring 2024, Pages 259-292
Abstract:
As illustrated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the recent revival of nationalism has triggered a threatening return of revisionist conflict. While the literature on nationalism shows how nationalist narratives are socially constructed, much less is known about their real-world consequences. Taking nationalist narratives seriously, we study how past “golden ages” affect territorial claims and conflict in post-Napoleonic Europe. We expect nationalists to be more likely to mobilize and initiate conflict if they can contrast the status quo to a historical polity with supposedly greater national unity and/or independence. Using data on European state borders going back to 1100, combined with spatial data covering ethnic settlement areas during the past two centuries, we find that the availability of plausible golden ages increases the risk of both domestic and interstate conflict. These findings suggest that specific historical legacies make some modern nationalisms more consequential than others.
Democratic Favor Channel
Ziho Park
National Taiwan University Working Paper, August 2024
Abstract:
A large body of literature in economics and political science examines the impact of democracy and political freedoms on various outcomes using cross-country comparisons. This paper explores the possibility that any positive impact of democracy observed in these studies might be attributed to powerful democratic nations, their allies, and international organizations treating democracies more favorably than nondemocracies, a concept I refer to as democratic favor channel. Firstly, after I control for being targeted by sanctions from G7 or the United Nations and having military confrontations and cooperation with the West, most of the positive effects of democracy on growth in cross-country panel regressions become insignificant or negatively significant. Secondly, using the same empirical specification as this literature for demonstrating intermediating forces, I show that getting sanctioned, militarily attacked, and not having defense cooperation with the West are plausible channels through which democracy causes growth. Lastly, in the pre-Soviet-collapse period, which coincides with the time when democracy promotion was less often used as a justification for sanctions, the impact of democracy on GDP per capita is already weak or negative without any additional controls, and it becomes further negative once democratic favor is controlled. These findings support the democratic favor channel and challenge the idea that the institutional qualities of democracy per se lead to desirable outcomes. The critique provided in this paper applies to the broader comparative institutions literature in social sciences and political philosophy.
Propaganda to a Cynical Audience
Alexei Zakharov
Yale Working Paper, June 2024
Abstract:
Using a model, I explain why authoritarian propaganda makes egregiously false statements that are easily verifiable to be false. I assume two news outlets that report on a hidden state of the world, motivated by the ex-post beliefs of the audience about the state of the world. Having one's report observed as false by a cynical audience reinforces its beliefs that "everybody lies" and reduces the credibility of the report made by the competing outlet. With a sufficiently cynical audience, media outlets will make egregiously false statements even if such statements are recognized as false with probability one.
Collective procrastination and protest cycles
Germán Gieczewski & Korhan Kocak
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper studies a model of “pivotal protesting,” in which citizens act in order to change the outcome rather than to collect private benefits. We show that, when citizens face repeated opportunities to protest against a regime, pivotal protesting entails complex dynamic considerations: The continuation value of the status quo influences the citizens' willingness to protest today. Thus, a mere change in expectations about the future may trigger a revolt. The same logic often induces a pattern of protest cycles, driven by a novel source of inefficiency: An expectation that a protest will take place tomorrow can excessively sap incentives to coordinate on protesting today. Thus, potential protests crowd each other out. This can lead to a form of collective procrastination: Access to more opportunities to protest can lower the citizens' welfare, as collective action becomes inefficiently delayed.
In the Army We Trust: Public Confidence in Global South Militaries
Nicholas Lotito & Renanah Miles Joyce
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article explores the phenomenon of high levels of public trust in the military across the Global South. We extend arguments from the US civil-military relations literature to a broader context and generate testable hypotheses to explain trust in the armed forces driven by the military’s performance and professionalism, and the public’s patriotism and partisanship. Using public opinion survey data from 73 countries between 1995 and 2017, we find broad but nuanced support for the hypotheses. Many determinants of public trust in the military, theorized in the US context, generalize globally: battlefield performance, resources, national pride, and right-wing partisanship all increase trust in the military, while coups and civil wars decrease it. By contrast, the effect of conscription is opposite to that in the United States, with national service providing a trust boost. The study highlights the implications of public trust for civil-military relations, political stability, and governance.
(Re)Emerging disease and conflict risk in Africa, 1997–2019
Ore Koren & Kaderi Noagah Bukari
Nature Human Behaviour, August 2024, Pages 1506–1513
Abstract:
While the number of infectious zoonotic disease outbreaks has been rising, their impact on civil war and social conflict is poorly understood. This study addresses this fundamental limitation using a geolocated monthly dataset on 22 zoonotic diseases in Africa. Zoonotic disease is a key driver of new epidemics, making such pathogens a useful test case. Results suggest that over the January 1997 to December 2019 period, zoonotic disease was negatively associated with state initiation of civil conflict and positively associated with social conflict involving identity militias. Additional analyses find that the effect for identity militias is consistent with a causal interpretation. Rebel violence is not significantly associated with outbreaks. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns and additional sensitivity analyses.
Minor monarchs: The ‘Bad-Emperor’ problem in Chinese history
Heyu Xiong
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
How important is the age and experience of political leaders for the quality of governance? I explore this question in the context of imperial China, where autocratic rule centered on the institution of the emperor persisted for nearly 2,000 years. While the issue of child emperors is frequently discussed in the historiography of China, the impact of minor rulers has not been explored empirically. Using rich biographical information on the lives of rulers, I show evidence consistent with the notion that the age of emperors mattered for the effective administration of the Chinese state. In particular, the incidences of minor monarchs appear to accelerate the decline of a dynasty and occur more frequently toward the end of an imperial dynasty. The rule of minor monarchs coincides with the timing of dynastic crises, nomadic attacks, peasant revolts, and declines in fiscal capacity. To assess causality, I conduct two tests. First, I validate my baseline findings using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits the early but natural deaths of preceding emperors. Second, I show that estimated relationships become stronger after the Tang-Song transition, during which the administrative power of the emperor increased dramatically relative to that of the civilian bureaucracy. Overall, the results in this paper suggest that in the absence of institutional constraints, weak executive leadership can lead to poor national outcomes even in a highly bureaucratized state.
State-Building or State-Weakening? The Consequences of Military Control in Medieval China
Joy Chen & Erik Wang
NYU Working Paper, June 2024
Abstract:
A key challenge to state-building in conflict-prone societies is the proliferation of autonomous armed groups. As governments seek to enhance their monopoly over violence, the consequences of military centralization deserve scholarly attention. We argue that centralization produces mixed impacts on state's coercive capacity: by weakening the leaders of armed groups, it improves (undermines) political order at the upper (grassroots) level, and erodes military efficiency and discipline. Empirically, we leverage a centralization reform in China's Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) after a civil war, using unique data on soldier mutinies, rebellions by local generals, civilian uprisings, and battle outcomes. Difference-indifferences estimates reveal that centralization successfully reduced local generals' rebellions, but led to increased soldier-led mutinies against the generals and more civilian uprisings. It also worsened battlefield performance. While research on state capacity has focused on its extractive and administrative dimensions, these findings deepen our understanding about another important aspect: the coercive dimension.
Do grids demobilize? How street networks, social networks, and political networks intersect
Noah Nathan
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Amid rapid urbanization in the developing world, there is growing interest in the effects of urban context on political behavior. An underexplored element of urban context is the built environment itself -- the physical architecture and design of urban space -- which can structure how residents interact both with each other and with the state. Drawing on street network data and an original survey from urban Ghana, I suggest that more gridded, orderly neighborhoods reduce the social interactions residents have with neighbors, lower embeddedness in political problem-solving networks, and depress electoral turnout. Rather than making residents more legible to state officials, gridded streets make the local state and political realm less legible to residents by reducing opportunities to forge politically valuable social ties in a context of clientelist politics. The paper demonstrates that greater focus is needed on built environments to understand the social structures undergirding grassroots urban politics.
Diffusion through Multiple Domains: The Spread of Romantic Nationalism across Europe, 1770-1930
Andreas Wimmer, Seungwon Lee & Jack LaViolette
American Journal of Sociology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine an extraordinarily consequential case of ideational diffusion: how cultural nationalism spread across Europe during the long 19th century (the French Revolution to the First World War), “awakening” nation after nation. Through which pathways did this new frame proliferate, and where did it fall on fertile ground? Using regression analysis with 2,300 cities as observational units and a large number of geocoded data sources, we show that Romantic nationalism resonated most in states ruled by dynasties of foreign origins, which contradicted nationalist ideals of self-rule. Other frame resonance mechanisms (such as cultural compatibility) do not seem to have been at play. Regarding pathways, we show that Romantic nationalism spread across linguistic, religious, and political boundaries and simultaneously through personal networks, cultural institutions, and within clusters of historically connected cities. The article advances the study of multiplex diffusion processes, introduces frame resonance mechanisms into diffusion research, and offers the first quantitative account of the rise of cultural nationalism.