Showing papers in "International Studies Quarterly in 2000"

Accounting for Corruption: Economic Structure, Democracy, and Trade

Abstract: Though corruption poses fundamental challenges to both democratic governance and market economies, political science research has only recently begun to address corruption in a comparative context. In this article we explain variation in the perceived level of corruption (defined as the misuse of public office for private gain) across fifty countries. We propose a set of hypotheses that explain variation in corruption levels in terms of domestic political-economic structure, democratic norms, integration into the international economy, and Protestant religious affiliation. Levels of corruption, we propose, are higher: (1) the lower the average income level, (2) the greater the extent of state control of the economy, (3) the weaker are democratic norms and institutions, (4) the lower the degree of integration in the world economy, and (5) the lower the share of the population with Protestant religious affiliation. The data analysis broadly confirms our predictions: in the multivariate regression, each of the independent variables is significant in the direction we expect.

After Postpositivism? The Promises of Critical Realism

Abstract: This article argues that the current self-understanding of IR theory is misconceived and that it is time to move beyond the stagnant positivism/postpositivism debate. We argue that the attempt to occupy a middle ground compromise position between positivism and postpositivism is untenable because these two positions share much in common. In this sense a middle ground position between two problematic positions does not produce a less problematic position. What is needed is a metatheoretical analysis of the two extreme positions. We attempt to show how both positivism and postpositivism are embedded in a discourse of philosophical anti-realism. This anti-realism occurs as a result of what we call the post-Kantian-Humean “problem-field” of international relations from which most contemporary positivist, constructivist, and post-structuralist IR approaches stem. We then try to overcome this “problem-field” by means of radically reclaiming reality through a critical realist philosophy. Once outlined we try to show how this critical realist philosophy can help transcend some of the antinomies currently faced by IR scholars.

Killing Time: The World Politics of Civil War Duration, 1820–1992

Abstract: Policymakers often trumpet the potential for third parties to stop the killing associated with civil wars, yet third parties as strategic actors also have incentives to encourage longer civil wars. We argue that in order to assess the influence of third parties on civil war duration, it is necessary to consider the interdependent nature of third party interventions as they are distributed across the set of civil war combatants. We also argue that it is important to consider the geopolitical context in which civil wars occur, rather than focusing solely on characteristics internal to these conflicts. To test our hypotheses about the impact of third parties and geopolitical factors on civil war duration, we rely on event history analysis and a sample of 152 civil wars for the period 1820–1992. We find empirical support for the idea that extremely long civil wars correspond to the equitable distribution of third party interventions—stalemates prolong wars. The analysis also indicates that separatist civil wars and ongoing civil wars in states proximate to the civil war state result in civil wars of longer duration. Finally, we find that when third parties raise the stakes of the conflict by engaging in the use of militarized force against the civil war state, the duration of these conflicts is reduced. In general, our analysis underscores the importance of modeling the interdependent and dynamic aspects of third party intervention as well as the world politics of civil wars when forecasting their duration and formulating policy.

War and Peace in Space and Time: The Role of Democratization

Abstract: Democratization reduces the risk of war, but uneven transitions toward democracy can increase the probability of war. Using country-level data on democratization and international war from the period 1875–1996, we develop a general additive statistical model reassessing this claim in light of temporal and spatial dependence. We also develop a new geopolitical database of contiguities and demonstrate new statistical techniques for probing the extent of spatial clustering and its impact on the relationship between democratization and war. Our findings reaffirm that democratization generally does reduce the risk of war, but that large swings back and forth between democracy and autocracy can increase war proneness. We show that the historical context of peace diminishes the risk of war, while a regional context plagued by conflict greatly magnifies it.

Norms Are What States Make of Them: The Political Psychology of Norm Violation

Abstract: I examine why states violate norms they embrace as members of international society. The rationalist answer, that norms are violated whenever they conflict with interests, is underspecified and empirically challenged. Constructivists cannot address violations well from their structural, sociological perspective. I argue from political psychology that violations stem from the motivated biases of actors who face a moral dilemma between personal desires and social constraints. These biases compel leaders to interpret norms and situations in a manner that justifies violation as socially acceptable. The ability to do so depends on the norm and the situation. The more parameters a norm possesses, and the more ambiguous those parameters are, the easier it is for actors to interpret them favorably to justify violation. Oftentimes norms are what states make of them. If the situation is plausible for states to claim exemption, they violate; otherwise they are constrained. The U.S. invasion of Panama illustrates these dynamics.

Preferences and the Democratic Peace

Abstract: A debate exists over whether ~and to what degree! the democratic peace is explained by joint democracy or by a lack of motives for conflict between states that happen to be democratic. Gartzke ~1998! applies expected utility theory to the democratic peace and shows that an index of states’ preference similarity based on United Nations General Assembly roll-call votes ~affinity! accounts for much of the lack of militarized interstate disputes ~MIDs! between democracies. Oneal and Russett ~1997b, 1998, 1999! respond by arguing that UN voting is itself a function of regime type—that democracy “causes” affinity. Oneal and Russett seek to demonstrate their thesis by regressing affinity on democracy and other variables from a standard model of the democratic peace. I replicate results reported by Oneal and Russett and then extend the analysis in several ways. I find that the residuals from Oneal and Russett’s regression of affinity remain highly significant as a predictor of the absence of MIDs. Further, significance for democracy is shown to be fragile and subject to variable construction, model specification, and the choice of estimation procedure. A fundamental positive goal of international relations is the explication of costly contests—students of world politics seek to understand why states fight. A fundamental normative goal of international relations is of course the alleviation of such contests. The democratic peace—the observation that liberal dyads seldom engage in militarized disputes—is exciting precisely because it offers important opportunities for addressing both of these goals. Still, unification of the two goals remains contingent on the character of the explanation. Any account that fits the facts is potentially useful in positive terms, but to fulfill the normative objective, accounts must offer causal variables either that are socially manipulable or that trend in a desirable direction. If the causes of the democratic peace lie in liberal politics or economics, then the foreign policies of leading powers or the inexorable march of time may yield an expanding sphere of pacific relations. If instead the democratic peace is substantially explained by variables that are unresponsive to autonomous policy efforts or that are more likely to wander than to trend, then the prospects for long-term peace remain in greater doubt.

In the Nick of Time: Conflict Management, Mediation Timing, and the Duration of Interstate Disputes

Abstract: This paper develops a theoretical argument linking time and the timing of conflict management efforts to dispute duration. We test competing hypotheses on conflict data drawn from disputes in the post-1945 period. Our analysis demonstrates that the effects of mediation vary substantially over the course of a dispute. Specifically, we note that mediation has a curvilinear relationship with time and the ending of disputes. Mediation efforts that occur soon after disputes begin have the best chance of reducing expected future dispute duration. Following this initial period, subsequent mediation efforts lead to longer rather than shorter disputes. After a long period, mediation again leads to shorter rather than longer disputes. We also find that there should be consistency in the mediators used to manage a conflict rather than shifting personnel to interject new ideas.

Presidents and the Diversionary Use of Force: A Research Note

Abstract: This study represents an attempt at further developing the diversionary theory of force. The analysis covers the period 1949 to 1994 using a simultaneous system of equations that treat presidential approval and force as endogenous variables. After controlling for opportunities and Soviet/Russian crisis behavior, the model reveals a rally effect and that unemployment has a positive effect on force levels. I discuss how presidential decisions to divert are made in the context of poliheuristic decision processing.

Competing Paradigms or Birds of a Feather? Constructivism and Neoliberal Institutionalism Compared

Abstract: This article compares constructivism and neoliberal institutionalism and argues that in their reification as paradigms in competition, the IO theoretical community is making far too much of what are relatively small differences between them in the metatheoretical scheme of things. These claims are substantiated by comparing functionalism, neo-functionalism, neoliberal institutionalism, and constructivism. Such an examination reveals that they all depend on the same mechanism of functional institutional efficiency in order to account for social change. Thus when constructivism has been utilized as an explanation for change and transformation, it has tended to reach many of the same conclusions, and in the same manner, as other variants of liberal IR theory. In addition, this comparison reveals that, despite its assumption of exogenous interests, neoliberal institutionalism relies implicitly on an identity transformation in order to account for cooperation's maintenance. Such a transformation is entirely consistent with constructivist expectations. The choice between neoliberal institutionalism and constructivism is not paradigmatic and is merely a choice between explaining short-term, behavioral cooperation in the moment or its development into communal cooperation in the future. The article concludes with some general observations regarding why this parallel has occurred and what its implications are for our understanding of IO.

Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea

Abstract: For decades, area specialists have argued that international relations (IR) theory cannot adequately explain security dynamics in East Asia as a result of cultures, histories, and traditions distinct from the West. A shining anomaly put forth in this regard is the relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Why have these two powers had such volatile relations, despite their elite ties, economic complementarities, and shared security adversaries throughout the Cold War and Post-Cold War eras? Area scholars point to historical antagonism as the primary explanatory variable; however, this at best explains only part of the picture (i.e., the friction but not the cooperation). Balance of threat theorists might explain Japan-Korea volatility as a function of changes in the level of external threat; however, variations in threats posed to the two powers do not correlate well with outcomes in bilateral interaction. Developing the concept of quasi-alliances (two states that remain non-allied but share a third power as a common ally), this article argues that Japanese and Korean perceptions of their common great power patron's security commitment (the United States) directly affects the level of political-military cooperation between the two quasi-allied states. Fears of U.S. abandonment determine when and under what conditions historical anger most affects the tenor of relations. The level of patron commitment is also a better determinant of alliance behavior than the level of external threat. Framing the relationship in this manner, I attempt to acknowledge area scholars' concerns about the critical role of history and culture, but consider history's salience in the context of equally critical but acultural security ties that underlie the two states' triangular relations with the United States. For alliance theory, this East Asian case shows how alignment choices are not a direct function of external threat but threats as refracted through perceptions of patron commitment. In security relationships with high degrees of asymmetrical dependence, patron promises matter more than adversarial threats because promises can mitigate threats, leading to behavior not predicted by balance of threat theory. Moreover, in extreme cases, promises (or lack thereof) can affect alliance behavior irrespective of variations in the objective level of external threat.

A Universal Test of an Expected Utility Theory of War

Abstract: Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman's version of an expected utility theory of war has become one of the most widely cited theories of international conflict. However, the testing of the theory has lagged behind its theoretical development. In its most sophisticated formulation, the theory has been tested on only 707 dyad-years, all drawn from Europe between 1816 and 1970. We present a test of the expected utility theory of war (as developed in War and Reason ) on the international system from 1816 to 1984. Specifically, we examine the relationship between the main equilibrium variables derived under the “domestic variant” of the international interaction game and behavioral outcomes using multinomial logit. We find that the equilibria correlate with actual behavior in both the set of all dyads and a subset of politically relevant dyads, even after including a set of control variables. The relationship is somewhat less clear among the population of all interstate-directed dyads, however, with key equilibrium variables having smaller effects at increasing the odds of interstate conflict among all dyads. We also present a new software program, EUGene , which generates expected utility data and can serve as an important data management tool for international relations researchers.

Nationalist Sources of International Economic Integration

Abstract: Most scholars of international relations and nationalism presume that nationalist ideology acts uniformly to hinder international economic integration, globalization, and free trade. This article challenges the conventional wisdom by developing an analytical framework of the incentives majority and minority nationalists face in the realm of foreign economic relations. Defining nationalism as the promotion of the autonomy, unity, and identity of the nation, it argues that nationalists have strong possible motivations both for and against close economic ties with foreign nations and states. As a result, oftentimes nationalists must make trade-offs among their goals of autonomy, unity, and identity when developing foreign economic policy preferences. Case studies of nationalist organizations in Quebec, India, and Ukraine that favor a high degree of international economic integration are presented to show the usefulness of the analytical framework.

Discursive Multilateralism: Global Benchmarks, Shame, and Learning in the ILO Labor Standards Monitoring Regime

Abstract: A distinct feature of contemporary international relations is the proliferation of multilateral monitoring regimes. Despite the significance of this for the study of international law and organization, little empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of multilateral monitoring exists. This article examines the effectiveness of the supervisory system of the International Labor Organization (ILO), widely recognized as the prototypical model for all multilateral monitoring regimes. I examine the speech acts and rule-practices of the ILO regime within a hermeneutic/constructivist framework. This yields a set of heuristic hypotheses reflective of the “logic” that guides regime interactions with its member states. This asserts that “shame” influences member states to comply and respond positively to regime obligations. To test this, I statistically generate global benchmarks. These consist of world and regional averages in the behavioral patterns of member states. Quantitative findings demonstrate recidivist patterns of deviance by “global pariahs” set against a statistical background consisting of large-scale normative conformity on the part of ILO member states but configured around some regional variations. My analysis contends that global benchmarking reduces the risks of member state defection from core international labor standards and thereby promotes monitoring by learning or discursive multilateralism.

Foreign Policy Gaps between Citizens and Leaders

Abstract: Persistent gaps between the policy preferences of leaders and those of citizens are problematic from the point of view of democratic theory. Examination of the foreign policy preferences of samples of citizens and leaders from seven Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) surveys between 1974 and 1998 reveals many differences of 30, 40, and even 50 percentage points. Often a majority of the public has disagreed with a majority of leaders. Some of the same gaps have persisted over the full 24-year period of these surveys. The pattern of gaps is considerably more complicated than a simple difference in degree of commitment to internationalism. Citizens have generally put a higher priority than leaders on expanding domestic programs like Social Security, crime fighting, and health care, and have been more eager to cut foreign economic aid. But there have not been substantial gaps with respect to defense spending or military aid. More members of the public than leaders emphasize foreign policy goals related to protecting Americans' jobs and ensuring Americans' health and physical security (e.g., from terrorism, drugs, and epidemic diseases). Citizens have been more reluctant than leaders to use U.S. troops in most circumstances, but the opposite is true of situations involving Latin America. Citizens have been more willing to bomb than to commit troops, though not indiscriminately so, and many more citizens than leaders oppose selling weapons abroad. Fewer members of the public than leaders have favored most kinds of cooperative relationships with adversary countries. But more members of the public than leaders generally support the United Nations, and more favor multilateralism in general. About the same number of citizens as leaders have supported NATO. Some of these gaps may reflect lower levels of attention to foreign affairs and lower levels of information among the public than among leaders, but many of the gaps may instead reflect different values and interests. In cases where the public is ill-informed, persistent gaps suggest a failure of leaders to educate and persuade. Where public opinion is well-informed and deliberative, democratic theory would seem to call for responsiveness by policymakers.

The politics of fertility and economic development.

Abstract: This paper presents a formal model that characterizes the two faces of development—persistent poverty, and industrialization and rising incomes—and establishes that the interaction between politics and economics determines which path a nation travels. We demonstrate that political factors affect fertility decisions so that a one-time disturbance compounds across generations, impacting a country's entire development trajectory. Modeling strategic multiobjective policy-setting by the government, we derive a new concept of political capacity and prove that a sufficient amount of political capacity is necessary to escape a poverty trap and develop the economy. Empirical tests for a sample of 100 countries from 1960 to 1990 provide strong support for the predictions of the formal model. In particular, we show that both political stability and political capacity significantly influence birth rates. We conclude that politics can be either a stimulant or a barrier to economic development.

Invisible Borders: Economic Liberalization and National Identity

Abstract: Various developments in the post-WWII global economy have led many scholars of international relations to contend that borders are eroding. My argument takes issue with this, suggesting that borders are not becoming increasingly meaningless; instead, some states are working to endow them with meaning in innovative ways. Specifically, I examine the trade disputes over culture industries during recent GATT and NAFTA talks to demonstrate that some states are shifting their attention from territorial borders to conceptual or invisible borders. Many governments support the removal of borders that serve as barriers to the movement of goods, services, capital, information, and, in some cases, people. Nevertheless, these same governments resist the increasing permeability of borders that provide the boundaries of political community.

Religious Causes of Discrimination against Ethno-Religious Minorities

Abstract: Most existing large-n cross-sectional analyses of ethnic conflict focus on the behavior of the ethnic minority rather than the behavior of the state. That is, they tend to attempt to predict or explain the level of protest or rebellion in which ethnic minorities engage at the expense of determining the causes for the behavior of the government of the state in which these minorities live. Previous studies have determined that discrimination against minority groups is one of the major causes of ethnic protest and rebellion. In addition, much of the literature on ethnic conflict does not sufficiently deal with the religious causes of that conflict. Accordingly this study focuses on the causes of discrimination with a particular emphasis on the religious causes. This study analyzes two populations from the Minorities at Risk dataset: the 105 religiously differentiated minorities and the 163 minorities that are not religiously differentiated. The results show that religious factors influence the process that leads to discrimination and that the causes of religious discrimination are distinct from the causes of other types of discrimination. In addition, the dynamics of this process are markedly different between the two populations analyzed here. All of this, along with other factors, implies that religion is not merely a reflection of general cultural differences, but rather has a distinct and separate influence on ethnic conflict.

A Paradox of Success? Determinants of Political Support for President Fujimori

Abstract: To what extent does a government's success in resolving a deep political and economic crisis strengthen its popular support? The Fujimori administration in Peru, which tackled both profound economic problems and a powerful guerrilla threat, constitutes a useful test case for this important question. Most observers of Peru assume that both Fujimori's success in improving the economy and in combating insurrectionary forces contributed substantially to his high popularity and his reelection victory. Regression analyses of survey and electoral data suggest, however, that the successful counterinsurgency campaign had no significant medium or long-term impact on presidential approval and electoral support. These surprising findings seem to reflect a paradox of success: when a government effectively combats a severe threat, such as rampant guerrilla violence, the salience of the issue diminishes subsequently and people's high appreciation for the president's accomplishment has an ever lower impact on their political attitudes and behavior.

Explaining Styles of Financial Market Opening in Chile, Mexico, South Korea, and Turkey

Abstract: This study examines financial opening in middle-income countries and identifies the variables that shape its basic features. We find that the widely noted increase in international capital mobility has not constrained financial policy-making equally across states. A country's economic conditions and need for external funds determine its government's bargaining power vis-a-vis international actors and domestic groups with respect to financial policy. Governments with low bargaining power, because domestic economic conditions are poor or need for external funds is high, must open financial markets completely to attract or retain capital. Conversely, governments with high bargaining power may be able to retain some controls on capital flows or deny foreign banks access to domestic markets and still have access to capital. To explore these issues, this article looks at opening in Chile, Mexico, South Korea, and Turkey. These countries opened their financial systems in very different ways. Turkey and Mexico liberalized their markets almost completely, whereas Korea (1980–98) kept barriers to capital entry and Chile (1991–98) retained barriers to capital exit. Although economic conditions explain the basic style of financial opening, they cannot account for the residual barriers that persist in mostly open markets or the pace and timing of reforms. Domestic political factors, particularly, the interests of leaders and key social groups as well as their relative bargaining power, help to explain these variables. The paper develops a typology of styles of financial opening to encourage systematic thinking about the origins and consequences of differences in style.

The Forgotten Prophet: Tom Paine's Cosmopolitanism and International Relations

Abstract: The recent questions about the viability of political realism highlight a need for alternative theoretical frameworks to guide international relations research. These alternatives, however, have been slow to emerge, due in part to the field's traditional neglect of political theory. In this essay I present an alternative based on a survey of Paine's international thought. Sir Michael Howard referred to Paine as the most important internationalist writer of all time, but his contributions have been largely ignored by students of international relations. Paine was a classic second image theorist who first posited how democratic governance would promote a peaceful world. Paine's works leave us with all the features of cosmopolitan thinking in international relations: Faith in reason and progress, the evils of authoritarian regimes, the democratic peace, the peaceful effect of trade, nonprovocative defense policies, open diplomacy, obsolescence of conquest, the universal respect for human rights, and the democratic propensity to engage in messianic interventionism. I conclude with a comparison of Kant and Paine where I argue that Paine is the more faithful representative of the Enlightenment for students of international relations.

Explaining Rivalry Escalation to War: Space, Position, and Contiguity in the Major Power Subsystem

Abstract: Vasquez's (1996) rivalry escalation theory stressed territorial disputes as the principal focus for a two-path explanation of war. Neighbors fight over adjacent space and non-neighbors sometimes join ongoing wars between neighbors. But major powers are also much concerned with positional issues. Expanding the war motivation focus to encompass both spatial and positional issues facilitates the development of a new, more elaborate theory from which several new hypotheses can be derived, in addition to the older ones. Testing of the new theory can also proceed with rivalry data not based on dispute density measures, different types of contiguity can be assessed, and the presence of spatial-positional issues can be measured directly, as opposed to relying on a proximity proxy. The empirical outcome strongly supports the two-path, two-issue theory. In the major power subsystem, noncontiguous rivals outnumber contiguous rivals, dyadic wars are scarce, and war joining has been the norm. Spatial issues alone would have a hard time accounting for this pattern. Variable mixes of spatial and positional issues are able to account for it and a number of derived hypotheses reasonably well. This is not the last word on rivalry escalation to war but it appears to be an additional step in the right direction.

Putting on Their Sunday Best: Romania, Hungary, and the Puzzle of Peace

Abstract: The absence of conflict between Romania and Hungary after the end of the Cold War presents a fascinating puzzle on which various strains of international relations theory can be brought to bear. Contrary to the expectations of realism, cooperative behavior has been pursued by these two historic antagonists. Expectations from realism, liberalism, liberal institutionalism, and social constructivism are tested on this dyad and results are compared to other cases. The investigation concludes that both international institutional norms and changes in the domestic governments of these states were necessary as factors in this anomalous behavior.

Sovereignty in the Balance: Claims and Bargains at the UN Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women

Abstract: States vary the content and subject matter of their claims to sovereignty. In an analysis of when states invoked sovereignty at recent UN World Conferences on the environment (1992), human rights (1993), and women (1995), the authors revise and extend Litfin's (1997) notion of bargains among components of sovereignty. At the conferences, states invoked sovereignty in debates over cultural and religious values, economics, and increased international accountability. The authors interpret the debates based on how four elements of sovereignty—autonomy, control, and legitimacy in the eyes of other states and nonstate actors—are traded by states through implicit or explicit bargaining. They identify patterns that vary by issue area. The authors argue that nongovernmental organizations as well as other states may legitimate or delegitimate states' sovereign claims. They find that countries of the global South made more sovereignty claims of all kinds than Northern states. And, sovereignty bargains may be struck more easily over power and economics than social values.

Bound for Glory: The Hostage Crisis as Captivity Narrative in Iran

Abstract: Eschewing conventional analyses of foreign policymaking during the Iranian hostage crisis, this paper examines how media representations of the crisis (November 1979–January 1981) contained important elements of classic American captivity narratives. Five themes are culled from the secondary literature on captivity stories and are used as categories in a content analysis of mass circulation media such as People Magazine and Time as well as more elite publications such as The New York Times and The New Republic . Depictions of Iranians as “devilish savages,” calls to rally around the flag, anxious depictions of the hostages' plight and fears that they will “go native,” exhortations to stand firm, and heroic leadership are found to be recurring themes in widely read media accounts of the hostage crisis. The results suggest that captivity stories have a continuing influence on popular understandings of America's mission in the world.

More Flies with Honey: Positive Economic Linkage in German Ostpolitik from Bismarck to Kohl

Abstract: The existing literature on economic sanctions has rarely addressed the key question of comparing the effectiveness of positive and negative sanctions. It is the contention of this study that positive sanctions can potentially be more effective, even in cases where contentious “high politics” issues are being negotiated, relations between the states concerned are tense and militarized, and the state being targeted with sanctions has substantial military power. This assertion will be tested in a set of case studies drawn from German-Polish and German-Russian/Soviet relations from the nineteenth century to the present. It will be shown that positive sanctions can be used effectively, both as “specific” sanctions to influence a target state on one particular issue, and as “general” sanctions, which aim to change the state's behavior as a whole in a more slow and subtle process.

Two‐Level Security Management and the Prospects for New Democracies: A Simulation Analysis

Abstract: Most new democracies face serious internal, ethnic/separatist conflicts; in addition, some face international threats. The literature on the growth of democracy in the global system and its impact on world politics does not fully account for the dual threats all states must address in managing their security. Based on theoretical work by Starr (1994) which describes the “common logic” of conflict processes in war and revolution, we outline a model of how states respond to security threats from both external and internal sources. Using computer simulation, we analyze the model and evaluate the relative importance for state security of factors such as system size, numbers of democracies in the system, extraction/allocation strategy pursued by new democracies, and government legitimacy level. Our results show that new democracies thrive in systems that are predominantly democratic. Also, ally support can provide crucial resources for new democracies facing internal threats. Finally, “endangered” democracies can recover security by attempting to buy off domestic threats rather than deter them, and by improving legitimacy.

“Spontaneous” Interethnic Order: The Emergence of Collective, Path-Dependent Cooperation

Abstract: Can “spontaneous,” decentralized interethnic cooperation emerge among ethnic groups whose members heavily discount future interethnic relations and do not fear punishment for interethnic noncooperation? Why is it that once the interaction between two ethnic groups evolves along a certain (cooperative or conflictual) path it sometimes becomes harder for the interacting groups to reverse course and seek alternative paths? The answer to these two questions lies in the fact that individual members not only are always calculative and could hence act opportunistically, but also are interdependent and can learn from one another. Because the members of interacting groups operate interdependently they thereby create collective nonlinear path dependence. Using a social game (within evolutionary game theory) the article shows counterintuitively that the emergence of collective, nonlinear path dependence within and across ethnic groups whose members heavily discount the future and face no punishment for interethnic noncooperation makes “spontaneous” decentralized interethnic cooperation a long-run equilibrium. Collective cooperation can thus develop path-dependently among ethnic groups without a Damocles' sword of any sort hanging over their members' heads, even when most individuals are shortsighted and opportunistic.

The Rise of the Social Development Model: Institutional Construction of International Technology Organizations, 1856–1993

Abstract: of the ITO population, the social development model has risen rapidly over time in comparison with the industrial and professional models. Rationalistic political theories, which tend to treat international organizations as negotiated arrangements among nation-states or interest groups, locate organizational changes in the power capabilities and interest calculation of such actors. These theories do not explain this historical change among ITOs. Building upon the constructivist approach and sociology's institutionalism, this study emphasizes ITOs as constructed by world cultural norms. I propose that the rise of a liberal and rationalized world regime of development in the post-World War II era affected the popularity of different ITO models by supplying a new norm for technology. Data were collected for the population of ITOs established between 1856 and 1993, and the impact of the main forces on the rise of the social development model was formally tested with event-history methods. The study demonstrates the importance of world cultural norms in shaping the evolving field of ITOs.