Showing papers in "International Studies Quarterly in 2004"

Transnational Networks and Global Environmental Governance: The Cities for Climate Protection Program

Abstract: The past decade has witnessed a growing interest among scholars of international relations, and global environmental governance in particular, in the role of transnational networks within the international arena. While the existence and potential significance of such networks has been documented, many questions concerning the nature of governance conducted by such networks and their impact remain. We contribute to these debates by examining how such networks are created and maintained and the extent to which they can foster policy learning and change. We focus on the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program, a network of some 550 local governments concerned with promoting local initiatives for the mitigation of climate change. It is frequently asserted that the importance of such networks lies in their ability to exchange knowledge and information, and to forge norms about the nature and terms of particular issues. However, we find that those local governments most effectively engaged with the network are mobilized more by the financial and political resources it offers, and the legitimacy conferred to particular norms about climate protection, than by access to information. Moreover, processes of policy learning within the CCP program take place in discursive struggles as different actors seek legitimacy for their interpretations of what local climate protection policies should mean. In conclusion, we reflect upon the implications of these findings for understanding the role of transnational networks in global environmental governance.

Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace? International Intervention and the Duration of Peace After Civil War

Abstract: This article examines international interventions in the aftermath of civil wars to see whether peace lasts longer when peacekeepers are present than when they are absent. Because peacekeeping is not applied to cases at random, I first address the question of where international personnel tend to be deployed. I then attempt to control for factors that might affect both the likelihood of peacekeepers being sent and the ease or difficulty of maintaining peace so as to avoid spurious findings. I find, in a nutshell, that peacekeeping after civil wars does indeed make an important contribution to the stability of peace.

Using Ideas Strategically: The Contest Between Business and NGO Networks in Intellectual Property Rights

Abstract: Whose ideas matter? And how do actors make them matter? Focusing on the strategic deployment of competing normative frameworks, that is, framing issues and grafting private agendas on policy debates, we examine the contentious politics of the contemporary international intellectual property rights regime. We compare the business victory in the establishment of the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property (TRIPS) in the World Trade Organization with the subsequent NGO campaign against enforcing TRIPS to ensure access to essential HIV/AIDS medicines. Our analysis challenges constructivist scholarship that emphasizes the distinction between various types of transnational networks based on instrumental versus normative orientations. We question the portrayal of business firms as strictly instrumental actors preoccupied with material concerns, and NGOs as motivated solely by principled, or non-material beliefs. Yet we also offer a friendly amendment to constructivism by demonstrating its applicability to the analysis of business. Treating the business and NGO networks as competing interest groups driven by their normative ideals and material concerns, we demonstrate that these networks’ strategies and activities are remarkably similar.

Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy

Abstract: Aid potentially can contribute to democratization in several ways: (1) through technical assistance focusing on electoral processes, the strengthening of legislatures and judiciaries as checks on executive power, and the promotion of civil society organizations, including a free press; (2) through conditionality; and (3) by improving education and increasing per capita incomes, which research shows are conducive to democratization. This study provides a multivariate analysis of the impact of aid on democratization in a large sample of recipient nations over the 1975–2000 period. Using two different democracy indexes and two different measures of aid intensity, no evidence is found that aid promotes democracy. This result is robust to alternative model specifications and estimation techniques, including the use of exogenous instruments for aid. Results are similar if the analysis is confined to the post–Cold War period (1990–2000), despite the reduced dependence of the U.S. and other donors on pro-Western authoritarian regimes among aid recipient nations.

Partisanship, Trade Policy, and Globalization: Is There a Left–Right Divide on Trade Policy?

Abstract: Are there noticeable differences among political parties in a country over their trade policy positions? Do left parties advocate different trade policies than right parties? In the advanced industrial countries where labor tends to be scarce, are left parties more protectionist than right ones, which represent capital owners? Political institutions within these democratic countries may affect the role of partisanship. We also investigate whether increasing globalization has led to more or less partisan polarization over trade policy. We examine 25 developed countries from 1945 to 1998 to see how their parties have competed over trade policy. Controlling for various factors, partisanship matters. Right parties consistently take more free trade stances than do left ones. Globalization and other international forces have also shaped both the nature and the extent of the domestic debate over exposure to international trade.

Singing Our World into Existence: International Relations Theory and September 11

Abstract: This paper focuses on the relationship between International Relations theory and ethics. It poses the question of the complicity of the discipline in the events of September 11, 2001. The paper begins with a discussion of Weber's notion of science as a vocation, and links this to the commitment in the discipline to a value-free conception of social science, one that sharply separates facts from values. The paper then examines the role of ten core assumptions in International Relations theory in helping to construct a discipline that has a culturally and historically very specific notion of violence, one resting on distinctions between economics and politics, between the outside and the inside of states, and between the public and the private realms. Using the United Nations Human Development report, the paper summarizes a number of forms of violence in world politics, and questions why the discipline of International Relations only focuses on a small subset of these. The paper then refers to the art of Magritte, and specifically Velazquez's painting Las Meninas, to argue for a notion of representation relevant to the social world that stresses negotiation, perspective, and understanding rather than notions of an underlying Archimedean foundation to truth claims. In concluding, the paper asserts that the discipline helped to sing into existence the world of September 11 by reflecting the interests of the dominant in what were presented as being neutral, and universal theories.

State Building, Interstate and Intrastate Rivalry: A Study of Post-Colonial Developing Country Extractive Efforts, 1975-2000

Abstract: This paper seeks to understand the relationship between state building, interstate and intrastate rivalry. Previous studies of state building have focused primarily on the European experience, with selective application to cases in the developing world. Prior studies of interstate rivalry have focused primarily on their effects on interstate relations. This paper seeks to expand the domain of both literatures. First, the paper investigates the applicability of the predatory theory of the state, derived from the European experience, in the context of the postcolonial developing world. Second, the paper expands interstate rivalry research to an examination of the effects of both interstate and intrastate rivals on domestic politics. In particular, the literature derived from the European experience considers decisions about fiscal policy as central to the process of state building and survival. Therefore, this paper examines the effects of internal and external rivals on extractive capacity in the context of state development in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia from 1975 to 2000. A series of pooled, cross-sectional time-series analyses suggest that external and internal rivals increase the extractive capacity of the state in a manner similar to the experience of early modern Europe.

The Clandestine Political Economy of War and Peace in Bosnia

Abstract: Most contemporary intrastate military conflicts have a criminalized dimension: In various ways and to varying degrees they use smuggling networks and criminal actors to create and sustain the material basis for warfare. Despite its importance, the criminalized side of intrastate war and its legacy for postwar reconstruction is not a central focus of analysis in most scholarly accounts of armed conflict. A detailed examination of the Bosnian conflict illustrates the explanatory usefulness of a “bottom up,” clandestine political economy approach to the study of war and post-war reconstruction. Drawing on interviews with former military leaders, local and international officials, and in-country observers, I argue that the outbreak, persistence, termination, and aftermath of the 1992–1995 war cannot be explained without taking into account the critical role of smuggling practices and quasi-private criminal combatants. The article suggests the need for greater bridging and broadening of the study of security, political economy, and crime.

The Legacy of Western Overseas Colonialism on Democratic Survival

Abstract: Using an original dataset that covers the period from 1951 to 1995, we consider the enduring effects of Western overseas colonialism on the democratic survival of postcolonial democracies. We treat colonialism as a holistic phenomenon and differentiate the relative effects of its legacies with regard to the level of economic development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society. We find that Western overseas colonialism, a factor often overlooked in recent large-n studies, continues to have an effect on the survival of democratic regimes. We further find that the legacy of specific colonial powers has an important effect on survival as well. Unlike previous studies, we find that former Spanish colonies outperform British colonies when colonialism is conceptualized holistically. However, when we break colonial legacy into separate components (development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society), we find that the advantages former British colonies enjoy are attributable to the legacy of the state/civil society relationship. Moreover, we show that at least in the case of former British colonies, time spent under colonial rule is positively associated with democratic survival. Decolonization was one of the landmark developments of the postwar era. Colonialism and its legacies were once a central concern of political science, playing an important role in the rise of the development and dependency paradigms. The failure of democracy in many post-colonial environments was also one of the reasons that "authoritarianism" became the most important term in the study of regimes in the 1960s and 1970s. The continued fragility of some postcolonial democracies in the 1990s suggests that the omission of this factor from the larger literature on regime change should be rethought.

Power, Borders, Security, Wealth: Lessons of Violence and Desire from September 11

Abstract: America's “war on terror” and Al Qaeda's “jihad” reflect mirror strategies of imperial politics. Each camp transnationalizes violence and insecurity in the name of national or communal security. Neoliberal globalization underpins this militarization of daily life. Its desire industries motivate and legitimate elite arguments (whether from “infidels” or “terrorists”) that society must sacrifice for its hypermasculine leaders. Such violence and desire draw on colonial identities of Self vs. Other, patriotism vs. treason, hunter vs. prey, and masculinity vs. femininity that are played out on the bodies of ordinary men and women. We conclude with suggestions of a human security to displace the elite privilege that currently besets world politics.

Comparative Public Health: The Political Economy of Human Misery and Well-Being

Abstract: The health of humanity varies enormously: by genetic endowment, environmental conditions, and access to health care; by age, gender, income level, and country.1 Some people live long healthy lives in peace and affluence; many others’ lives are briefer and burdened by major disabilities from disease or injury, and often the characterization “nasty, brutish, and short” is all too apt. Our central claim in this chapter is that politics plays an important role in influencing public health conditions, but unfortunately political scientists and other scholars have only conducted limited systematic research on the topic.2 As a result, the existing literature on the comparative cross-national analysis of the determinants of public health performance is largely based on the work of economists and public health experts in which political processes and conditions are understudied.3 We believe that political scientists can contribute substantially to a better understanding of why public health conditions vary in systematic ways across countries.

Openness, Welfare Spending, and Inequality in the Developing World

Abstract: How does government social spending affect inequality in this era of globalization? This article investigates the relationship between openness, government social expenditures (i.e., education, health, and social security and welfare), and income distribution through a time-series cross-sectional panel data set for 35 less developed countries (LDCs) from 1972 to 1996. I compare these findings to the redistributive effects of social spending in 11 advanced industrialized economies. The results show that while all categories of social spending help improve income distribution in richer countries, the effects of social spending are much less favorable in LDCs. Only spending on education in LDCs encourages a more favorable distribution of income in the face of globalization. I argue that the pressures of a more competitive global economy increase incentives for more redistributive education spending, whereas publicly sponsored health programs and, particularly, social security and welfare programs confront greater political lobbying and clientelism.

Explaining Costly International Institutions: Persuasion and Enforceable Human Rights Norms

Abstract: Why do states create enforceable international human rights norms that empower third parties to prevent and sanction domestic human rights abuses? Recent theories suggest that international institutions are shaped not only by power and interests but also by the content of arguments during intensive communication and argumentation processes. Moving beyond the simple notion that “communication matters,” I argue that states are likely to be persuaded by arguments that draw on widespread taken-for-granted norms, in particular, prohibitions on bodily harm, the importance of precedent in decision making, and the link between cooperation and progress. This model extends previous theories by specifying mechanisms and scope conditions for international change through persuasion. I illustrate the argument by examining the convention against torture, a costly international institution that allows domestic courts to prosecute crimes that occur in the territory of other states (universal jurisdiction). Because of its enforcement mechanisms, the torture convention poses a difficult case for theories explaining international institutions. If persuasion models can explain even costly institutions, they should be more widely considered as explanations for all kinds of international institutions.

The Promise of Democratic Pacification: An Empirical Assessment

Abstract: Democracy and democratization have long been heralded as resolutions to coercive governance, but there are at least two ways in which they can influence state repressive activity. In one, both killing and restriction are reduced (i.e., behavior is “pacified”); in another, killing is diminished while political restrictions are continued (i.e., behavior is “tamed”). Much research has explored the first possibility, but none has addressed the second. Examining 137 countries from 1976 to 1996, I find that democracy generally pacifies state repression and that democratization tends to increase both forms of repressive behavior—especially political restrictions, which provides support for the taming argument. However, the impact of both variables is occasionally minimal, when compared against domestic and international conflict. Therefore, while one may look to democracy as a resolution to repression, it is clear that individuals must also consider the overarching political context when assessing relationships.

A Bargaining Theory of Minority Demands: Explaining the Dog that Did not Bite in 1990s Yugoslavia

Abstract: This article develops a general theory of bargaining between a minority, its host state, and outside lobby actor to explain why minorities shift their demands from affirmative action to cultural autonomy to secessionism and back, often in the absence of clear economic or security incentives. This paper uses a simple game tree model to show that if a minority believes that it enjoys significant support from a powerful national homeland or other external actor, it radicalized its demands against the host state, even if the center has credibly committed to protect minority rights . Conversely, if a minority believes that it enjoys no external support, then it will accommodate the host state, even in the presence of significant majority repression . As a general theory of claim-making, this model challenges structural theories of demands that rely on static economic differences or historical grievances to explain claim-making. It also challenges security dilemma arguments that hold that minority radicalization is mainly a function of ethnic fears. The model's hypotheses are tested using longitudinal analysis of Hungarians in Vojvodina during the 1990s, as the Yugoslav dog that “barked but did not bite.” Careful examination of claim-making in this case demonstrates the superior explanatory power of the ethnic bargaining model as compared with dominant theories of minority mobilization in the literature.

Explaining Citizen Support for Trade Liberalization

Abstract: This paper examines individual attitudes in six industrialized democracies to determine what factors condition citizens' support for trade liberalization. We argue that public support for trade liberalization is influenced by politically driven views and individual economic utilitarian considerations. To test our propositions, we develop and estimate a series of logistic regression models of public support for trade liberalization. That data are derived from The World Values Surveys (1995–1997). We find strong empirical support for the economic utilitarian factors—primarily education, but also gender and income—as the principal factors shaping individual attitudes toward trade liberalization. Conversely, while some empirical support is found for political factors such as one's geographic orientation and level of cognitive mobilization, we find that the political predictors of support are weaker overall than the economic interest predictors.

Conquest and Regime Change: An Evolutionary Model of the Spread of Democracy and Peace

Abstract: Whereas the literature on the democratic peace tends to treat the phenomenon as a causal law, we follow Immanuel Kant in interpreting it as a macro-historical process that expanded from a small number of democracies to about 50% of all states. In order to account for this development, we introduce an agent-based model that combines a natural-selection logic with an adaptive mechanism of regime change. The latter is implemented as an empirically calibrated, contextual rule that prompts democratization as an S-shaped function of the democratic share of a state's immediate neighborhood. A similar transition rule governs regime change in the opposite direction. The computational results show that regime change and collective security are necessary to produce realistic trajectories of democratization at the systemic level.

Unwelcome Neighbors: Shared Ethnicity and International Conflict During the Cold War

Abstract: This article assesses the role of ethnic demographics and domestic ethnic rebellion in promoting international conflict. Three of the variables introduced examine dyads within which a common ethnic group exists. These variables are coded to distinguish the presence of a trans-border ethnic group that exists as a majority in both states; a majority in one state and a minority in the other; or a minority in both states. The pooled dataset, which covers the years 1951–1991, is analyzed using different types of data to account for both broad and narrow conceptions of ethnicity. The results indicate a strong and significant increase in dyadic conflict when two states share an ethnic group and an ethnic majority exists in at least one of the states. Ethnic rebellion is also found to significantly harm interstate relations when an ethnic diaspora is involved. Associations found between ethnicity and international conflict are most pronounced when international disputes involve fatalities.

Explaining Wars of Choice: An Integrated Decision Model of NATO Policy in Kosovo

Abstract: This study explains the behavior of democratic states during wars of choice using an integrated decision model. Integrated models are an attractive choice for explaining multifaceted decisions, particularly when simpler, existing theories have an uneven or only partial ability to explain conflict behavior. To illustrate these points, this study assesses the behavior of key NATO members during the 1999 intervention in Kosovo. I compare the behavior of France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. with the expectations of theories of collective action, balance of threat neorealism, public opinion, and government institutional structures. As an alternative, I introduce a simple, integrated, decision-making model that incorporates the core concepts from the other explanations in a staged, conditional manner. The integrated model does a better job of explaining state behavior in Kosovo than do existing theories. The integrated model also is applicable to other conflicts. The results of this study, and the potential of integrated models, have implications for our thinking about foreign policy analysis, for behavior during military interventions and the fight against terrorism, and for future U.S. leadership of alliance and coalition war efforts.

The Social Construction of the “Impossible Trinity”: The Intersubjective Bases of Monetary Cooperation

Abstract: Over the postwar period, states have shifted from cooperation in support of monetary guidelines, or standards for variation in wages, prices, and exchange rates, to the use of austerity as the primary means of maintaining monetary stability In this article I offer a constructivist theory of international monetary relations in order to explain this shift, contrasting the effects of Keynesian and Neoclassical understandings on interests in cooperation I argue that postwar Keynesian understandings, which cast monetary power as based in the authority to stabilize expectations, led states to perceive common interests in maintaining decentralized-but-legitimate guidelines I then argue that more recent Neoclassical views, which cast monetary power as a function of capabilities, have justified reduced mutual assistance and greater recourse to austerity From this vantage point, Neoclassical understandings, rather than any material constraints, impede the cooperation necessary to reconcile the impossible trinity of capital mobility, full employment, and monetary stability

Interwar Internationalism, the British Labour Party and the Historiography of International Relations

Abstract: This article questions two interrelated myths pertaining to the interwar internationalism of the British Labour Party and the theories of so-called idealists in the academic discipline of International Relations (IR). In IR, interwar “idealists” are (in)famous for a detached and utopian approach to international politics. Conventional historiographical verdicts on the international policy of the Labour Party in the interwar period suggest that the party was the practical mirror of this naive international outlook. In fact, the two themes are connected, most notably through Labour's Advisory Committee on International Questions . This article brings the study of Labour's internationalism and the international theories of purported idealists together by focusing on debates on the League of Nations and the use of force. The analysis reveals that conventional historiographical narratives are inadequate and too simplistic for grasping the diversity of Labour's internationalism and interwar progressivist ideas about international politics in general.

The Probability of War, 1816–1992

Abstract: What factors increase the probability that a pair of states might go to war is the focus of this study. Six hypotheses, derived from the steps to war explanation, are tested by comparing pairs of states that go to war with each other at least once in their history (from 1816 to 1992) with those that do not. It is found that as two states take the various steps to war that have been posited, the higher their probability of going to war. States whose relations are dominated by territorial disputes have a higher probability of having had a war if both sides have had outside allies, have had recurring territorial disputes, have been engaged in an enduring rivalry, and have had an arms race. As each of these factors becomes present, the probability of war progressively increases. Pairs of states whose relations are dominated by nonterritorial disputes also have their probability of war increased if these factors are present, but at a lower level. Of the various factors that increase the probability of war, outside politically relevant alliances seem to have the weakest impact.

The Expansion of Neoliberal Economic Reforms in Latin America

Abstract: This article seeks to explain why most Latin American countries have expanded market-oriented reforms since the 1980s despite their generally disappointing economic results. To explain deepening liberal economic reform, we test panel data for 15 Latin American countries from 1980 to 1995, using Beck and Katz' panel-corrected standard errors regression. Controlling for several competing explanations, we find that, except under fragmented party systems, high inflation promotes the expansion of economic reforms. We then show how our results are consistent with Weyland's (1996) use of prospect theory as well as Rodrik's (1994) work on the distributional effects of high inflation. Since the late 1980s nearly all Latin American countries have adopted marketoriented, neoliberal reforms.' Economic hardship caused, in part, by the previous initiation of import-substituting industrialization (ISI) policies, convinced these governments to reduce the role and size of the state in the economy. However, after more than 15 years of market-oriented reforms in the region, strong economic

Circling the Wagons: Soft News and Isolationism in American Public Opinion

Abstract: This study investigates the differences in coverage of foreign policy by the soft and hard news media, and the implications of such differences for public attitudes regarding the appropriate US role in the world I find that, relative to traditional news outlets, the soft news media place greater emphasis on dramatic, human-interest themes and episodic frames and less emphasis on knowledgeable information sources or thematic frames, while also having a greater propensity to emphasize the potential for bad outcomes I then develop a conceptual framework in order to determine the implications of these differences I argue that the style of coverage of soft news outlets tends to induce suspicion and distrust of a proactive or internationalist approach to US foreign policy, particularly among the least politically attentive segments of the public I test this and several related hypotheses through multiple statistical investigations into the effects of soft news coverage on attitudes toward isolationism in general, and US policy regarding the Bosnian Civil War in particular I find that among the least politically attentive members of the public, but not their more-attentive counterparts, soft news exposure—but not exposure to traditional news sources—is indeed associated with greater isolationism in general, and opposition to a proactive US policy toward Bosnia in particular

Democracy and Human Rights in the Mexican States: Elections or Social Capital?

Abstract: Why does the relationship between a government and its citizens deteriorate to violence? Large-N cross-national quantitative analyses of human rights violations have found an inverse relationship between democracy and violations. These analyses, however, have not been able to address the central finding of an influential subnational analysis of democracy that stresses the importance of a single dimension of democracy, social capital. In this article we combine these two streams of research with fresh data from the Mexican states to investigate how and why democracy inhibits violations. Theoretically, we connect a policy interest in protecting human rights to politicians' office-seeking goals and to the level of social capital. Empirically, our data allow us to disentangle two principal components of democracy, elections and social capital, and include important control variables, notably ethnic diversity, which have been largely left out of the cross-national analyses. Our central finding is that the electoral components rather than social capital produce important consequences for the protection of citizens' human rights.

Democratic Synergy and Victory in War, 1816–1992

Abstract: This study investigates the question of why democracies are more likely to win wars than non-democracies. I argue that due to the transparency of the polities, and the stability of their preferences, once determined, democracies are better able to cooperate with their partners in the conduct of wars, and thereby are more likely to win wars. In support of my argument, the main findings in this study show that, other things being equal, the larger the number of democratic partners a state has, the more likely it is to win; moreover, democratic states are more likely to have democratic partners during wars. These results are in contrast with those in current literature about the high likelihood of prevailing by democracies in wars, which emphasize, on the one hand, the superior capacity of democratic states to strengthen military capabilities and, on the other hand, to select wars in which they have a high chance of winning.

Aftershocks: Postwar Leadership Survival, Rivalry, and Regime Dynamics

Abstract: Under what conditions are leaders replaced after a war? Past research has reported that the outcome of the war and regime type affect postwar leadership tenure. Yet, this does not exhaust the conditions that could potentially influence political survival. In this article, I reexamine the links between regime type and leadership replacement after a war. I show that past research has failed to account for the dynamics of political leadership, and in the process has misrepresented the evidence supporting previous theories. I then show, using event history techniques, that both internal and external factors can alter leadership trajectories after a war. Specifically, war outcomes significantly affect the job security of a leader outside of international rivalry, but have less of an effect within rivalry. Additionally, relaxing various assumptions concerning the relationship between leadership survival and regime type leads to a richer understanding of the process of postwar leadership turnover. Finally, several propositions concerning the interaction between regime type and the costs of war are not supported in this analysis.

Time Horizons and Multilateral Enforcement in International Cooperation

Abstract: This article examines the effects on international cooperation of the rivalness and excludability of international goods. Rivalness affects bargaining power when the negotiating states have different discount rates; with rival goods states with higher discount rates will be empowered, while with nonrival goods states with lower discount rates will be empowered. Excludability affects the enforceability of agreements once reached; multilateral agreements about nonexcludable goods cannot be enforced through retaliation-in-kind. As such, agreements concerning international toll goods are likely to reflect the interests of the state(s) with the lower discount rate(s), and be multilaterally enforceable. Agreements concerning international public goods should similarly reflect the interests of those with the lower discount rates, but be more weakly enforced. Finally, agreements concerning international common pool resources should both reflect the interests of those with higher discount rates, and be weakly enforced. The article concludes with some strategies to mitigate the negative effects on cooperation discussed.

Why Not Invade North Korea? Threats, Language Games, and U.S. Foreign Policy

Abstract: International relations theory has difficulty explaining how similar policies produce different outcomes. Iraq and North Korea have been identified as members of the “axis of evil” with weapons of mass destruction programs that threaten the United States. Yet in late 2002, the United States prepared to attack Iraq whereas it chose to negotiate with North Korea, even after North Korea admitted to a secret nuclear program in direct violation of its 1994 agreement with the United States. Moreover, a direct comparison with Iraq shows North Korea to possess the greater material capability to threaten the United States. I argue that a language-based constructivist approach can explain these differences in U.S. foreign policy where other theoretical approaches cannot. By examining the U.S. entanglement in intersected language games—the implementation of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea and the enforcement of United Nations Resolutions in Iraq—it becomes possible to show how the United States could construct North Korea's nuclear program as a manageable threat that could be dealt with diplomatically.

International "Decentering" and Democratization: The Case of Thailand

Abstract: Democratization is an international process resulting from the socialization of state-society units into the modern global culture which originated some two centuries ago in the West. Contrary to the assumptions of world-polity and some democratization theorists, however, state socialization to democracy as a constitutive norm is far from assured, and in particular, some states (guardians) resist socialization fiercely while others (gatekeepers) embrace it. Guardian states such as China and Burma developed their traditions of resistance as a result of being unable to resolve the "tiyong crisis" in a way that would finesse geopolitical and geo-symbolic decentering. In contrast, gatekeeper states such as Thailand and Taiwan have never evinced concern for decentering. Elites in the pre-modern Siamese state resolved their tiyong crisis by re-imagining the Thai national essence as consistent with modernity's basic presuppositions--a development that eventually helped facilitate Thailand's democratization. Once transformed in the 1990s, the Thai state became an agent of socialization by proselytizing for democracy within ASEAN. Successful democratization is a complex historical process resulting from, among other things, the socialization of state-society units into an international normative order "modern" and Western in origin. Numerous actors at home and abroad promote democratization in the process of socializing non-democratic states into what Stanford sociologist John Meyer and his prot6g6s have called a "world polity" informed by a modernist "global culture."' Agents of socialization include other states, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), journalists, academics, labor activists, religious leaders, and others. Not all states yield to socialization pressures and undergo successful democratization, of course; and some, in fact, steadfastly resist. Resister states, this essay