International Studies Review 

About: International Studies Review is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): International relations & Politics. It has an ISSN identifier of 1468-2486. Over the lifetime, 1651 publications have been published receiving 23129 citations.

Globalization and Policy Convergence

Abstract: An implicit assumption of most policy analysts and some academics is that globalization leads to a convergence of traditionally national policies governing environmental regulation, consumer health and safety, the regulation of labor, and the ability to tax capital. Some claim that globalization leads to a race to the bottom, where concerns about the regulatory standards are sacrificed on the altar of commerce. Others argue that the growth of transnational governance structures leads to a negotiated convergence of ample regulation. This essay reviews the arguments and evidence for how globalization affects the convergence of regulatory policies, in particular the setting of labor and environmental standards. It argues that the theories of policy convergence, which rely on structural factors to induce policy convergence, are largely unsupported by the empirical evidence. Theories that grant agents autonomous decisionmaking power perform better but remain underspecified. Ironically, the realist paradigm, which has generally denigrated the globalization phenomenon, could prove a fruitful source for theories of improved policy convergence.

Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms: A Research Agenda

Abstract: Scholarship on international norms has recently begun to explore how domestic-level structures and processes affect compliance. This literature has identified the domestic legitimacy of an international norm as an important variable in accounting for the effects of norms on state behavior. But scholars have devoted insufficient attention to measuring the legitimacy or salience of international norms in the domestic arena and to identifying the pathways that lead to domestic salience. We offer insights that could lead to more systematic studies of the domestic impact of international norms. First, we propose a framework to measure the domestic salience of an international norm. Second, we identify four pathways by which an international norm can enter the national arena and one factor that conditions its impact on domestic political processes. The paper concludes by suggesting directions for future empirical research.

Truth-Seeking, Truth-Telling, and Postconflict Peacebuilding: Curb the Enthusiasm?

Abstract: This essay evaluates popular and scholarly claims about the peace-promoting benefits of formal truth-telling and truth-seeking mechanisms in the aftermath of civil wars. Its purpose is twofold. First, it synthesizes and clearly articulates in one place the full range of claims about the relationship between truth-telling and peacebuilding. Second, it evaluates these claims by systematically examining the core factual and theoretical assumptions on which they are based. An argument is made that many such claims—and their core assumptions—are flawed or highly contentious as well as that truth-telling advocates claim far more about the power of truth-telling than logic or evidence dictates. This is not to say that truth-telling has no role to play in preventing the resumption of violent conflict in postwar societies, only that proponents likely overstate its importance. Before proclaiming the necessity of truth commissions or trials in the aftermath of violent conflict, we need to better understand how truth-telling prevents the recurrence of civil war, how important it is relative to other factors and other peacebuilding strategies, and when it is likely to prove helpful, harmful, or irrelevant.

Where Do the Peacekeepers Go

Abstract: What determines where and when the United Nations (UN) sends peacekeepers in civil wars? This is an important topic for at least two normative reasons. First, it is a necessary prerequisite for judging the extent to which the organization lives up to its aspirations for being a truly global body, capable of working to preserve international security and relieve suffering without preference to a state's choice of government, location, resources, or historical connection to the great powers. Second, given various attempts to suggest criteria or benchmarks for humanitarian intervention, it is important to know which cases are selected for intervention in the absence of such criteria. The procedures and standards of the UN provide little guidance as to the actual decisions of the Security Council regarding when and where peacekeepers will be deployed. Peacekeepers are deployed with reference to Chapters 6 or 7 of the UN Charter. Although these chapters differ with regard to the use of force or pacific means to resolve disputes, they agree that the prerequisite for their enactment is a threat to or an endangerment of "the maintenance of international peace and security." The question remains, why does the Security Council consider some civil wars threats to international security? The charter is silent on what constitutes a threat to international security, and the Security Council has shown enormous flexibility in invoking the language of threat to justify the deployment of peacekeepers. If previous deployments provide any indication, then one must wrestle with why civil wars in Mozambique, Somalia, Guatemala, and Sierra Leone were deemed essential for the promotion of international security, whereas civil wars in Kashmir, Sudan, Chechnya, and Algeria were judged as peripheral to security. Despite the importance of the issue, the amount of systematic research on the topic is extremely small in comparison with dozens of other topics that come under the heading of international cooperation. Partly as a consequence, unsupported claims by journalists, policymakers, and even some academics about where the UN sends peacekeepers have proliferated over the years. A common assertion is that peacekeepers go where the permanent members of the Security Council (or in some versions where the United States) have important national interests. Alternatively, it is claimed that peacekeeping is imperialism in disguise and, therefore, peacekeepers are sent where great powers have an economic interest in access to raw materials and primary commodities. A different version holds that peacekeeping since the 1990s embodies an ethos of democracy-building and that the great powers, who have an interest in increasing the number of democracies in the world, choose cases in which democracy is in short supply yet has the potential to take root.

Crisis Early Warning and Decision Support: Contemporary Approaches and Thoughts on Future Research

Abstract: Military planners and other decision makers require advanced early warning of impending crises so they can devise effective mitigation plans, mobilize resources, and coordinate responses with their foreign counterparts. Over the last 40 years, the US government has invested generously in several attempts to build crisis forecasting systems that were analytically defensible and capable of processing and making sense of vast amounts of information in real or near real time. This article describes the most recent attempt by the US military to develop an Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (ICEWS). Although ICEWS relies heavily on social science theories, data, and methods, our experiences thus far reveal some strengths and limitations of contemporary quantitative approaches to addressing social science questions with real world implications. The article concludes with a sketch of a new paradigmatic approach—a Computational Social Science Experimentation Proving Ground—that could not only improve crisis early warning and response, but also revolutionize how social science knowledge is developed, evaluated, and applied more broadly.