Pub Date : 2023-02-14DOI: 10.1017/S0020818323000012
L. Schubiger
Abstract What effect does state violence have on the cohesiveness and fragmentation of insurgent organizations? This article develops a theory of how state violence against civilians affects insurgent cohesion and fragmentation in civil war. It argues that the state-led collective targeting of an armed group's alleged civilian constituency increases the probability of insurgent fragmentation, defined as the process through which insurgent organizations split into distinct entities, each with its own social composition, goals, and leadership. This effect is driven by the interaction of several mechanisms at the individual, group, and organizational levels: state-led collective targeting enlarges the supply of fresh recruits, strengthens the bonds between immediate group members (interpersonal cohesion), and disrupts intra-organizational coordination, strategic unity, and institutional arrangements that underpin the commitment of individual fighters to the organization as a whole (ideological cohesion). The implications of this argument are empirically tested in an analysis of armed groups fighting against their governments between 1946 and 2008. The results suggest that campaigns of massive state violence directed against the civilian constituency of rebel groups increase the overall risk of insurgent fragmentation, a finding that has important implications for the duration and escalation of civil wars.
{"title":"One for All? State Violence and Insurgent Cohesion","authors":"L. Schubiger","doi":"10.1017/S0020818323000012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818323000012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract What effect does state violence have on the cohesiveness and fragmentation of insurgent organizations? This article develops a theory of how state violence against civilians affects insurgent cohesion and fragmentation in civil war. It argues that the state-led collective targeting of an armed group's alleged civilian constituency increases the probability of insurgent fragmentation, defined as the process through which insurgent organizations split into distinct entities, each with its own social composition, goals, and leadership. This effect is driven by the interaction of several mechanisms at the individual, group, and organizational levels: state-led collective targeting enlarges the supply of fresh recruits, strengthens the bonds between immediate group members (interpersonal cohesion), and disrupts intra-organizational coordination, strategic unity, and institutional arrangements that underpin the commitment of individual fighters to the organization as a whole (ideological cohesion). The implications of this argument are empirically tested in an analysis of armed groups fighting against their governments between 1946 and 2008. The results suggest that campaigns of massive state violence directed against the civilian constituency of rebel groups increase the overall risk of insurgent fragmentation, a finding that has important implications for the duration and escalation of civil wars.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45947429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-09DOI: 10.1017/S0020818322000297
Frederick R. Chen, Jian Xu
Abstract Scholars often assume that courts in authoritarian regimes cannot credibly protect foreign investors’ interests because these institutions lack judicial independence. In this article, we construct a novel data set on multinational corporations’ litigation activities in Chinese courts from 2002 to 2017. This supports the first systematic case-level analysis of foreign firms’ lawsuit outcomes in an authoritarian judiciary. We find that foreign companies frequently engage in litigation in authoritarian courts. Moreover, we theoretically and empirically distinguish between two types of government–business ties in terms of their effectiveness in incentivizing the host state to protect foreign investors’ interests. We argue that ad hoc, personal political connections deliver only trivial lawsuit success for multinational enterprises, while formal corporate partnerships with regime insiders can lead the state to structurally internalize foreign investors’ interests. In particular, we demonstrate that joint venture partnerships with state-owned enterprises help foreign firms obtain more substantial monetary compensation than other types of multinational enterprises. By contrast, the personal political connections of foreign firms’ board members do not foster meaningful judicial favoritism. These findings are robust to tests of alternative implications, matching procedures, and subsample robustness checks. This article advances our understanding of multinational corporations’ political risk in host countries, government–business relations, and authoritarian judicial institutions.
{"title":"Partners with Benefits: When Multinational Corporations Succeed in Authoritarian Courts","authors":"Frederick R. Chen, Jian Xu","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000297","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholars often assume that courts in authoritarian regimes cannot credibly protect foreign investors’ interests because these institutions lack judicial independence. In this article, we construct a novel data set on multinational corporations’ litigation activities in Chinese courts from 2002 to 2017. This supports the first systematic case-level analysis of foreign firms’ lawsuit outcomes in an authoritarian judiciary. We find that foreign companies frequently engage in litigation in authoritarian courts. Moreover, we theoretically and empirically distinguish between two types of government–business ties in terms of their effectiveness in incentivizing the host state to protect foreign investors’ interests. We argue that ad hoc, personal political connections deliver only trivial lawsuit success for multinational enterprises, while formal corporate partnerships with regime insiders can lead the state to structurally internalize foreign investors’ interests. In particular, we demonstrate that joint venture partnerships with state-owned enterprises help foreign firms obtain more substantial monetary compensation than other types of multinational enterprises. By contrast, the personal political connections of foreign firms’ board members do not foster meaningful judicial favoritism. These findings are robust to tests of alternative implications, matching procedures, and subsample robustness checks. This article advances our understanding of multinational corporations’ political risk in host countries, government–business relations, and authoritarian judicial institutions.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48573153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-08DOI: 10.1017/S0020818322000376
Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Melissa M. Lee
Abstract A distinguishing feature of the modern state is the broad scope of social welfare provision. This remarkable expansion of public assistance was characterized by huge spatial and temporal disparities. What explains the uneven expansion in the reach of social welfare? We argue that social welfare expansion depends in part on the ability of the governed to compel the state to provide rewards in return for military service—and crucially, that marginalized groups faced greater barriers to obtaining those rewards. In colonial states, subjects faced a bargaining disadvantage relative to citizens living in the colony and were less likely to win concessions from the state for their wartime sacrifices. We test this argument using a difference-in-differences research design and a rich data set of local spending before and after World War I in colonial Algeria. Our results reveal that social welfare spending expanded less in communes where the French subject share of the population was greater. This paper contributes to the state-building literature by highlighting the differential ability of the governed to bargain with the state in the aftermath of conflict.
{"title":"War and Welfare in Colonial Algeria","authors":"Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Melissa M. Lee","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000376","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A distinguishing feature of the modern state is the broad scope of social welfare provision. This remarkable expansion of public assistance was characterized by huge spatial and temporal disparities. What explains the uneven expansion in the reach of social welfare? We argue that social welfare expansion depends in part on the ability of the governed to compel the state to provide rewards in return for military service—and crucially, that marginalized groups faced greater barriers to obtaining those rewards. In colonial states, subjects faced a bargaining disadvantage relative to citizens living in the colony and were less likely to win concessions from the state for their wartime sacrifices. We test this argument using a difference-in-differences research design and a rich data set of local spending before and after World War I in colonial Algeria. Our results reveal that social welfare spending expanded less in communes where the French subject share of the population was greater. This paper contributes to the state-building literature by highlighting the differential ability of the governed to bargain with the state in the aftermath of conflict.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42002792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-27DOI: 10.1017/S0020818322000327
Jing Qian, J. Vreeland, Jianzhi Zhao
Abstract The World Bank, under the stewardship of the United States, stands out as the global leader among international development organizations. Does China's establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) undermine this status? Examining this question, we focus on the borrowing practices of a special set of countries: the founding members of the AIIB. These founders openly defied the public preference of the United States, arguably to create a potential rival to the World Bank. Using a new causal inference method, Pang, Liu, and Xu's Dynamic Multilevel Latent Factor Model—as well as several well-known estimation models as robustness checks—we document at least a temporary decrease in the number of World Bank infrastructure projects that the developing AIIB founders have entered into. This study presents the first systematic evidence that China's AIIB could unsettle the political influence the United States has enjoyed over developing countries through its leadership of the World Bank. An important set of countries may be parting ways with the World Bank and looking to a Chinese institution for leadership in the world of development.
{"title":"The Impact of China's AIIB on the World Bank","authors":"Jing Qian, J. Vreeland, Jianzhi Zhao","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000327","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000327","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The World Bank, under the stewardship of the United States, stands out as the global leader among international development organizations. Does China's establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) undermine this status? Examining this question, we focus on the borrowing practices of a special set of countries: the founding members of the AIIB. These founders openly defied the public preference of the United States, arguably to create a potential rival to the World Bank. Using a new causal inference method, Pang, Liu, and Xu's Dynamic Multilevel Latent Factor Model—as well as several well-known estimation models as robustness checks—we document at least a temporary decrease in the number of World Bank infrastructure projects that the developing AIIB founders have entered into. This study presents the first systematic evidence that China's AIIB could unsettle the political influence the United States has enjoyed over developing countries through its leadership of the World Bank. An important set of countries may be parting ways with the World Bank and looking to a Chinese institution for leadership in the world of development.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45076566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-27DOI: 10.1017/S0020818322000352
L. Cederman, Paola Galano Toro, Luc Girardin, Guy Schvitz
Abstract Charles Tilly's classical claim that “war made states” in early modern Europe remains controversial. The “bellicist” paradigm has attracted theoretical criticism both within and beyond its original domain of applicability. While several recent studies have analyzed the internal aspects of Tilly's theory, there have been very few systematic attempts to assess its logic with regard to the territorial expansion of states. In this paper, we test this key aspect of bellicist theory directly by aligning historical data on European state borders with conflict data, focusing on the period from 1490 through 1790. Proceeding at the systemic, state, and dyadic levels, our analysis confirms that warfare did in fact play a crucial role in the territorial expansion of European states before (and beyond) the French Revolution.
{"title":"War Did Make States: Revisiting the Bellicist Paradigm in Early Modern Europe","authors":"L. Cederman, Paola Galano Toro, Luc Girardin, Guy Schvitz","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000352","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Charles Tilly's classical claim that “war made states” in early modern Europe remains controversial. The “bellicist” paradigm has attracted theoretical criticism both within and beyond its original domain of applicability. While several recent studies have analyzed the internal aspects of Tilly's theory, there have been very few systematic attempts to assess its logic with regard to the territorial expansion of states. In this paper, we test this key aspect of bellicist theory directly by aligning historical data on European state borders with conflict data, focusing on the period from 1490 through 1790. Proceeding at the systemic, state, and dyadic levels, our analysis confirms that warfare did in fact play a crucial role in the territorial expansion of European states before (and beyond) the French Revolution.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46373285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-11DOI: 10.1017/S0020818322000315
Brandon J. Kinne, Stephanie N. Kang
Abstract How do states distribute the burdens of collective defense? This paper develops a network theory of burden sharing. We focus on bilateral defense cooperation agreements (DCAs), which promote cooperation in a variety of defense, military, and security issue areas. Using a computational model, we show that DCA partners’ defense spending depends on the network structure of their agreements. In bilateral terms, DCAs increase defense spending by committing states to defense activities and allowing partners to reciprocally punish free riding. However, as a state's local network of defense partnerships grows more densely connected, with many transitive “friend of a friend” relations, DCAs have the countervailing effect of reducing defense spending. The more deeply integrated states are in bilateral defense networks, the less they spend on defense. We distinguish two potential mechanisms behind this effect—one based on efficiency improvements, the other on free riding. An empirical analysis using multilevel inferential network models points more to efficiency than to free riding. Defense networks reduce defense spending, and they do so by allowing countries to produce security more efficiently.
{"title":"Free Riding, Network Effects, and Burden Sharing in Defense Cooperation Networks","authors":"Brandon J. Kinne, Stephanie N. Kang","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000315","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract How do states distribute the burdens of collective defense? This paper develops a network theory of burden sharing. We focus on bilateral defense cooperation agreements (DCAs), which promote cooperation in a variety of defense, military, and security issue areas. Using a computational model, we show that DCA partners’ defense spending depends on the network structure of their agreements. In bilateral terms, DCAs increase defense spending by committing states to defense activities and allowing partners to reciprocally punish free riding. However, as a state's local network of defense partnerships grows more densely connected, with many transitive “friend of a friend” relations, DCAs have the countervailing effect of reducing defense spending. The more deeply integrated states are in bilateral defense networks, the less they spend on defense. We distinguish two potential mechanisms behind this effect—one based on efficiency improvements, the other on free riding. An empirical analysis using multilevel inferential network models points more to efficiency than to free riding. Defense networks reduce defense spending, and they do so by allowing countries to produce security more efficiently.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49568751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-10DOI: 10.1017/S0020818322000303
Brenton Kenkel, Jack Paine
Abstract The development of parliamentary constraints on the executive was critical in Western European political history. Previous scholarship identifies external wars as a key factor, but with varying effects. Sometimes, willing monarchs granted parliamentary rights in return for revenues to fight wars. Yet at other times, war threats empowered rulers over other elites or caused states to fragment. We analyze a formal model to understand how external wars can either stimulate or undermine prospects for a contractual relationship between a ruler and elite actors. We recover the standard intuition that war threats make the ruler more willing to grant parliamentary rights in return for revenue. Our key insight is that war threats also affect the bargaining position of elites. A previously unrecognized tension yields our new findings: stronger outsider threats increase pressure either on elites to fund the ruler or on the ruler to accept constraints—but not both simultaneously. Elites with immobile wealth depend on the ruler for security. War threats undercut their credibility to refuse funding for an unconstrained ruler. By contrast, war threats make elites with mobile wealth and a viable exit option unwilling to fund a hopeless war effort. Only under circumscribed conditions do war threats align three conditions needed for parliament to arise in equilibrium: ruler willingness, elite credibility, and elite willingness. We apply our theory to posit strategic foundations for waves and reversals of historical European parliaments.
{"title":"A Theory of External Wars and European Parliaments","authors":"Brenton Kenkel, Jack Paine","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000303","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The development of parliamentary constraints on the executive was critical in Western European political history. Previous scholarship identifies external wars as a key factor, but with varying effects. Sometimes, willing monarchs granted parliamentary rights in return for revenues to fight wars. Yet at other times, war threats empowered rulers over other elites or caused states to fragment. We analyze a formal model to understand how external wars can either stimulate or undermine prospects for a contractual relationship between a ruler and elite actors. We recover the standard intuition that war threats make the ruler more willing to grant parliamentary rights in return for revenue. Our key insight is that war threats also affect the bargaining position of elites. A previously unrecognized tension yields our new findings: stronger outsider threats increase pressure either on elites to fund the ruler or on the ruler to accept constraints—but not both simultaneously. Elites with immobile wealth depend on the ruler for security. War threats undercut their credibility to refuse funding for an unconstrained ruler. By contrast, war threats make elites with mobile wealth and a viable exit option unwilling to fund a hopeless war effort. Only under circumscribed conditions do war threats align three conditions needed for parliament to arise in equilibrium: ruler willingness, elite credibility, and elite willingness. We apply our theory to posit strategic foundations for waves and reversals of historical European parliaments.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43401446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-10DOI: 10.1017/S0020818322000364
Giovanni Mantilla
Abstract Why do states create weak international institutions? Frustrated with proliferating but disappointing international environmental institutions, scholars increasingly bemoan agreements which, rather than solving problems, appear to exist “for show.” This article offers an explanation of this phenomenon. I theorize a dynamic of deflective cooperation to explain the creation of compromise face-saving institutions. I argue that when international social pressure to create an institution clashes with enduring disagreements among states about the merits of creating it, states may adopt cooperative arrangements that are ill-designed to produce their purported practical effects. Rather than negotiation failures or empty gestures, I contend that face-saving institutions represent interstate efforts to manage intractable disagreement through suboptimal institutionalized cooperation. I formulate this argument inductively through a new multi-archival study of conventional weapons regulation during the Cold War, which resulted in the oft-maligned 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. A careful reconsideration of the negotiation process extends and nuances existing IR theorizing and retrieves its historical significance as a critical juncture and complex product of contesting diplomatic practices.
国家为什么要创建脆弱的国际机构?国际环境机构层出不穷,令人失望,令学者们感到沮丧,他们越来越抱怨这些协议与其说是解决问题,不如说是“作秀”。本文对这一现象进行了解释。我将偏转合作的动态理论化,以解释妥协挽回颜面的制度的产生。我认为,当要求创建一个机构的国际社会压力与各国之间关于创建该机构的好处的持久分歧发生冲突时,各国可能会采用设计不当的合作安排,以产生其所谓的实际效果。而不是谈判失败或空洞的姿态,我认为,挽回颜面的机构代表了国家间通过次优制度化合作来管理棘手分歧的努力。我通过对冷战期间常规武器管制的一项新的多档案研究归纳地提出了这一论点,这一研究导致了1980年《联合国某些常规武器公约》(UN Convention on Certain conventional weapons)的诞生。对谈判过程的仔细反思扩展了现有的国际关系理论,并对其进行了细微的修改,并恢复了其作为外交实践竞争的关键节点和复杂产物的历史意义。
{"title":"Deflective Cooperation: Social Pressure and Forum Management in Cold War Conventional Arms Control","authors":"Giovanni Mantilla","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000364","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000364","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Why do states create weak international institutions? Frustrated with proliferating but disappointing international environmental institutions, scholars increasingly bemoan agreements which, rather than solving problems, appear to exist “for show.” This article offers an explanation of this phenomenon. I theorize a dynamic of deflective cooperation to explain the creation of compromise face-saving institutions. I argue that when international social pressure to create an institution clashes with enduring disagreements among states about the merits of creating it, states may adopt cooperative arrangements that are ill-designed to produce their purported practical effects. Rather than negotiation failures or empty gestures, I contend that face-saving institutions represent interstate efforts to manage intractable disagreement through suboptimal institutionalized cooperation. I formulate this argument inductively through a new multi-archival study of conventional weapons regulation during the Cold War, which resulted in the oft-maligned 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. A careful reconsideration of the negotiation process extends and nuances existing IR theorizing and retrieves its historical significance as a critical juncture and complex product of contesting diplomatic practices.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45020522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}