Databases constitute key research tools in sanctions scholarship. Over the past few years, we have witnessed a proliferation of sanctions databases: while only a single dataset was available until 2009, this number had increased to five by 2020; thus, the choice has more than doubled in less than a decade. This essay assesses the evolution observed. It reviews the five major datasets, comparing some of their basic choices, and evaluates them along two dimensions: the extent to which they capture targeted sanctions and the degree to which they brought innovations to the subfield. We find that targeted sanctions are not adequately reflected in databases, which remain state-centric in their approach. We conclude that the crafting of new databases does not entail an incremental refinement in which each iteration renders its predecessors obsolete. Rather, the evolution observed has resulted in a diverse set of options with different emphases. We nevertheless observe that a trend toward innovation has yielded to one toward consolidation, more focused on enlarging the empirical testing ground than in innovating. We conclude by discussing implications for the development of sanctions scholarship.
{"title":"The Evolution of Databases in the Age of Targeted Sanctions","authors":"Clara Portela, Andrea Charron","doi":"10.1093/isr/viac061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac061","url":null,"abstract":"Databases constitute key research tools in sanctions scholarship. Over the past few years, we have witnessed a proliferation of sanctions databases: while only a single dataset was available until 2009, this number had increased to five by 2020; thus, the choice has more than doubled in less than a decade. This essay assesses the evolution observed. It reviews the five major datasets, comparing some of their basic choices, and evaluates them along two dimensions: the extent to which they capture targeted sanctions and the degree to which they brought innovations to the subfield. We find that targeted sanctions are not adequately reflected in databases, which remain state-centric in their approach. We conclude that the crafting of new databases does not entail an incremental refinement in which each iteration renders its predecessors obsolete. Rather, the evolution observed has resulted in a diverse set of options with different emphases. We nevertheless observe that a trend toward innovation has yielded to one toward consolidation, more focused on enlarging the empirical testing ground than in innovating. We conclude by discussing implications for the development of sanctions scholarship.","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"19 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165715","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}
This article takes a reflexive look at the dilemmas and challenges of accessing a predominantly male circle of political and nongovernmental elites in the Central African Republic from the perspective of a young Black African male student researcher. It focuses on questions of positionality, arguing that certain African social norms regarding seniority and hierarchy can affect data generation, specifically access and interactions within interviews. The article argues that the author's identities as a student and researcher complicated access to male and senior elite interviewees during field research, thus illustrating anew how diasporic Africans might experience the field research exercise differently even if accessing elites is generally a difficult exercise. This article contributes to understanding power differentials among interviewers, including differences among students and researchers, and the influence of race during fieldwork by African scholars. This is within an emerging literature on fieldwork that focuses on graduate students in International Relations and Comparative Politics.
{"title":"Negotiating Positionality as a Student and Researcher in Africa: Understanding How Seniority and Race Mediate Elite Interviews in African Social Contexts","authors":"Gino Vlavonou","doi":"10.1093/isr/viac064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac064","url":null,"abstract":"This article takes a reflexive look at the dilemmas and challenges of accessing a predominantly male circle of political and nongovernmental elites in the Central African Republic from the perspective of a young Black African male student researcher. It focuses on questions of positionality, arguing that certain African social norms regarding seniority and hierarchy can affect data generation, specifically access and interactions within interviews. The article argues that the author's identities as a student and researcher complicated access to male and senior elite interviewees during field research, thus illustrating anew how diasporic Africans might experience the field research exercise differently even if accessing elites is generally a difficult exercise. This article contributes to understanding power differentials among interviewers, including differences among students and researchers, and the influence of race during fieldwork by African scholars. This is within an emerging literature on fieldwork that focuses on graduate students in International Relations and Comparative Politics.","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"19 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165716","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}
Through its potential to contribute to mass suffering, economic disruption, and social unrest, climate change poses a security threat to the constitutional identities of states (as democratic, autocratic, or hybrid regimes). This paper proposes a conceptual framework of mediated causality for climatic impacts on constitutional identity and engages in novel theory-building for one mediating vector of change: the post-fossil energy transition. Theories of the “oil curse” and of “carbon democracy” are compared and critiqued for their contributions to understanding the potential impacts of decarbonized energy systems on democracy. Two counterintuitive conclusions emerge. First, transitioning away from petroleum may not result in increased democratization, as the oil curse implies. Second, post-fossil energy systems are unlikely to become structurally decentralized, as advocates of “energy democracy” suppose, and may even need to remain centralized in order for popular mobilization around energy to help maintain or reinvigorate democratic rights.
{"title":"Climate Change, Energy Transition, and Constitutional Identity","authors":"J S Maloy","doi":"10.1093/isr/viac060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac060","url":null,"abstract":"Through its potential to contribute to mass suffering, economic disruption, and social unrest, climate change poses a security threat to the constitutional identities of states (as democratic, autocratic, or hybrid regimes). This paper proposes a conceptual framework of mediated causality for climatic impacts on constitutional identity and engages in novel theory-building for one mediating vector of change: the post-fossil energy transition. Theories of the “oil curse” and of “carbon democracy” are compared and critiqued for their contributions to understanding the potential impacts of decarbonized energy systems on democracy. Two counterintuitive conclusions emerge. First, transitioning away from petroleum may not result in increased democratization, as the oil curse implies. Second, post-fossil energy systems are unlikely to become structurally decentralized, as advocates of “energy democracy” suppose, and may even need to remain centralized in order for popular mobilization around energy to help maintain or reinvigorate democratic rights.","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"18 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2023-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165717","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}
{"title":"Colonial Law as Structural Injustice: Reactivating a Justice Agenda","authors":"J. Young","doi":"10.1093/isr/viad005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viad005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89916566","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}
{"title":"China's Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond “Thucydides's Trap”","authors":"Jiarui Wu","doi":"10.1093/isr/viad004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viad004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77600940","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}
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has passed over eighteen thousand resolutions since its foundation. It is a very heterogeneous collection, containing at once landmark documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and scores of less important and even controversial pieces. Hence, scholarship for the past 75 years has been divided on the actual relevance of UNGA resolutions and on member states’ motivations in engaging with their drafting. We propose a novel theoretical typology to organize prevailing views on the role of UNGA resolutions. Relying on the dimensions of effect and consensus, that is, whether or not resolutions are deemed to have a real-world impact and to what extent they represent world opinion, we sort the literature into four ideal types: resolutions can be regarded as the fruit of deliberation, dispute, diversion, or drama. We discuss the rationale of each view and indicate proposals within the UNGA that exemplify these perspectives. Our typology contributes to scholarship by both tidying previous debates and highlighting unnoticed commonalities between the UNGA and topics from the political representation literature.
{"title":"What Are UN General Assembly Resolutions for? Four Views on Parliamentary Diplomacy","authors":"Rafael Mesquita, Antonio Pires","doi":"10.1093/isr/viac058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac058","url":null,"abstract":"The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has passed over eighteen thousand resolutions since its foundation. It is a very heterogeneous collection, containing at once landmark documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and scores of less important and even controversial pieces. Hence, scholarship for the past 75 years has been divided on the actual relevance of UNGA resolutions and on member states’ motivations in engaging with their drafting. We propose a novel theoretical typology to organize prevailing views on the role of UNGA resolutions. Relying on the dimensions of effect and consensus, that is, whether or not resolutions are deemed to have a real-world impact and to what extent they represent world opinion, we sort the literature into four ideal types: resolutions can be regarded as the fruit of deliberation, dispute, diversion, or drama. We discuss the rationale of each view and indicate proposals within the UNGA that exemplify these perspectives. Our typology contributes to scholarship by both tidying previous debates and highlighting unnoticed commonalities between the UNGA and topics from the political representation literature.","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"18 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165718","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}
This paper integrates the scholarship on compliance with international human rights courts to reflect upon how the literature approaches delays and compliance cycles. Building on this review, we propose a new analytical approach that helps distinguish between reparations prone to immediate or protracted implementation. We introduce two metrics to facilitate the interpretation of delays: the yearly probability of compliance and the expected time to compliance. We also show, using machine-learning tools, how scholars can reconstruct life cycles of compliance. The article illustrates the utility of this approach with an analysis of all cases decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) between 1989 and 2019. This analytical framework provides critical insights for courts and activists seeking to promote interventions at key moments when compliance is most likely. Moreover, the study underscores important lessons for the Inter-American Human Rights System. Current concerns about a compliance “crisis” at the IACtHR partly reflect a failure to distinguish between reparation types and the Court's preference for reparations requiring protracted implementation. By modeling compliance life cycles, our study opens a promising research avenue that can facilitate effectual and timely policy intervention.
{"title":"Compliance in Time: Lessons from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights","authors":"A. Pérez-Liñán, Luis L. Schenoni, Kelly Morrison","doi":"10.1093/isr/viac067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac067","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper integrates the scholarship on compliance with international human rights courts to reflect upon how the literature approaches delays and compliance cycles. Building on this review, we propose a new analytical approach that helps distinguish between reparations prone to immediate or protracted implementation. We introduce two metrics to facilitate the interpretation of delays: the yearly probability of compliance and the expected time to compliance. We also show, using machine-learning tools, how scholars can reconstruct life cycles of compliance. The article illustrates the utility of this approach with an analysis of all cases decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) between 1989 and 2019. This analytical framework provides critical insights for courts and activists seeking to promote interventions at key moments when compliance is most likely. Moreover, the study underscores important lessons for the Inter-American Human Rights System. Current concerns about a compliance “crisis” at the IACtHR partly reflect a failure to distinguish between reparation types and the Court's preference for reparations requiring protracted implementation. By modeling compliance life cycles, our study opens a promising research avenue that can facilitate effectual and timely policy intervention.","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79149564","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}
{"title":"In Pursuit of Global, Theoretically Informed Research in International Politics: Announcing a New Editorial Team for the International Studies Review","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/isr/viad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viad002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"148 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77778457","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}
{"title":"Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders","authors":"Anahita Arian","doi":"10.1093/isr/viac059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac059","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54206,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Review","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78051293","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}
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