Essays
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Domestic Institutions and International Conflict - Chiozza, Giacomo
From the democratic peace to the current wave of research on political leaders, the study of the connection between domestic politics and international conflict has been one of the most dynamic areas of study in International Relations in the past 25 years. This essay takes stock of the past 25 years of research on how domestic politics underpins the dynamics of war and peace in the international arena. It reviews the foundational arguments envisioned by Kant in 1795 and later grounded in the scientific canon by Russett and Oneal. The essay then argues that research that evaluates how political leaders make decisions under different institutional arrangements is likely to be one of the most fruitful lines of research in International Relations in the years to come. It illustrates this claim with a review of two alternative perspectives on leaders and international conflict. -
Trends in the Analysis of Interstate Rivalries - Thompson, William R.
The analysis of interstate rivalries is still a relatively new approach to studying conflict in world politics. The basic idea is that a disproportionate amount of interstate conflict is traceable to a very small number of state pairs that engage in recidivistic hostilities. Why not focus more on the recidivists? The question is what should we focus on? Six analytical categories are reviewed. It is argued that we have good foundations in terms of rivalry origins, maintenance/escalation, and termination/de‐escalation. We can certainly improve on the foundations but we also need to expand our understanding of rivalry “complexities,” rivalry effects, and domestic rivalries. -
Why do States Pursue Nuclear Weapons (or Not) - Wan, Wilfred
This essay traces the evolution of the literature on the rationale behind states' pursuit of nuclear weapons, from classical neorealist explanations focusing on relative power to neoliberal institutionalist ones underlining the deterrent power of institutions and constructivist work on the impact of norms, status, and identities. We call attention to their contributions as well as their conceptual and empirical deficiencies and introduce an approach that links both nuclear ambition and nuclear restraint to models of domestic political survival. The inclusion of this previously overlooked independent variable harnesses the utility of extant approaches, allowing more effective weighing of the impact of other causal variables, while accounting for variation over time, across and within states. We take stock of more recent work employing quantitative and qualitative approaches and identify an agenda for advancing causal theories explaining why some states pursue nuclear weapons whereas others do not. -
Why Do States Sign Alliances? - Leeds, Brett Ashley
Despite the fact that policy‐makers and scholars of international politics have often expressed skepticism about the efficacy of international agreements, formal military alliances have been an important feature of international politics for centuries. This essay first introduces the dominant explanation for why states sign alliance treaties: state leaders use formal alliances to convey credible information about their future intentions to partners and adversaries. It then considers empirical evidence in support of this perspective, particularly with regard to deterrence and compliance. Following this summary, I raise five puzzles that contemporary researchers are working to resolve, but which leave room for further analysis and development. First, I discuss the challenges faced by large n empirical studies of alliance formation. Next, I ask why strong states ally with weak states and consider some of the most compelling recent explanations. Third, I consider the complicated relationships between alliances and war. Fourth, I examine how alliances affect cooperation among member states. Finally, I encourage scholars to continue a recent focus on how alliances are designed. While we have seen significant progress in understanding military alliances over the last 20 years, primarily because of the development of game‐theoretic models that capture strategic interaction and the collection of new data that allow for nuanced tests of the hypothesized relationships, there is good reason to believe that we will continue to see significant innovation over the next decade. -
World Trade Organization and Judicial Enforcement of International Trade Law - Pelc, Krzysztof J.
The Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international court of unprecedented ambition. This essay examines why countries agreed to delegate as much power as they did to this international legal body, by looking to the rise of US unilateralism during the 1970s. I then offer an overview of the DSU's functioning, which concludes that its effectiveness derives more from the way it forces countries to negotiate in the shadow of the law than from the threat of material sanctions following noncompliance. Finally, I assess some widespread concerns about how developing countries fare in the system. I show that while there does exist a cleavage between rich and poor countries in dispute settlement, it does not lie where conventional wisdom often has it.