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This paper addresses a new issue in sanctions research: the determinants of the time it takes for nations to return to presanctions levels of trade after a sanctions episode ends. The authors argue that democratic institutions reduce transaction costs and promote trust between economic agents. Their primary hypothesis is that jointly democratic dyads return to their presanctions level of trade faster than nonjointly democratic dyads. To evaluate this argument, the authors have constructed an event history data set of 59 sanctions cases beginning between 1954 and 1992. The empirical analysis finds strong support for the theoretical hypothesis that democratic political institutions facilitate a return to trade. These results hold even in the presence of competing explanations, and are robust to alternative model specifications.

We introduce a dataset on air power. Air power is the ability to inflict damage on an adversary through the air, and its successful application depends on achieving command of the skies. To achieve command of the skies, countries invest in a variety of types of military hardware and training, especially fighter aircraft. Our dataset contains information on the number, type and technological characteristics—including weaponry, avionics, speed, maneuverability and stealth characteristics—of each country's fighter and attack aircraft for the period 1973–2013. We also introduce two new air power variables based on this data. The first is Country Air Power, a country-year measure of air power. The second is Expected Air Superiority, a dyad-year measure of which actor is likely to achieve air superiority in a military conflict. We illustrate the utility of this dataset by examining the relationship between air power and militarized dispute initiation, the duration and success of coercive bombing campaigns, and coercive behavior more generally. We find that command of the skies significantly affects conflict and coercive behavior.

Naval power is a crucial element of state power, yet existing naval data sets are limited to a small number of states and ship types. Here we present 147 years of naval data on all the world's navies from 1865 to 2011. This country-year data set focuses on warships with ship-based weapons capable of using kinetic force to inflict damage on other structures or peoples. After identifying a country's active naval forces, we create a measure of naval power based on the aggregate tonnage of the active ships. Additionally, we create count variables for ship types such as aircraft carriers or battleships. This article introduces the country-year data, describes variables of interests for use in country-year, dyadic, or systemic studies, and suggests potential questions of interest scholars could explore using the naval power data set. (International Interactions (London)/ FUB)

To what extent can democratic leaders mitigate the costs of reneging on alliance agreements? Previous research suggests that democratic leaders suffer from domestic backlash if they decide to renege on alliance treaties. However, less is known about whether and to what extent leaders can mitigate the domestic costs of reneging on alliance commitments. We study strategies leaders use to mitigate these costs. Specifically, we experimentally investigate whether and how much the costs of reneging are affected by different sidestepping strategies and the costs of fulfilling an alliance commitment. Results show that the potential costs of fulfilling commitments can dilute the domestic backlash for reneging on alliances, but various sidestepping strategies that work in the standard audience-cost context of reneging on a public threat do not work for reneging on a formal alliance. These findings expand our understanding of the reliability of democratic alliances and show that reneging costs are contingent on the context.

A number of studies find that democracies spend less on their military than non-democracies. Yet there are well known counter-examples, including but not limited to the United States and Israel. We contend that these counter-examples are part of a larger pattern. The relationship between regime type and military spending is conditional on external threat. Among countries that do not perceive a significant external threat to their interests, democracies allocate considerably less to the military than non-democracies. However, democracies with a significant external threat do not allocate less to the military than non-democracies. The reason prior research consistently finds that democracies, on average, spend less on the military, even while controlling for external threat, is that democracies are much less likely to have a high external threat. For example, autocracies are nearly twice as likely as democracies to have a significant external threat in our sample. An empirical analysis of military spending from 1952–2000 is consistent with these expectations.

Why do some autocratic states allocate more resources to the military than others? We contend that as narrow political interests have more influence on a leader, relative to broader political interests, a state's military burden increases. Further, we argue that two domestic factors are central to explaining the relative strength of narrow political interests for military spending, and therefore variation in state military burden. First, institutions that increase the cost of political participation reduce the influence of the median citizen, increasing the strength of narrow political interests and, concomitantly, military spending. Second, as a regime ages, narrow interests become more entrenched and the regime becomes less concerned about overthrow. In turn, older regimes spend more on their militaries. We test hypotheses from this argument by examining the military burden for all autocracies over the period 1950–2000. We find that variation in restrictions on political participation and the age of the regime are central to understanding differences in military spending among autocracies. Further, once these institutional features are taken into account, we find only modest support for the view that certain types of regimes spend more than others. What matters is not regime type but specific institutional features that affect the strength of narrow interests and vary across, and within, autocratic regimes.