Suchergebnisse

Early theories of alliance formation often focus on when great power or status quo states will enter into military alliances. However, revisionist powers, seeking to threaten the international order igniting global security concerns, often draw power from their alliances with small regional neighbours and weak states. Though several studies discuss indicators that may potentially drive these weak states to bandwagon with revisionist powers to the detriment of protecting status quo security interests, many of these theories have yet to be tested empirically, let alone be presented and tested within the same study. This research empirically tests the conditions under which weak states will form bandwagoning alliances with aggressor states. The results demonstrate that weak states will form bandwagoning alliances with neighbouring regional aggressors, when facing an external threat, and especially under conditions of internal duress or domestic political strife. In order to protect global security interests and to keep aggressor and revisionist states from gaining power and influence through bandwagoning alliances, status quo states should identify internally destabilized weak states and offer early assistance in state building and increasing bureaucratic capacity.

States' counterterrorism strategies have been categorized into the criminal justice and military models of counterterrorism. Currently, the international relations literature lacks a systematic exploration or theorization of these models, and relies mainly on broad conceptualizations and piecemeal evidence to make claims in reference to these two counterterrorism models. This dissertation examines the conceptual literature on the criminal justice and military models of counterterrorism, further theorizes these models, and empirically analyzes both quantitatively and qualitatively using evidence from the United States. Using data from the Global Terrorism Database and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, spanning from 1970 to 2014, the quantitative analysis looks predominantly at the military model of counterterrorism in order to determine its relationship with terrorism and relevant domestic political processes. The qualitative analysis, comprised mainly of legal content analysis of the same temporal frame, investigates the conditions under which the models are employed, focusing especially on the criminal justice model. The findings suggest that criminal justice responses are employed mainly against perpetrators from Western nations and U.S. allies, while military responses are disproportionately used against Muslim individuals, especially those affiliated with al-Qaeda, Taliban, and al Shabab. The findings also suggest that both models have been equally employed before and after 9/11, calling into question claims from recent literature suggesting that military counterterrorism policy is a post-9/11 phenomenon. Finally, the results indicate that terrorism both directly and indirectly impacts military activity in the U.S. and, contrarily, that military activity is associated with increases in future supplies of terrorism. This suggests that military action alone may not be enough to combat terrorism.

"What motivates states to assist other countries in need? Focusing on Chinese, Russian, and American decisions about COVID-19 aid, this book illuminates the role of historically contingent ideas in donors' decisions. Drawing on the theoretical insights of the critical geopolitics tradition, it advances and tests explanations for aid-related decisions on a novel global dataset of COVID-19 aid. Rigorously theorized, meticulously researched, and accessibly written, this book illuminates the ways in which China and Russia seek to reshape the humanitarian field consistent with their geopolitical visions. Their competition with the US over approaches to aid has weakened the integrity of humanitarian system"--

AbstractIs it joint democracy or state similarity that has a pacifying impact on interstate relations? This study explores the complementarity of the two propositions and demonstrates the potential of a particular kind of shared emancipative culture embracing values of autonomy, equality, choice, and voice to amplify the impact of joint democracy on interstate conflict. The data on cultural values, which comes from the World Values Survey, was integrated with the data from the Correlates of War Project to test the impact of joint democracy and cultural similarity on militarised interstate disputes (1981–2010). We find that culturally similar dyads are less likely to be involved in conflict with each other than culturally dissimilar dyads. Although, cultural similarity does not wash out the pacifying effect of democracy, it offers a complementary explanation to the democratic peace. We also find that states that are democratic and share higher than average scores on the emancipative values are less likely to engage in militarised interstate disputes than democratic states, which are culturally dissimilar or score low on the emancipative dimensions. This provides support for an additional normative/cultural impact on democratic peace.

If more women were put in states' leadership positions, would there be fewer militarised interstate disputes? The findings of this study suggest an affirmative answer to this question but for reasons that are different from the arguments associating women with peace. We derive our expectations from the 'role incongruity' perspective detailing the impact of gender stereotypes on individuals' assessment of leaders and their decisions. Due to gendered expectations of leadership, 'role incongruity' can contribute to the escalation of militarised disputes in state dyads where one leader is male and the other is female, but its impact is mitigated in joint women-led state dyads. Our contributions to the scholarship on gender and conflict lie in illuminating theoretically how the threats arising from gender stereotypes can be reduced in all-women dyads and testing this relationship on state dyads between years 1966 and 2014.