Suchergebnisse

In this article I examine how a state's conflict environment affects the amount of foreign aid it receives. Specifically, conflict in the recipient state's neighborhood can have a wide range of externalities that negatively affect the recipient state, but also the interests of donor countries. I argue that the presence of conflict in a state's region generally leads to an increase in the demand for aid funds and should correlate with an increase in the amount of aid a state receives. I further argue that the degree to which the donor state will increase aid funds to meet this demand depends upon the donor's economic and political interests in the recipient state.

In this article I examine how a state's conflict environment affects the amount of foreign aid it receives. Specifically, conflict in the recipient state's neighborhood can have a wide range of externalities that negatively affect the recipient state, but also the interests of donor countries. I argue that the presence of conflict in a state's region generally leads to an increase in the demand for aid funds and should correlate with an increase in the amount of aid a state receives. I further argue that the degree to which the donor state will increase aid funds to meet this demand depends upon the donor's economic and political interests in the recipient state.

How does political competition among domestic actors influence foreign policy choice? Studies examining these questions often focus on the role of economic or partisan interests, and how they influence the preferences of decision makers who are subject to electoral institutions and pressures of their constituents. Less attention has been paid to how the preferences of other influential but unelected actors influence state behavior. I examine the influence of one such group by looking at how American military leaders shape decisions on military spending and force structure, while also examining how these decisions have been affected by changes to the institutions governing civil-military relations. Results indicate that military leaders occupying key positions can influence defense spending priorities in favor of their respective branches. Results also suggest the influence of military leaders has changed and is conditional upon the institutions governing the relationships between civilian decision makers and military leaders. Adapted from the source document.

Foreign policy scholars have long emphasized bipartisanship in foreign policymaking, particularly in the context of presidential appointments to the foreign policy bureaucracy, emphasizing the role of international crises and national security in affecting bipartisanship. In spite of their enduring nature, few systematic analyses of these claims exist. This study addresses these gaps using new data on appointees to the foreign policy bureaucracy. The results challenge the conventional wisdoms emerging from the foreign policy literature regarding the importance of factors like war, instead pointing to the importance of domestic political factors in affecting bipartisanship in appointments to the foreign policy bureaucracy.

The deployment of military forces abroad has been a major component of the US's grand strategy since the beginning of the Cold War. However, some scholars have argued that the presence of US military personnel abroad creates a series of negative externalities afflicting local communities. We put some of these claims to the test by looking at the effect of US military deployments on crime rates in the host-state. Using cross-national crime statistics from the United Nations and data on US troop deployments, we examine whether US military deployments are associated with higher levels of criminal activity across a large subset of crimes. In aggregate, the mere presence of troops does not increase the criminal activity in a state; however, there is a conditional effect when we account for a difference in culture between the host-state and the US; the presence of foreign deployed troops is associated with higher levels of property-related crimes in a country. Consequently, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the impact that US military deployments, and US foreign policy more broadly, have had on other countries, and also enhances our understanding of the micro-level factors that might affect relationships between alliance partners

How do domestic politics in the donor country affect foreign aid policy? Scholars have analyzed the impact that political parties and domestic institutions play in shaping aid effort. Building on this previous work, we examine the impact of domestic politics on the channels chosen for aid distribution. In this paper, we explore whether and how the ideological composition of donor governments affects the method of delivering aid to recipient states. Specifically, we argue that more liberal governments are more inclined to provide aid via nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), while more conservative governments prefer to give aid through direct bilateral government-to-government channels. These choices, we argue, reflect the different goals that right and left parties pursue through their allocation of foreign aid. Our results indicate that left governments are more inclined to channel aid through NGOs in an attempt to directly implement poverty alleviation strategies. Alternatively, right wing governments place a greater emphasis on channeling aid through recipient state governments to promote the economic interests of their constituents and the geopolitical interests of the state.

Though there is widespread scholarly consensus that American political elites have become increasingly ideologically polarized, there remains debate about how the mass electorate has responded to the increase in polarization at the elite level. This article shows that as party elites have become more polarized, individuals have become better able to identify the party that best matches their own ideological positions, thereby contributing to polarization at the mass level. Using forty years of ANES and DW-NOMINATE data to test this argument, it was found that the relationship between a voter's position in policy space and their political behavior is indeed conditional upon polarization at the elite level. This finding demonstrates how changes in elite polarization translate to behavioral changes on the mass level.