Suchergebnisse

This paper generates a framework to understand Latin American foreign relations through the use of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) role theory. The use of roles to describe and analyze regional interstate relations has previously been found in the literature on Latin America, but these studies have not taken advantage of the full range of concepts and theoretical implications associated with role theory to analyze the region. The paper develops a typology of states with associated national role conceptions (NRCs) and generates expectations for the sources of those NRCs, as well as elements of the role enactment and role location processes for Latin American states. The paper then illustrates the framework's applicability through a brief analysis of the role location process for Venezuela during the Presidency of Hugo Chávez. The analysis of NRCs selected by the leader of Venezuela, and their reception by role partners and the audience of interested states during the role location process demonstrates the fruitfulness of role theory for understanding Latin American regional relations. The analysis also suggests some modifications for FPA role theory itself as a result of the Venezuelan case.

Populists are often identified based on their behavior, but the discursive element of their identities is also a frequently observed characteristic of this type of leader. We examine the determinants of populist foreign policy rhetoric in the case of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. We argue that a leftist populist leader such as Chávez will focus on anti-imperialist themes, and we consider two mechanisms that may indicate the conditions under which he will use them: diversion, which would typically be expected from a populist, and capacity. We use time-series analysis of rhetorical data scraped from the entire corpus of Aló Presidente—Chávez's weekly television series—to test our hypotheses. The evidence supports the capacity mechanism, that Chávez is emboldened to use anti-imperialist rhetoric when the price of oil is high. His rhetoric, thus, matches his resources and ability to provide domestic and international goods to support his own identity as a protector and savior of the common people from domestic and global elites engaged in the imperialistic enterprise.

"In Rising Powers and Foreign Policy Revisionism, Cameron Thies and Mark Nieman examine the identity and behavior of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in light of concerns that rising powers may become more aggressive and conflict-prone. The authors develop a theoretical framework that encapsulates pressures for revisionism through the mechanism of competition, and pressures for accommodation and assimilation through the mechanism of socialization. The identity and behavior of BRICS should be a product of these two forces as mediated by their domestic foreign policy processes. State identity is investigated qualitatively by using role theory and identifying national role conceptions, while economic and militarized conflict behavior are examined using Bayesian change-point modeling, which identifies structural breaks in a time series of data revealing potential wholesale revision of foreign policy. Using this innovative approach to show the behavior of rising powers is not simply governed by the structural dynamics of power, but also by the roles these rising powers define for themselves, they assert this process will likely lead to a much more evolutionary approach to foreign policy and will not necessarily generate international conflict"--

Persistent brideprice inflation has been linked to greater political violence. However, empirically testing this argument is complicated by the paucity of data on brideprice. We argue that despite the lack of over-time brideprice data, one can proxy for variation in marriage markets using changes to population, economic growth, and marriage rates themselves, thereby offering a clearer test of the brideprice–violence relationship. Our analysis suggests that there is little empirical support for such a relationship, and concludes that the previous support was largely due to data limitations and omitted confounds.

We argue that democratic institutions influence property rights in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) by providing: (1) a coherent logic to the property rights regime that is created in a state and (2) a legitimate way to manage conflicts that arise in dynamic economies. We expect that the marginal effect of property rights in attracting FDI has increased over time with the rate of technological dynamism. We test this using a non-nested multilevel modeling strategy with random coefficients on data from 1970 to 2009. Our results demonstrate that the effect of property rights on attracting FDI is contingent on democratic institutions and that this effect becomes more pronounced over time. This effect holds for both developing and developed countries across all regions.

This article provides a conceptual framework for understanding middle powers based on foreign policy role theory. It argues that role theory helps to reconcile existing approaches rooted in functional, behavioural, hierarchical and rhetorical definitions. Role theory has been usefully applied to the study of other statuses, such as major and emerging powers in the international system. This article defines a middle power as a type of status that is supported by auxiliary roles recognized by significant others. Roles which middle powers are expected to perform also provide a relational, social identity approach to classifying middle powers as opposed to one that is purely rhetorical or focused on self-conception of status. This article applies this roles-based framework to the case of Indonesia and finds that Southeast Asia's largest country qualifies as a middle power, suggesting it may be usefully applied to classify other middle powers. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)

This edited volume bridges the "analytical divide" between studies of transatlantic relations, democratic peace theory, and foreign policy analysis, and improves our theoretical understanding of the logic of crises prevention and resolution. The recent rise of populism and polarization in both the U.S.A and Europe adds to a host of foreign policy crises that have emerged in transatlantic relations over the last two decades. Through examining how democracies can manage to sustain and maintain mechanisms of crisis resilience that are embedded in the democratic peace, and particularly transatlantic relations, this book helps enhance the understanding of inter-democratic crisis resolution across issue areas. In doing so, it addresses some of the most important and prevalent crises of our time, such as anti-terrorism intervention in Afghanistan; Iran's nuclear program; burden-sharing within North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO; key aspects of the international order, such as binding norms for cyber security and the integration of China into the Western-led international economic order; as well as domestic order shifts, such as the British vote to leave the European Union (EU) and the impact of the Trump administration populist foreign policy on transatlantic crisis resolution.

We seek a more accurate review of, and reflection on the gender and international relations (IR) literature than that offered by Reiter. Our evaluation corrects misunderstandings related to key dichotomies (mis)used in analyzing scholarship: sex/gender, positivism/nonpositivism, and epistemology/ontology. It also underscores the comparative strengths and weaknesses of different types of research in order to identify more fruitful possibilities for synthesis. We make the pluralist case that gender and IR research is at its best when it is multimethod, epistemologically pluralist, multisited, and carefully navigates the differences between feminist analyses and large-n statistical studies. The potential payoff of careful, synergistic engagement is worth any risks.

In this article, we argue that the composition of trade is an important determinant of vulnerability to sanctions. Trade composition has changed considerably over the years since World War II, with growth in intra-industry trade: the exchange of similar, often branded, commodities that follows from varied consumer preferences and economies of scale. Conversely, we see relatively less of the traditional inter-industry trade: exchange of distinct and often homogeneous commodities that follows from comparative advantage. We demonstrate that targets maintaining higher proportions of intra-industry trade with senders benefit from greater resilience against economic coercion and thus are less likely to acquiesce to sanction threats. Importantly, however, we contend that bilateral intra-industry trade does not necessarily prevent the onset of sanction threats. Statistical tests of sanction threat cases and directed dyad-years spanning 1962–2005 support our expectations.