Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- American grand strategy and the unitary actor model -- The public choice model of foreign policy -- The rogue superpower -- Build, then balance : the US and its rivals -- American sanctions : ineffective, immoral, politically convenient -- The War on Terror from the public choice perspective -- Conclusion : understanding and changing American foreign policy.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) has transformed from a body almost exclusively focused on conflict to one that addresses a wide variety of issues. Despite a series of powerful works in recent years showing how international norms have developed over time, we still lack clear understanding of why and when international institutions change their missions. This article argues that while international politics is usually characterized by inertia, shocks to the system, or focal point events, can compel rational actors to adopt new logics of appropriateness. Since 1945, the end of the Cold War and the signing of the Helsinki Accords stand out as such events. Through latent Dirichlet allocation, a machine learning algorithm used to classify text, UNSC resolutions between 1946 and 2017 can be divided into the subjects of War, Punitive, and Humanitarian. The topic Humanitarian exploded in frequency after the Cold War, and more refined models show that words related to human rights and elections similarly increased after Helsinki. These changes are rapid and occur in almost the immediate aftermath of focal point events, showing their importance for norm diffusion. The analysis also reveals another shift towards humanitarian topics in the mid-2000s, demonstrating the ability of topic modeling to uncover changes that have been missed by earlier kinds of analysis.

ObjectiveThis paper tests the hypothesis that the expected partisan affiliation of refugee populations partially explains why white conservatives and white liberals have different attitudes toward refugee resettlement in the United States.MethodThis was tested with a preregistered survey experiment that examined how attitudes toward refugee resettlement changed depending on the racial and political characteristics of a theoretical refugee population.ResultsConservative opposition to refugee resettlement can be weakened if conservatives are given reasons to believe those refugees will support the Republican Party. At the same time, liberal support for refugees drops when they receive the same information.ConclusionAlthough white conservatives and white liberals exhibit different levels of racial prejudice, and this has consequences for their immigration and refugee policy preferences, their beliefs about how newcomers influence domestic partisan politics are also consequential.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) has transformed from a body almost exclusively focused on conflict to one that addresses a wide variety of issues. Despite a series of powerful works in recent years showing how international norms have developed over time, we still lack clear understanding of why and when international institutions change their missions. This article argues that while international politics is usually characterized by inertia, shocks to the system, or focal point events, can compel rational actors to adopt new logics of appropriateness. Since 1945, the end of the Cold War and the signing of the Helsinki Accords stand out as such events. Through latent Dirichlet allocation, a machine learning algorithm used to classify text, UNSC resolutions between 1946 and 2017 can be divided into the subjects of War, Punitive, and Humanitarian. The topic Humanitarian exploded in frequency after the Cold War, and more refined models show that words related to human rights and elections similarly increased after Helsinki. These changes are rapid and occur in almost the immediate aftermath of focal point events, showing their importance for norm diffusion. The analysis also reveals another shift towards humanitarian topics in the mid-2000s, demonstrating the ability of topic modeling to uncover changes that have been missed by earlier kinds of analysis.

AbstractPublic figures often apologize after making controversial statements. There are reasons to believe, however, that apologizing makes public figures appear weak and risk averse, which may make them less likeable and lead members of the public to want to punish them. This paper presents the results of an experiment in which respondents were given two versions of two real-life controversies involving public figures. Approximately half of the participants read a story that made it appear as if the person had apologized, while the rest were led to believe that the individual had stood firm. In the first experiment, hearing that Rand Paul apologized for his comments on civil rights did not change whether respondents were less likely to vote for him. When presented with two versions of the controversy surrounding Larry Summers and his comments about women scientists and engineers, however, liberals and females were more likely to say that he should have faced negative consequences for his statement when presented with his apology. The effects on other groups were smaller or neutral. The evidence suggests that when a prominent figure apologizes for a controversial statement, individuals are either unaffected or become more likely to desire that the individual be punished.

Among both elites and the mass public, conservatives and liberal differ in their foreign policy preferences. Relatively little effort, however, has been put toward showing that, beyond the use of force, these differences affect the day-to-day outputs and processes of foreign policy. This article uses United Nations voting data from 1946 to 2008 of the five major Anglophone democracies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to show that each of these countries votes more in line with the rest of the world when liberals are in power. This can be explained by ideological differences between conservatives and liberals and the ways in which the socializing power of international institutions interact with preexisting ideologies. The results hope to encourage more research into the ways in which ideological differences among the masses and elites translate into differences in foreign policy goals and practices across governments.

Why and under what circumstances do people support aggressive action in the international system? And can political psychology actually give us insights into state behavior? This dissertation argues against conventional accounts that hold that the public is rational and strategic with the regards to the use of power. Relying on the concepts of the cognitive miser and rational ignorance among the voting public, the author uses experimental methods to show that with regards to foreign policy individuals are motivated by the same prejudices and moral intuitions that guide domestic political behavior. The first chapter argues against folk realist theories and shows that constructivist theories based on the need to maintain a positive self-image do a better job of predicting when Americans support the use of force abroad. Another chapter shows that when Americans consider altruistic policies, hearing that the policy in question can financially benefit the United States makes them less likely to support it. Furthermore, the implications of differences between conservatives and liberals are explored. When conservatives are considering whether to support humanitarian intervention, they show a bias towards helping Christians over Muslims, but no racial prejudice. Liberals, in contrast, show little to no religious prejudice but are more likely to want to intervene in the scenario where whites are oppressing blacks rather than the other way around. Prejudice can even influence more abstract moral values, as when conservatives heard about Christians being killed by Muslims, they were not only more likely to support humanitarian intervention, but also to say that the United States had a general moral obligation to help foreign populations facing government persecution. The final chapter explores whether psychological differences between conservatives and liberals matter with regards to the making of foreign policy. Relying on measures of affinity, or S-scores, the author uses United Nations General Assembly voting data from six Anglophone democracies to show that in each of these countries conservative governments vote less in line with the rest of the world. This work hopes to inspire future research that can continue to establish a link between political psychology and research on state behavior.

Many scholars have argued that a taboo on the use of nuclear weapons became widely accepted in the 1960s, spurred on by the Cuban missile crisis and the subsequent growth of U.S. and Soviet long-range nuclear missile forces. The Eisenhower administration, in contrast, has been seen as relatively more willing to use nuclear diplomacy to achieve its military objectives. This article examines the Eisenhower administration's attitudes toward nuclear weapons during four crises in East Asia: the end of the Korean War, the siege of Dien Bien Phu, and the shelling of Quemoy and Matsu in 1954–1955 and 1958. U.S. officials at first acted almost as if nuclear weapons were simply "bigger bombs," but as the decade progressed, nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as all but unusable. Much of the confusion regarding Dwight Eisenhower's attitude toward this issue resulted from changes over time and the complex interactions he had with members of his administration who argued for a more aggressive stance toward foreign enemies.