Abstract The EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) deviates from the poor track record of ‘trade and sustainable development’ chapters in EU FTAs. Ahead of ratification, Vietnam embarked upon pathbreaking reforms, culminating in a new labor code and accession to outstanding ILO core conventions. This article assesses the role of the EVFTA in these reforms. Building on literatures on the trade-labor

The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally shifted the way human beings interact, both as individuals and groups, in the face of such a widespread outbreak. This paper seeks to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on intergroup emotions and attitudes within an intractable intergroup conflict, specifically, through the lens of the Korean conflict. Using a two-wave, cross-sectional design, this study

While games are commonly viewed as frivolous fun, their rapid proliferation across the US defense establishment compels us to think again. Spanning spheres as diverse as total immersion training, near-peer/cyber conflict, and future force strategies, a gaming renaissance is currently underway across the US military. Surprisingly, given international relations’ (IR) interest in the production and projection

Personal commitments are a ubiquitous but undertheorized phenomenon in the everyday wheels of world politics. While resonating with multiple threads in international relations theory, the role of individuals’ commitments in statecraft, diplomacy, and foreign policy has hardly been addressed in and of itself. Drawing on insights from symbolic interactionism and organizational psychology, this article

This article introduces the Government-Sponsored Mass Expulsion (GSME) dataset documenting cross-border mass expulsion episodes around the world from 1900 to 2020. This new dataset focuses on mass expulsion policies in which governments systematically remove ethnic, racial, religious or national groups, en masse. The GSME dataset disaggregates mass expulsion from other exclusionary politics concepts

Sophia Dawkins, The Problem of the Missing Dead. Journal of Peace Research September 2021 58(5): 1098–1116, DOI:10.1177/0022343320962159.

Abstract Recent debates on financialization in emerging market economies highlight the terms of unequal exchange that they are embedded in, where international capital flows steered by powerful financial actors and transnationalized banks have a major impact on economic growth performance. As a result, many of the small open economies in the Global South have become increasingly sensitive to international

How do drones affect escalation dynamics? The emerging consensus from scholarship on drones highlights increased conflict initiation when drones allow decisionmakers to avoid the risks of deploying inhabited platforms, but far less attention has been paid to understanding how drones affect conflict escalation. Limited theorization and empirical testing have left debates unresolved. I unpack the underlying

Abstract Shareholder value ideology and the rise of executive pay are widely acknowledged but only partly explored aspects of financialization. This paper adds to the empirical evidence on the extent to which stock-based pay incentivizes and rewards corporate executives, demonstrating that CEO pay, and hence pay inequality, is substantially under-stated in Europe. It shows that the actual realized

In this article, we nuance the relationships between political agency, victimhood, and gender during armed conflicts. Dominant narratives often spotlight individuals as either passive victims or active agents. These representations are especially pronounced for sexual violence against women in conflict, where gendered conceptions of victimhood and agency remain particularly salient. Recent scholarship

The conceptualization of taboo within international relations (IR)—that is, what we understand to be taboo—is inadequate. Specifically, current analysis fails to sufficiently distinguish between taboo and non-taboo forms of prohibitory norm, where this failure often facilitates a tendency (explicit or implicit) to comprehend the concept primarily in terms of actor compliance with a taboo in question

Abstract Left-wing opposition to globalization lives, among voters and interest groups, both labor and progressive. But have left-wing opponents of trade successfully cultivated representation? Using the US Congress as a case, I show that two distinct groups of Democrats vote in characteristically progressive and protectionist ways on trade bills. These groups, especially progressives, are rewarded

Abstract Why and how international organizations (IOs) collaborate, cooperate and coordinate (the 3Cs) are important but understudied issues in international political economy today. The three terms are rarely defined in the IR literature or by the IOs themselves and are often used interchangeably. However, the differences matter in terms of when, how and why staff of different IOs are expected to

Abstract Central bank independence (CBI) implies that elected governments delegate monetary policy to technocrats in central banks. I argue that given the substantial influence of monetary policy on consumption, investments, exchange rates, capital flows and government spending, all of which critically determine the performance of the economy, CBI can blur the lines of responsibility for economic performance

In this article, we explain Ecuador's foreign policy shift away from the counter-hegemonic project of the Pink Tide and toward the US-led international order. Current scholarship assumes that small states pursue moral recognition from great powers by reproducing the normative principles of the hegemonic order. However, the dynamics of small-state status seeking remain underexplored. How does domestic

Most cross-national human rights datasets rely on human coding to produce yearly, country-level indicators of state human rights practices. Hand-coding the documents that contain the information on which these scores are based is tedious and time-consuming, but has been viewed as necessary given the complexity and detail of the information contained in the text. However, advances in automated text

In this article, we propose the category of “foreign policy performance” in order to argue that a recognition of foreign policy's theatricality can illuminate its contribution to generative processes of social construction and world-making. We focus on the practice of summit diplomacy, which operates according to a “theatrical rationality” that blurs the boundary between substantive and symbolic politics

This article explores the non-straightforward role of data about attacks on health in creating policy and normative change to safeguard access to healthcare and protect healthcare providers in conflict. Acknowledging the importance of data as a key component in the quest to reduce instances of attacks, we take this one step further, asking: what is the relationship between data, action, and change

Despite extensive scholarly interest in the association between economic inequality and political violence, the micro-level mechanisms through which the former influences the latter are not well understood. Drawing on pioneering theories of political violence, social psychological research on relative deprivation, and prospect theory from behavioral economics, we examine individual-level processes

How robust is public support for extended nuclear deterrence in patron and client states? Recent studies have improved scholarly understanding of US public opinion about nuclear weapon use against non-nuclear adversaries. Yet, there is limited knowledge of public attitudes regarding retaliation for nuclear strikes against US allies. We develop a theoretical typology of nuclear crises and investigate

Competition policy has been a central forum for contesting the uneasy relationship between capitalism and democracy since the late nineteenth century. From the earliest policy debates, concerns that robust competition policies aimed at limiting economic concentration would disadvantage domestic producers featured prominently. This dynamic creates an international cooperation problem over competition

Abstract This article takes stock of the inclusive growth and development (IGD) project of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Deploying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) methods, it examines the WEF’s Inclusive Growth and Development Report and shows how this project reproduces growth as the cure for many of capitalism’s ills and the only path toward an inclusive and sustainable development model. I argue

Abstract Although IPE has become more reflexive over the last decade, Latin America’s IPE thought has not been seen as part of the disciplinary canon. In this article we investigate why and how mainstream IPE misrecognised, labelled as a misfit, and misperceived Latin American contributions to the discipline. We also examine and define the ontological and epistemological characteristics, and the evolving

This article examines the consequences of the opium concession system in the Dutch East Indies—a nineteenth-century institution through which the Dutch would auction the monopolistic right to sell opium in a given locality. The winners of these auctions were invariably ethnic Chinese. The poverty of Java's indigenous population combined with opium's addictive properties meant that many individuals

Do existing theories regarding the impact of foreign migration explain preferences in non-oecd countries? The author adapts and applies explanations for opposition to migration in the Arabian Gulf, a significant region in global migration today, using a survey experiment implemented in Qatar. The results offer a rare validation of predictions from the labor market competition model, demonstrating that

To what extent are legislators, responsible for the implementation of many peace agreements, responsive to citizens’ preferences? Examining the 2016 Colombian peace agreement, we embed an experiment in the 2019 wave of a survey of all the members of Congress. We inform legislators about the attitudes of the general population and residents of conflict-affected regions on a provision included in the

Peace agreements are negotiated and signed by representatives of the government and the rebels, often after many years of violent conflict, but their ability to transform a war-torn society hinges on the approval of ordinary people. Yet we have little systematic knowledge of what ordinary people think of peace agreements in the long run. This study begins to fill that gap, drawing on a set of comparative

Dictators, rebel commanders, and mafia bosses frequently delegate gruesome and immoral tasks to their subordinates. However, most individuals want to avoid such work. This analytical essay proposes an institutional logic to understand how dictatorships, insurgent organizations, and criminal gangs get their evil work done nonetheless. We argue that common features of organizations produce mundane career

In states emerging from mass violence and human rights abuses, do individuals prefer retributive punishment of perpetrators through trials, or do they wish to be compensated with land or monetary reparations for their injuries? How does the concrete option of prosecutions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) moderate these preferences? Using unique survey data from 507 Kenyans collected in 2015

Pacifism in its purest form condemns all war without exception. Military abolitionism, by contrast, is the view that it is morally impermissible for states to create and maintain war-making institutions. One might assume that any moral objection to the existence of war-making institutions must, in the final analysis, be based on some moral objection to war itself. Against this, I show that that there

How does partisan identification shape the attitudes of US military officers toward the protection of civilians in war? Drawing on unique cross-cohort surveys of soon-to-be commissioned officers in 12 Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) training battalions, we find that Democratic-leaning cadets generally prioritize norms of civilian protection more than Republican-leaning cadets when confronted

This article presents a model describing a symbiotic relationship between criminals and a partnership of protection providers, called the Firm. The partners of the Firm earn profits as they have market power in the supply of protection. The Firm recruits its new partners among criminals. As a result, the prospect of graduating to the Firm adds an incentive for violent crime. The result is a violence

How do dictators coup-proof their armed forces from within the barracks? Coup-proofing is an important aspect of autocratic survival, but execution can be challenging due to the secrecy of plots and the vast size of the armed forces. Counterbalanced state security forces are more effective at resisting coups, but less effective at noticing signs of plots before they can be launched. If dictators wish

The expansion of power by incumbent political leaders has become the subject of increased scholarly attention. In democracies, this is known as ‘subversions by the ruling executive’, ‘executive aggrandizement’, or ‘autogolpe’; in autocracies, researchers study ‘personalization’, ‘transition to personal rulership’, or ‘power-grabbing’. While the terminological landscape is rich, there is little conceptual

What drives soldiers to risk death on the battlefield? Scholars have suggested that battlefield participation is driven by ideology, coercion, and cohesion while overlooking the importance of confidence in tactical success. On contemporary battlefields, training in effective, modern-system tactics will increase initial confidence and create a positive feedback loop of battlefield participation and

We analyze the problem of international responsibility sharing for a refugee group seeking protection from the dangers of mass violence arising from inter-state conflict or the collapse of a fragile state. After reviewing several proposed solutions, we characterize responsibility sharing as a coordination problem in a simple sequential “moves” game between two potential host countries. We demonstrate

The responsibility to protect (R2P) is often referred to as a new concept on the basis that it provides both states and the international community responsibilities, rather than merely rights, to protect populations from mass atrocities. As this article argues, this claim of novelty is overstated. And yet, R2P has comprised an important development in human protection over the past two decades: it

The growing literature on ontological security theory (OST) in international relations, ontological security studies (OSS), is characterized by great internal diversity. This internal pluralism is one of its greatest strengths, but it is also potentially confusing, for example, when different works using an ontological security lens arrive at contradictory conclusions without it being obvious why.

A recent surge in survey-based scholarship has shed new light on public attitudes toward nuclear weapons. Yet, we still know little about how these public attitudes differ from those of political elites. To address this gap, we conducted an original survey on a large representative sample of German citizens and on a unique elite sample of German parliamentarians. In the survey, we asked the respondents

This article analyzes the efficacy of border enforcement against smuggling. We argue that walls, fences, patrols, and other efforts to secure porous borders can reduce smuggling, but only in the absence of collusion between smugglers and state agents at official border crossings. When such corruption occurs, border enforcement merely diverts smuggling flows without reducing their overall volume. We

Because existing issue classification schemes omit prominent issues (e.g., domestic armed conflict) or contain significant within-category heterogeneity, theorizing about the role of issues in international conflict processes has stagnated. Our project jump-starts it again, by independently—and systematically—reconceptualizing and gathering data on five issues connected to dyadic militarized interstate

Existing work seeks explanations for state repression mainly in domestic factors such as ethnic/religious cleavages, poverty and inequality, struggle for power, regime type and quality of state institutions, lack of loyalty, demand for scapegoats, and cultural or psychological traits of perpetrators. How foreign influences shape state repression has been given less attention. Furthermore, the focus

Do more protesters on the streets make governments likely to grant their demands? Several studies link protest size and government concessions. Yet existing research has limitations: many studies suffer from potential endogeneity due to potential protesters joining protests when they anticipate that concessions are likely, causal mechanisms are often unclear, and many of the most rigorous event-level

Despite the imperative to pay attention to the words we use as a routine dimension of research, the methodological and pedagogical tools illustrating how to work on our own use of language are largely missing within and beyond international relations (IR). To address this gap, we develop a method—the “Reflexive Review”—which adds a linguistic and reflexive dimension to the common practice of a literature

Globalization is facing widespread condemnation at a time when worldwide crises ranging from climate change to pandemic policy increasingly demand a coordinated response. Rising nationalist, populist, and anti-globalization movements in many of the world's richest nations are placing great pressure on the international system pioneered by Western democracies following World War II. This special issue

In the presence of incomplete information, strong states have an incentive to invest in costly signals that can differentiate them from weaker states. I argue that states can signal strength by handicapping themselves, deliberately reducing their combat effectiveness. In an ultimatum crisis bargaining model, I show that strong states can reduce the risk of war by making themselves weaker without reducing

Understanding whether peacekeepers reduce fatalities at the local level is an important question. We can have increased confidence in peacekeepers’ capabilities by testing whether deaths decrease in the locations where peacekeepers are present. However, commonly used modeling techniques cannot easily test peacekeepers’ local effectiveness. Coefficients from methods such as linear regression, logit

When do agricultural transformations impact social stability? Cash crops are typically associated with economic prosperity and social peace. I argue agricultural booms may spur violent conflict over resource allocation by pitting would-be producers against incumbent landowners when the gains from production are concentrated and the negative externalities are diffuse. I study the rapid expansion of

The comparative study of atrocities and atrocity prevention faces several obstacles including a lack of consensus on the universe of cases and too few cases to statistically test alternative theories. The brutality-based (BB) conception is based on the idea that widespread, state-led violations of physical integrity rights constitute an assault on the personhood and human dignity of the members of

Counterinsurgents frequently rely on mass arrests to impede rebel operations, but in so doing, risk detaining innocent civilians. Wrongful detention can backfire, fueling insurgent violence by alienating detainees and their kin. Can counterinsurgents mitigate wrongful detention through targeted compensation? I study this question using project-level data on US payments to individuals deemed innocent

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented social and political challenges. Mitigation strategies often disrupt the daily lives of citizens and constrain rights and privileges. Policies intended to contain disease spread have provoked resentment, resistance, and backlash. We examine the extent to which specific COVID-19 policy responses influence the frequency of civil unrest. Combining

Abstract The literature on Global Wealth Chains (GWC) has analysed how value is captured across different segments of offshore financial sector activities. A division of labour has emerged, with financial centres in North America, Europe and East Asia capturing most value out of GWCs while other tax havens remain stuck in low-value GWC segments or in positions of dependency on larger financial centres

The nuclear competition school, an emerging theoretical perspective on the political effect of nuclear weapons, argues that a favorable nuclear balance can significantly reduce one’s expected costs of nuclear war and therefore affect the interaction between nuclear-armed states, such as deterrence and crisis outcomes. This new perspective also presents a wide array of empirical evidence demonstrating

Abstract Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) has grown from marginal player to the most important economic actor in the Kingdom since 2015. Nevertheless, we know surprisingly little about the political economy of the PIF revamp. Against an unfavorable macroeconomic backdrop, I argue that shifts in PIF organization and orientation are fundamentally driven by the centralization of power within

Abstract The ability of states to exploit private resources at an international level is an increasingly salient political issue. In explaining the mechanisms of this shift, the framework of Weaponized Interdependence has quickly risen to prominence, arguing that those states that are centrally placed in global networks can exploit their centrality given the appropriate domestic institutions. Building

What determines public support for trade liberalization? Scholars of international political economy have generally focused on the effects of openness on employment via individuals’ skill level, sector, or occupation. Recent developments in trade economics suggest that the characteristics of individual citizens’ employing firms may also shape their attitudes on trade policy. In this paper, using under-explored

Despite the steady increase in environmental provisions being included in trade agreements to address potential environmental risks associated with increased trade, growing public concern about environmental issues has given rise to major public protests against various trade agreements. However, facing the widespread backlash against the liberal international economic order, pro-trade leaders have