Last line of defense
Atomic Aversion: Experimental Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons
Daryl Press, Scott Sagan & Benjamin Valentino
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
How strong are normative prohibitions on state behavior? We examine this question by analyzing anti-nuclear norms, sometimes called the "nuclear taboo," using an original survey experiment to evaluate American attitudes regarding nuclear use. We find that the public has only a weak aversion to using nuclear weapons and that this aversion has few characteristics of an "unthinkable" behavior or taboo. Instead, public attitudes about whether to use nuclear weapons are driven largely by consequentialist considerations of military utility. Americans' willingness to use nuclear weapons increases dramatically when nuclear weapons provide advantages over conventional weapons in destroying critical targets. Americans who oppose the use of nuclear weapons seem to do so primarily for fear of setting a negative precedent that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by other states against the United States or its allies in the future.
----------------------
Indra De Soysa & Paul Midford
International Studies Quarterly, December 2012, Pages 843-856
Abstract:
The rise of China has led to a spate of scholarly and journalistic speculation about the future of a liberal world order. Apparently, the rise of a nondemocratic, Asian rival to US hegemony potentially undermines the growth of democracy throughout the system. Many see a resource-hungry China engaging itself globally out of purely self-interested motives, and Chinese business and aid offer a viable alternative to Western influence. Using the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research's (SIPRI) data on arms transfers since the end of the Cold War, we test the proposition empirically by assessing the nature and strength of Chinese politico-military support, measured as conventional arms transfers, globally and to African regimes. In short, we find that China relative to the United States transfers greater amounts of arms to democracies rather than autocracies, whereas the United States seems to prefer more autocratic regimes, despite rhetoric that claims an ethical foreign policy. The same result holds when we assess this relationship using human rights data. Moreover, Chinese arms transfers to countries suffering civil wars are much lower than the United States'. The findings are robust to the inclusion of several control variables and alternative estimation techniques. The findings show that popular perceptions about China's role in Africa do not match reality, particularly when assessed against the current hegemon's behavior.
----------------------
Diversionary American Military Actions?: American Military Strikes on Grenada and Iraq
Brett Hall, Ryan Hendrickson & Nathan Polak
Comparative Strategy, Winter 2013, Pages 35-51
Abstract:
Research on potential diversionary uses of military force continues to generate widespread scholarly attention. New measures, novel databases, and an increasing internationalization of this research examine the kinds of targets an American president may strike. Yet in many respects, Levy's insight on research of diversionary military action(s), that quantitative research approaches fail to capture the decision-making dynamics involved in a military action, has generally held true. Current analysts still struggle to develop a consensus on the conditions that help explain a diversionary military action, or whether such military actions ever even occur. Using a diversionary-war model created from previous case-study analyses this research examines American military actions in Grenada in 1983 and Iraq in 1996 to determine whether or not these strikes appear to be diversionary in nature. Our model also employs previous research on diversionary military action to assist in the selection of American military actions, followed by a series of tests to assess various aspects of the decision-making process, international interaction prior to and after the strikes, and the strategic merits for conducting these strikes. Our research generally suggests that neither of these strikes was conducted for diversionary purposes.
----------------------
Liat Levontin, Eran Halperin & Carol Dweck
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Attributing the negative behavior of an adversary to underlying dispositions inflames negative attitudes. In two studies, by manipulating both implicit theories and attributions, we show that the negative impact of dispositional attributions can be reduced. Both studies showed that inducing an incremental theory ("traits are malleable") in Israelis kept negative attitudes toward Arabs low (Study1), and political tolerance and willingness to compromise for peace high (Study 2), even when people were oriented toward dispositional attributions. Thus an incremental theory blocked the negative effect of dispositional attributions. Inducing an entity theory ("traits are fixed") had a negative effect on attitudes, tolerance, and compromise when dispositional attributions were salient but not when situational attributions were made salient. These findings have important implications for promoting intergroup relations and conflict resolution.
----------------------
Modest, Secure and Informed: Successful Development in Conflict Zones
Eli Berman et al.
NBER Working Paper, February 2013
Abstract:
Most interpretations of prevalent counterinsurgency theory imply that increasing government services will reduce rebel violence. Empirically, however, development programs and economic activity sometimes yield increased violence. Using new panel data on development spending in Iraq, we show that violence reducing effects of aid are greater when (a) projects are small, (b) troop strength is high, and (c) professional development expertise is available. These findings are consistent with a "hearts and minds" model, which predicts that violence reduction will result when projects are secure, valued by community members, and implementation is conditional on the behavior of non-combatants.
----------------------
Identifying Terrorists using Banking Data
Steven Levitt
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, December 2012
Abstract:
The fight against terrorism requires identifying potential terrorists before they have the opportunity to act. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which retail banking data - which as far as we know are not currently used by anti-terror intelligence agencies in any systematic manner - are a useful tool in identifying terrorists. Using detailed administrative records of a large British bank, we demonstrate that a number of variables in the data are strongly correlated with terrorism-related activities. Having both an Islamic given name and surname, not surprisingly, are among the strongest of these predictors, but a wide range of other demographic characteristics and behaviors observed in the data are also correlated strongly with terrorist involvement. The real key to our method, however, rests on the identification of one particular pattern of banking behavior (what we call "Variable Z") which dramatically improves our ability to identify terrorists. Our model is demonstrated to have substantial power to identify terrorists both within sample and out of sample.
----------------------
Brock Blomberg & Rozlyn Engel
Journal of Law and Economics, August 2012, Pages 503-538
Abstract:
This paper tests the impact of a change in security commitment on market development in a country embroiled in low-intensity conflict. We analyze weekly price data for approximately 250 goods from 18 Iraqi cities between 2005 and 2008. Our paper suggests four empirical regularities associated with price dispersion and market development in postwar Iraq. First, the degree of intracountry price dispersion in Iraq is higher than that reported for a typical industrialized nation. Second, the degree of price dispersion decreased significantly during 2007, coincident with the change in U.S. security strategy known as the "surge." Third, the economic impact of the surge is geographically uneven but loosely follows patterns of U.S. deployment - with price dispersion decreasing by roughly one-third in areas targeted during the surge but remaining relatively static in other areas. Finally, we find that internal ethnoreligious divisions have relatively modest effects on price dispersion.
----------------------
Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China
Jessica Chen Weiss
International Organization, January 2013, Pages 1-35
Abstract:
How can authoritarian states credibly signal their intentions in international crises? Nationalist, antiforeign protests are one mechanism by which authoritarian leaders can visibly demonstrate their domestic vulnerability. Because protests in authoritarian states are risky and costly to repress, the decision to allow or stifle popular mobilization is informative. The threat of instability demonstrates resolve, and the cost of concession increases the credibility of a tough stance. The danger of instability and escalation increases foreign incentives to make concessions and preserve the status quo. This logic helps explain the pattern of authoritarian tolerance and repression toward nationalist protest. A case study of two U.S.-China crises shows how China's management of anti-American protests affected U.S. beliefs about Chinese resolve.
----------------------
Cross-border terror networks: A social network analysis of the Canada-US border
Christian Leuprecht, Todd Hataley & David Skillicorn
Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, forthcoming
Abstract:
American rhetoric has repeatedly painted Canada as a conduit for terrorists to enter the USA. But what actually happens at Canada's borders? This article analyses open-source, cross-sectional data on Canadians convicted of terrorism offences between 1999 and 2011. It applies social network analysis (SNA) - investigating stochastic networks by means of the structure of human groups using pairwise links among their members - to (1) identify the drivers, nature and direction of Canada-US extremist cross-border traffic; (2) generate hypotheses from a limited data set that can be subjected to further empirical scrutiny with the aim of modelling cross-border extremist networks more generally; and (3) assess the risk they pose by measuring the extent to which such networks increase or reduce marginal costs. SNA of nine cases involving 14 subjects between 1997 and 2011 finds no systematic terrorist threat directed at the USA emanating from Canada. That finding is reinforced by the simple structure of cross-border networks. Terrorist traffic actually runs both ways, exploits countervailing transaction costs in the form of markets of opportunity on either side of the border, and much of the effort is in support of terrorist activity outside of North America. Most subjects crossed the Canada-US border legally at ports of entry, suggesting that enforcement resources are better spent on flows than controls at the actual border.
----------------------
Stefano Costalli
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Cross-country empirical studies have reviewed many aspects of peacekeeping missions, but the findings on their effectiveness diverge. This article draws on recent empirical literature on civil wars using a disaggregated approach, addressing the effectiveness of peacekeeping by examining the local variation in UN troop deployment and violence in the Bosnian civil war. The relationship between the intensity of local violence and troop deployment across Bosnian municipalities and peacekeeping effects on the intensity of subsequent violence are examined with a matching approach. The results indicate that although peacekeeping ‘works', since it is deployed where the most severe violence takes place, peacekeepers have little effect on subsequent violence. This is consistent with research highlighting the obstacles to UN missions in addressing their objectives.
----------------------
Security Commitments and Nuclear Proliferation
Dan Reiter
Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article develops a theory connecting security commitments and the decision to acquire nuclear weapons. In a threatening environment, third party security commitments can reduce a state's fear of abandonment in the event of war and its motive for acquiring nuclear weapons. However, a threatened state may reject at least some kinds of security commitments, such as foreign deployed nuclear weapons, if it fears that such commitments increase the risks of entrapment, the possibility that the threatened state will be dragged into a war it would like to avoid. The article looks at three kinds of security commitments, alliances, foreign deployed nuclear weapons, and foreign deployed troops. In quantitative tests, it finds strong evidence that foreign deployed nuclear weapons reduce proliferation motives, only very limited evidence that alliances reduce proliferation motives, and no evidence that foreign deployed troops reduce proliferation motives. It also presents several qualitative evidence, which supports the quantitative evidence, and in particular helps explain why alliance ties sometimes do not prevent proliferation.
----------------------
Conventional Prompt Global Strike: A Fresh Perspective
Thomas Scheber & Kurt Guthe
Comparative Strategy, Winter 2013, Pages 18-34
Abstract:
Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) is the proposed capability to deliver a precision nonnuclear weapon against a target anywhere in the world in less than an hour. Despite years of study and debate, the need for a better understanding of the issues related to this capability remains. Recent political, arms control, and fiscal developments warrant a fresh look at conventional prompt global strike. Analyzed here are potential contributions of CPGS to U.S. national security objectives, weapon-system options for the CPGS role, arms control limits that apply to certain options, and some possible drawbacks of CPGS capabilities. Overall, a number of CPGS options could enhance U.S. and allied security within the existing arms control framework and without creating significant risks.
----------------------
Economic Sanctions, Poverty, and International Terrorism: An Empirical Analysis
Seung-Whan Choi & Shali Luo
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the impact of economic sanctions on international terrorism. It is argued that sanctions intensify economic hardships on the poor within countries and this increases their level of grievance and makes them more likely to support or engage in international terrorism. Further, economic sanctions are conceptualized as creating an opportunity for rogue leaders to manipulate aggrieved poor people to terrorize foreign entities who are demonized as engaging in a foreign encroachment on the sanctioned nation's sovereignty. A cross-sectional, time-series data analysis of 152 countries for the past three decades provides evidence that ceteris paribus, economic sanctions are positively associated with international terrorism. This finding suggests that, although the main purpose of economic sanctions is to coerce rogue countries to conform to international norms and laws, they can unintentionally produce a negative ramification and become a cause of international terrorism.
----------------------
An Asymmetric Counter to the Asymmetric Threat
Douglas Johnston
American Foreign Policy Interests, January/February 2013, Pages 9-14
Abstract:
That a deeply religious nation like the United States should have such difficulty addressing the religious challenges of the post-cold war world is more than a little ironic. Two reasons for this situation stand out: (1) a proclivity for using our separation of church and state as an excuse for not working to understand how religion informs the worldviews and political aspirations of those who do not similarly separate the two and (2) the long-standing exclusion of religious considerations from our policy deliberations. Religious extremism married to weapons of mass destruction only makes more urgent the need to bridge this gap. One approach that shows unusual promise is a new form of engagement called faith-based diplomacy, which capitalizes on commonly shared religious values to bridge differences between adversaries. This article describes how faith-based diplomacy is being used in Pakistan to deal with the ideas behind the guns.
----------------------
De-Radicalization in Israel's Prison System
Boaz Ganor & Ophir Falk
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, February 2013, Pages 116-131
Abstract:
An effective de-radicalization process in prisons is intended to facilitate the renouncement of violence and terrorism by those that have carried out such offenses. A key lesson that can be drawn from Israel's de-radicalization efforts is that it is possible, indeed recommended, to treat inmates - regardless of their level of radicalization - in a dignified and humane manner. However, Israel's ability to significantly de-radicalize security prisoners is limited if it is at all existent in its current form. Security prisoners with the potential for positive change should be placed in a different, perhaps foreign setting. This article provides an overview of Israel's prison system, the challenges it faces, its efforts to de-radicalize security inmates and suggests additional courses of action.
----------------------
The ancient olympics as a signal of city-state strength
Douglas Allen & Vera Lantinova
Economics of Governance, February 2013, Pages 23-44
Abstract:
Ancient Greece was wealthy enough to invent many of the foundations of Western Civilization. In order to accomplish this, they had to avoid the trap of dissipating wealth through continuous feuding. We contend that the ancient Olympics was one, of several, institutions that helped achieve this by acting as a signal of city-state strength. Although it could not prevent all battles, it provided information to reduce hostilities between competing cities. This hypothesis explains the rise and fall of the Olympics, and the unique and puzzling characteristics of the rules and events.
----------------------
Crisis Bargaining and Nuclear Blackmail
Todd Sechser & Matthew Fuhrmann
International Organization, January 2013, Pages 173-195
Abstract:
Do nuclear weapons offer coercive advantages in international crisis bargaining? Almost seventy years into the nuclear age, we still lack a complete answer to this question. While scholars have devoted significant attention to questions about nuclear deterrence, we know comparatively little about whether nuclear weapons can help compel states to change their behavior. This study argues that, despite their extraordinary power, nuclear weapons are uniquely poor instruments of compellence. Compellent threats are more likely to be effective under two conditions: first, if a challenger can credibly threaten to seize the item in dispute; and second, if enacting the threat would entail few costs to the challenger. Nuclear weapons, however, meet neither of these conditions. They are neither useful tools of conquest nor low-cost tools of punishment. Using a new dataset of more than 200 militarized compellent threats from 1918 to 2001, we find strong support for our theory: compellent threats from nuclear states are no more likely to succeed, even after accounting for possible selection effects in the data. While nuclear weapons may carry coercive weight as instruments of deterrence, it appears that these effects do not extend to compellence.
----------------------
The Effect of Competition on Terrorist Group Operations
Stephen Nemeth
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars have long accepted the contention that competition among terrorist organizations raises the level of violence used by the competitors. This article discusses this claim and advances another - that competition among terrorist organizations creates incentives to use less violence. Using insights from the organizational ecology literature - namely that competition occurs within "species" - I create a variable that assesses intraspecies competition. I test both claims using a data set of domestic terrorism created from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) for the years 1970 to 1997. I find support for the hypothesis that competition leads to more terrorism, validating the claims of outbidding theorists. Furthermore, ideologies have differential effects on whether outbidding occurs, with nationalist and religious terrorist groups responding to competition with more terrorism and left-wing organizations responding with less.
----------------------
Why We Fight: Understanding Military Participation over the Life Cycle
David Mann
Journal of Human Capital, Winter 2012, Pages 279-315
Abstract:
Looming reductions in military spending have sparked great interest in how military personnel respond to the incentives they face. This paper specifies a dynamic career decision model that includes military service options to understand how human capital, compensation, the business cycle, and combat risk affect the military labor supply. The model is estimated using data on males from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Experimental results show that the military wage elasticity of military participation is 3 percent, entering the workforce during an adverse business cycle state increases military participation by 3 percent, and combat death risk strongly affects military participation.
----------------------
International Law and Public Attitudes Toward Torture: An Experimental Study
Geoffrey Wallace
International Organization, January 2013, Pages 105-140
Abstract:
Domestic approaches to compliance with international commitments often presume that international law has a distinct effect on the beliefs and preferences of national publics. Studies attempting to estimate the consequences of international law unfortunately face a wide range of empirical and methodological challenges. This article uses an experimental design embedded in two U.S. national surveys to offer direct systematic evidence of international law's effect on mass attitudes. To provide a relatively tough test for international law, the surveys examine public attitudes toward the use of torture, an issue in which national security concerns are often considered paramount. Contrary to the common contention of international law's inefficacy, I find that legal commitments have a discernible impact on public support for the use of torture. The effect of international law is also strongest in those contexts where pressures to resort to torture are at their highest. However, the effects of different dimensions in the level of international agreements' legalization are far from uniform. In contrast to the attention often devoted to binding rules, I find that the level of obligation seems to make little difference on public attitudes toward torture. Rather, the relative precision of the rules, along with the degree to which enforcement is delegated to third parties, plays a much greater role in shaping public preferences. Across both international law and legalization, an individual's political ideology also exerts a strong mediating effect, though in varying directions depending on the design of the agreement. The findings have implications for understanding the overall impact of international law on domestic actors, the importance of institutional design, and the role of political ideology on compliance with international agreements.
----------------------
Southeast Asia: In The Shadow of China
Benjamin Reilly
Journal of Democracy, January 2013, Pages 156-164
Abstract:
In this essay, Benjamin Reilly ponders the puzzling pattern of democracy's presence or absence across Southeast Asia. Indeed, the dearth of democracy in the region's richest countries (Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore), together with its strength in the poorest (Indonesia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste) seems to defy the idea - so basic to modernization theory - that stable democracy is fostered by economic development. The reason for this seemingly anomalous situation, says Reilly, lies in the realm of history and geography. He argues that physical proximity to China and the traditional degree of Chinese influence (heavier on the mainland, lighter on the offshore periphery) offer the best explanation of how democracy is distributed across Southeast Asia.
----------------------
America's Global Standing According to Popular News Sites From Around the World
Elad Segev & Menahem Blondheim
Political Communication, Winter 2013, Pages 139-161
Abstract:
The growing popularity and use of news Web sites around the world provides new possibilities for studying the position of the United States in the world system charted by digital news items. In this article, we look at 35 popular news sites in 10 different languages over a 2-year period, in order to assess the position of the United States in world news as well as to identify possible explanations for it. Our findings show that the United States is by far the most prominent country in the news sites that we studied from around the world, except for the French and Arabic ones. The network structure of news links clearly exhibits its key position as the centerpiece of a global system. Economic factors better explain America's news prominence than political, social, and geographical factors. Yet, none of the many variables we examined could explain the large gap between the news prominence of the United States and that of the rest of the world. We discuss possible reasons for these findings and suggest directions for further studies in the field.
----------------------
Nuclear Superiority and the Balance of Resolve: Explaining Nuclear Crisis Outcomes
Matthew Kroenig
International Organization, January 2013, Pages 141-171
Abstract:
Scholars have long debated whether nuclear superiority or the balance of resolve shapes the probability of victory in nuclear crises, but they have not clearly articulated a mechanism linking superiority to victory, nor have they systematically analyzed the entire universe of empirical cases. Beginning from a nuclear brinkmanship theory framework, I develop a new theory of nuclear crisis outcomes, which links nuclear superiority to victory in nuclear crises precisely through its effect on the balance of resolve. Using a new data set on fifty-two nuclear crisis dyads, I show that states that enjoy nuclear superiority over their opponents are more likely to win nuclear crises. I also find some support for the idea that political stakes shape crisis outcomes. These findings hold even after controlling for conventional military capabilities and for selection into nuclear crises. This article presents a new theoretical explanation, and the first comprehensive empirical examination, of nuclear crisis outcomes.
----------------------
Balances Without Great Powers: Some Evidence on War and Peace in the Americas, 1816-1989
William Moul
International Interactions, forthcoming
Abstract:
Did disputes between non-great powers in the New World, 1816-1989, escalate to war if the disputes involved roughly equal sides or not? Metaphorically and practically, "balances of power" are about measurement but many of the usual measures prove to be incorrect. Proper assessments of the balances of fighting power qualify counts of the material resources by considering the political-organizational capacity of the state to employ what is counted, the geopolitical location and logistics, and what bystander states might do if the dispute were to escalate. A modest correlation exists between rough equality in power capabilities and war, not peace, in the Americas, 1816-1989. A bare majority of the wars in the Americas from 1816 until 1989 were fought between equal sides, and equal disputants were thirteen times more likely to escalate to war than non-equals were. This relationship found among non-great powers is much less strong than the relationship found among the great powers.
----------------------
Rooted in Urban Poverty? Failed Modernization and Terrorism
Daniel Meierrieks
Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy, December 2012
Abstract:
This contribution finds that urban (but not rural) poverty fuels domestic and anti-U.S. terrorism in 43 developing countries. It argues that urban poverty aids non-state groups which use terrorism as a means to capture rents and consolidate popular support.
----------------------
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Refugees, Humanitarian Aid, and Terrorism
Seung-Whan Choi & Idean Salehyan
Conflict Management and Peace Science, February 2013, Pages 53-75
Abstract:
We examine the consequences of hosting refugees for domestic and international terrorism. In line with the old saying, "no good deed goes unpunished", we argue that the infusion of aid resources provides militant groups with opportunities for looting and for attacking foreign targets. A cross-national, time-series data analysis of 154 countries for the years 1970-2007 shows evidence that countries with many refugees are more likely to experience both domestic and international terrorism. This finding implies that while the international community should strive to reduce the number of refugees by preventing the eruption of major conflict events, individual countries should find a way of maintaining the balance between humanitarianism toward refugees and providing safe, secure environments for refugees and those that assist them.
----------------------
Do Superpower Interventions Have Short and Long Term Consequences for Democracy?
Daniel Berger et al.
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The United States' wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have revived again the phenomenon of "regime change" that was thought to have died with the Cold War. We study Cold War "regime changes" for insight, although of course they do not extrapolate exactly to modern events. The recent declassification of Cold War documents now makes it possible to develop a new time series cross section dataset of superpower interventions during the Cold War which takes account of interventions by the secret services. We find that US interventions to prop up a leader are associated with significant short term and medium term declines in democracy in the intervened country. We observe a similar size effect for Soviet interventions, but they are not robustly significant like US interventions. Although the negative effect of interventions dissipates once the intervention ends, an intervention has a large effect on democracy when it lasts for a long time.
----------------------
Contagious Rebellion and Preemptive Repression
Nathan Danneman & Emily Hencken Ritter
Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
Civil conflict appears to be contagious - scholars have shown that civil wars in a state's neighborhood make citizens more likely to rebel at home. However, war occurs when both rebels and the state engage in conflict. How do state authorities respond to the potential for civil conflict to spread? We argue that elites will anticipate the incentive-altering effects of civil wars abroad and increase repression at home to preempt potential rebellion. Using a Bayesian hierarchical model and spatially weighted conflict measures, we find robust evidence that a state will engage in higher levels of human rights violations as civil war becomes more prevalent in its geographic proximity. We thus find evidence that states violate rights as a function of the internal politics of other states. Further, we argue authorities will act not to mimic their neighbors but rather to avoid their fate.
----------------------
Impacts of a nuclear war in South Asia on soybean and maize production in the Midwest United States
Mutlu Özdoğan, Alan Robock & Christopher Kucharik
Climatic Change, January 2013, Pages 373-387
Abstract:
Crop production would decline in the Midwestern United States from climate change following a regional nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan. Using Agro-IBIS, a dynamic agroecosystem model, we simulated the response of maize and soybeans to cooler, drier, and darker conditions from war-related smoke. We combined observed climate conditions for the states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri with output from a general circulation climate model simulation that injected 5 Tg of elemental carbon into the upper troposphere. Both maize and soybeans showed notable yield reductions for a decade after the event. Maize yields declined 10-40 % while soybean yields dropped 2-20 %. Temporal variation in magnitude of yield for both crops generally followed the variation in climatic anomalies, with the greatest decline in the 5 years following the 5 Tg event and then less, but still substantial yield decline, for the rest of the decade. Yield reduction for both crops was linked to changes in growing period duration and, less markedly, to reduced precipitation and altered maximum daily temperature during the growing season. The seasonal average of daily maximum temperature anomalies, combined with precipitation and radiation changes, had a quadratic relationship to yield differences; small (0 °C) and large (-3 °C) maximum temperature anomalies combined with other changes led to increased yield loss, but medium changes (-1 °C) had small to neutral effects on yield. The exact timing of the temperature changes during the various crop growth phases also had an important effect.
----------------------
Avoiding the Spotlight: Human Rights Shaming and Foreign Direct Investment
Colin Barry, Chad Clay & Michael Flynn
International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Nonstate actors, such as international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and multinational corporations (MNCs), have attained an increasingly prominent role in modern world affairs. While previous research has focused on these actors' respective interactions with states, little attention has been paid to their interactions with each other. In this paper, we examine the extent to which the decisions of private actors seeking to invest abroad are affected by the reputational costs of doing business in countries publicly targeted by human rights activists. We find that ‘‘naming and shaming'' by human rights INGOs tends to reduce the amount of foreign direct investment received by developing states, providing evidence that INGO activities affect the behavior of MNCs. An additional implication of our findings is that shaming by INGOs can impose real costs on targeted states in the form of lost investment.
----------------------
The Tablighi Jama'at: Proselytizing Missionaries or Trojan Horse?
Shireen Khan Burki
Journal of Applied Security Research, Winter 2013, Pages 98-117
Abstract:
Tablighi Jama'at, a transnational Deobandi (Sunni) Muslim proselytizing group with branches in over 150 countries today, has garnered attention in the West since 2001. With increasing frequency, terrorist plots in the West reveal Jama'at linkages. Although its leadership enunciates a peaceful, apolitical stance; the organization does share the same core ideology and ultimate objectives (the expansion of Dar al Islam and the establishment of a global Caliphate) as the Salafis, Wahhabis and other "revivalist" Islamist movements such as the Ikhwan al Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood). The only difference between the Jama'at and the Ikhwan, for example, is their respective modus operandi. Although the Tablighi Jama'at stress proselytism as their sole objective, they have also provided cover, a conduit and a fertile recruiting ground for jihadi organizations such as Al Qaeda and Lashkar-i-Taiba.