{"title":"Why Economic Development Does Not Diminish Religious Conflict","authors":"Nilay Saiya, Stuti Manchanda","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf060","url":null,"abstract":"Does economic development reduce religious conflict? Many believe that cleavages and conflict over religion should become less pronounced in developed countries. In this article, we argue that economic development can actually increase the risk of religious conflict by helping create the background conditions that give rise to it. More specifically, when countries devote more economic resources to interfering in religious affairs, they experience correspondingly higher levels of religious hostilities. Conversely, if countries have fewer resources to devote to interfering in the religious realm—a situation naturally characteristic of poorer countries—they experience less religious conflict. Thus, poor countries do not necessarily experience higher rates of religious conflict than wealthy countries. We test this theory using a country-level, time-series analysis of a global sample of countries from 1991 to 2018. We find strong support for our theory. The results are robust to a wide range of model specifications and statistical approaches. Our findings make an important contribution to a long-standing conversation on the causes of religious conflict in the modern world.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Making of “Dominion” Status at the 1907 Imperial Conference: Dissociation, Racialization, and the (Re)Constitution of International Pecking Orders","authors":"John de Bhal, Alexandra Stafford","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf058","url":null,"abstract":"This paper theorizes dissociation as a key but overlooked dynamic in the (re)constitution of international pecking orders. Conceptually, dissociation captures how actors look to ensure they are considered separate from, dissimilar, and fundamentally uncomparable to certain “others” with whom comparison is considered undesirable and disempowering. Drawing on original archival research, we showcase the value-added of this conceptual lens by examining the reformulation of the British imperial hierarchy at the 1907 Imperial Conference, which formally institutionalized “Dominion” status for the first time. We show how the British settler-colonies sought to dissociate themselves from the backward and racialized “Crown Colonies,” ultimately adopting the label “Dominion” to assert their status as a qualitatively distinct type of polity. We further argue that dissociation often relies on—and reinforces—racialized logics, which actors draw upon to naturalize social boundaries. Our argument suggests that actors are not merely concerned with being “above” other actors in their comparison group on a status ladder. Rather, we demonstrate how actors also struggle to construct pecking orders and social boundaries so that they are considered not simply superior to, but categorically different from—and ultimately uncomparable to—those they deem inferior.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144898810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Anarchy Is What the Balance of Power Made of It: Two Core Concepts and the Public/Private Distinction in International Relations","authors":"Morten Skumsrud Andersen","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf064","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I question a familiar assumption in International Relations (IR): that the balance of power and anarchy are mutually reinforcing concepts. I argue instead that this relationship is neither natural nor necessary. Modern understandings of anarchy do not reflect timeless features of international politics, but are historically contingent outcomes of changes in how the balance of power concept itself has been understood and deployed. Drawing on conceptual history, I trace how the balance of power transitioned from a principle embodying Europe’s public interest in the eighteenth century to an expression of national rivalry and competitive self-interest in the nineteenth. This transformation was underpinned by a broader redefinition of the public/private distinction, which enabled states to be imagined as atomistic units operating in decentralized, market-like competition—what came to be seen as anarchy. By recovering the practical history of the balance of power, I reinterpret the genealogy of two foundational IR concepts and call for greater reflexivity about the analytical tools through which international relations are theorized.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144901708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Accountable to Whom? Public Opinion of Aid Conditionality in Recipient Countries","authors":"Richard Clark, Lindsay R Dolan, Alexandra O Zeitz","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf057","url":null,"abstract":"When donors extend foreign aid, they often attach requirements to these funds. While requirements are intended to improve the effectiveness of aid, they also render recipient governments accountable to donors. How does the public in recipient countries view these requirements attached to development finance? We argue that individuals’ assessment of aid requirements is a function of their trust in their own government, as well as the foreign donor. When citizens trust their government, aid requirements activate sovereignty concerns, and individuals view them negatively. But when individuals distrust their government, they see requirements as a source of external accountability. Citizens also consider the donor; foreign accountability is welcome only if the donor is trusted. We test our argument using Afrobarometer data on public attitudes toward aid conditionality and an original survey fielded in Kenya, finding evidence that supports our contentions. Our study contributes to an understanding of accountability in global governance.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144825659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Telling Stories of International Relations","authors":"Laura J Shepherd","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf055","url":null,"abstract":"This is a lightly edited version of the presidential address I delivered at the sixty-fifth annual convention of the International Studies Association in San Francisco, USA, on April 4, 2024. In this essay, I explore the stories that we tell about the international, and relations, and the possibility of telling different stories—and perhaps the need to tell different stories—in the future. I begin by weighing the international, and exploring what is at stake when setting up a focus on international relations, as distinct from other kinds of relations. I then shift focus to relations. A focus on relations, rather than entities or things, encourages us to consider how these relations are developed, nurtured, ruptured, and restored, and to examine both the conditions and affordances of these processes. Finally, I take on the question of how to tell different stories in the future. I hope to show that questions of futurity are necessarily questions of justice and questions of ethics, and that we as a scholarly community must ask ourselves what we owe, and to whom, in our work if we are going to honor our obligations to our past and future selves and others.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"68 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144577985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Immigration, Justice Remittances, and US Courts","authors":"Leslie Johns, Máximo Langer, Margaret E Peters","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf052","url":null,"abstract":"Many immigrants to the United States are victims of crimes that occurred in their home countries. US courts usually will not rule on legal violations that occur outside of US territory. However, starting in 1980, US federal courts sometimes allow foreign nationals to use the Alien Tort Statute to seek civil remedies for international law violations on foreign territory. We argue that these civil remedies are justice remittances from the United States to the foreign countries where the violations occurred. We additionally argue that immigrants are a key driving force in generating the demand for these justice remittances. We identify the filing districts for legal complaints that yield Alien Tort Statute judicial opinions. We then use individual-level immigration data from the US Census that we aggregate to match federal judicial districts. We find compelling evidence that immigrants are agents of justice who demand justice remittances from US courts.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144577986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Good Enough? Public Perceptions of Success in Military Interventions","authors":"Sarah Maxey","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf051","url":null,"abstract":"Public perceptions of successful military interventions carry high stakes for democratic governance. Expectations of success help mobilize support for military action, while political punishment for failure deters elected leaders from starting wars they cannot win. What factors drive public perceptions of success? How susceptible are public perceptions of success to elite manipulation? Treating perceptions of success as a dependent variable in their own right, I show that public evaluations are both multifaceted and malleable. I first use a conjoint experiment to capture the multiple factors that influence public perceptions of successful interventions. Two additional survey experiments then gauge whether elite rhetoric and priming can shift public metrics for success. The results show that the public’s concept of success is complex, weighing the ultimate costs and benefits of intervention along multiple dimensions. Leaders, however, have significant power to offset perceptions of and avoid accountability for failure.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144577902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qingqian He, Xun Pang, Yaqian He, Yekai Xu, Matthew H Connolly
{"title":"Agricultural Geography and International Water Conflict: Evidence from Remotely Sensed Data","authors":"Qingqian He, Xun Pang, Yaqian He, Yekai Xu, Matthew H Connolly","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf048","url":null,"abstract":"s As global warming intensifies water stress, the geopolitics of shared water resources have become increasingly urgent, complex, and contentious. This study investigates the role of agricultural geography—specifically the size, location, and spatial configuration of agricultural land—in shaping water stress and its management, ultimately influencing the likelihood of international water conflict. To empirically address these dynamics, we introduce novel spatiotemporal measures of agricultural land features, using remotely sensed data and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. Analyzing data from 311 country dyads within 58 international river basins over seven years, our study finds that extensive agricultural land spanning multiple sovereign territories in shared basins is associated with a high probability of international water conflict. While the upstream-downstream configuration does not inherently heighten conflict risk, the likelihood rises with larger upstream agricultural areas, particularly when coupled with extensive downstream agricultural land. These findings enhance our understanding of how geographic factors beyond mere proximity shape international security dynamics, and offer practical implications for conflict prevention, water resource management, and climate change governance.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carolina Moehlecke, Guilherme N Fasolin, Matias Spektor
{"title":"Beyond Jobs: When Citizens Reject Socially Irresponsible Foreign Direct Investment","authors":"Carolina Moehlecke, Guilherme N Fasolin, Matias Spektor","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf046","url":null,"abstract":"Recent scholarship shows that public attitudes toward foreign direct investment (FDI) are shaped by non-economic factors such as ethnocentrism, nationalism, and foreign threat perceptions. However, the influence of socially irresponsible behavior by investing firms on such attitudes remains underexplored. In this research note, we investigate individuals’ preferences regarding socially irresponsible FDI through a conjoint experiment conducted in Brazil, a key destination for international capital inflows in the Global South. We find that investing firms’ corrupt and environmentally damaging behavior significantly reduces public support for FDI, even when respondents are prompted to consider substantial job creation by the firm under challenging economic conditions. This effect persists among high-skilled labor, a group that typically stands to benefit the most from FDI. These findings contribute to our understanding of the determinants of public attitudes toward FDI by highlighting the salience of negative externalities over economic benefits. Ultimately, the study offers a cautionary tale for firms, policymakers, and civil society, underscoring public sensitivity to the social costs of globalization and the potential reputational risks of prioritizing expected economic benefits over responsible conduct.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strategic Humanitarianism and US Refugee Admissions after the Cold War","authors":"Idean Salehyan","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqaf045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf045","url":null,"abstract":"The United States has historically been the world's leader in refugee resettlement. Yet, there has been little scholarship on the determinants of US refugee admissions policies. This paper asks, why does the United States resettle refugees from certain countries over others? How have these priorities changed over time? This paper argues that refugee admissions should be understood as more than a humanitarian initiative, but also reflects foreign policy priorities. This interplay between humanitarian factors and geopolitics is a key component of strategic humanitarianism. After the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act, the United States used refugee policy to resettle refugees from areas where it has been militarily involved and as a strategy to discredit foreign policy rivals. Yet, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks dramatically altered the foreign policy priorities of the United States. In the post-9/11 period, the United States is expected to have resettled far fewer refugees from military conflicts and Muslim-majority nations. A statistical analysis of refugee resettlement from 1990–2019 reveals that the United States prioritized refugees from its conflicts abroad in the 1990s, but that this preference declined considerably with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"271 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144513316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}