{"title":"Does Public Opinion on Foreign Policy Affect Elite Preferences? Evidence from the 2022 US Sanctions against Russia","authors":"Anton Peez, Felix S Bethke","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae145","url":null,"abstract":"Does public opinion on international affairs affect elites’ policy preferences? Most research assumes that it does, but this key assumption is difficult to test empirically given limited research access to elite decision-makers. We examine elite responsiveness to public opinion on sanctioning Russia during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. We fielded a preregistered experiment within the 2022 TRIP survey of US foreign policy practitioners, offering a rare opportunity for a fairly large elite survey experiment ($N = 253$). We used contemporary public polling highly supportive of increasing sanctions as an information treatment. Our research design, involving a salient issue and real-world treatment, substantially expands on previous work. Exposure to the treatment raises elite support for increasing sanctions from 68.0 percent to 76.3 percent (+8.3 pp.). While meaningful, this effect is smaller than those identified elsewhere. We argue that this difference is driven by pretreatment dynamics related to issue salience and ceiling effects and is therefore all the more notable. We provide evidence for substantial treatment effect heterogeneity depending on subject-matter expertise, degree of involvement in political decision-making, and gender, but not party identification. While our results support previous research, they highlight issues of external validity and the context-dependence of elite responsiveness.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869904","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}
Pablo M Pinto, Stephanie J Rickard, James Raymond Vreeland
{"title":"The Effect of International Actors on Public Support for Government Spending Decisions","authors":"Pablo M Pinto, Stephanie J Rickard, James Raymond Vreeland","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae150","url":null,"abstract":"Does the intervention of an international organization in domestic politics render policy change more popular? While voters may ultimately care only about policy outcomes, the involvement of international actors often seems to lead to resentment. Still, citizens may have greater faith in the wisdom of international actors than in their own government. As others have argued, a well-respected international actor might provide a cue, especially for voters considering controversial policies like spending cuts. We test this argument in a novel pre–post experimental panel study conducted in Spain. We find that citizens become less opposed to unpopular spending cuts when informed that they are required by an international institution. The effects differ, however, across the two organizations that we test: They are stronger for the European Union than for the International Monetary Fund. Our findings lend support to studies arguing that the endorsement of specific international organizations can help push through otherwise unpopular policies.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142841971","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}
Benjamin Daßler, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Martijn Huysmans
{"title":"Insuring the Weak: The Institutional Power Equilibrium in International Organizations","authors":"Benjamin Daßler, Tim Heinkelmann-Wild, Martijn Huysmans","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae146","url":null,"abstract":"Materially powerful states tend to dominate both the creation of international organizations (IOs) as well as subsequent IO policymaking. Materially weak states are nevertheless expected to participate in IOs since it is generally assumed that they will still profit from cooperation and prefer power to be exercised through institutions. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how exactly institutional rules protect weak states from the powerful in IOs. This paper develops a theory of institutional design that specifies the institutional power equilibrium at the heart of IOs’ constitutional treaties. Through the inclusion of veto or exit rights, weak states obtain formal safeguards against exploitation by the powerful during an IO’s operation. This expectation of a power equilibrium in IOs’ design is borne out in design patterns within the constitutional treaties of IOs created between 1945 and 2005. Our results indicate that the distribution of power among an IO’s founding members indeed affects the inclusion of institutional safeguards in their constitutional treaties and that veto and exit rights are functional substitutes in this regard. Our findings matter since the institutional power equilibrium at IO creation has important implications for relations between the materially powerful and the weak during IO operations.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"117 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142810083","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":"Nonresident Prime Ministers? Measuring India’s Foreign Policy Orientation via Leadership Travel","authors":"Sumitha Narayanan Kutty, Walter C Ladwig III","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae144","url":null,"abstract":"As a rising India has sought both standing and recognition in the international system, observers have debated whether revisionist or status quo tendencies have characterized the country’s engagement with the outside world since the end of the Cold War. One way to gain insight into such issues is to study the behavior of its apex leaders. Face-to-face diplomacy and high-level visits are an increasingly prominent feature of India’s international relations. Given the scarce nature of senior officials’ time, where they choose to travel can serve as a key indicator of their priorities. Employing an original data set, we analyze the factors shaping foreign travel by Indian prime ministers and foreign ministers between 1992 and 2019. These indicate that strategic interests—rather than ideological affinity with the Global South, domestic politics, or bureaucratic routine—have the primary role in shaping India’s foreign engagement. Since foreign visits are purposeful, where Indian leaders travel can be assessed for indicators of revisionist or status quo leanings in the country’s foreign policy. Although examination of the specific patterns of overseas visits does not indicate definitive membership of either camp, they do highlight aspects of India’s contested relationship with the current international order.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142810088","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":"Mere Puffery or Convincing Claims? Rebel News and Civilian Perceptions of the Balance of Power","authors":"Caleb Lucas","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae142","url":null,"abstract":"How does rebel news affect the way civilians perceive the balance of power during conflict? While media campaigns are a common tactic during conflict for both insurgents and governments, there is very little empirical research that explores their effect on civilians. I argue that these campaigns play an important role in the construction of a rebel group’s reputation during conflict and the perception of their organization among non-combatants. This is because civilians suffer from an information disadvantage and struggle to accurately gauge the relative strength of actors in the conflict. I exploit the plausibly random introduction of the Taliban’s official radio station in Kabul during May 2018 to test the effect of rebel news on civilian attitudes. NATO’s Afghanistan Nationwide Quarterly Assessment Research survey happened to field a wave directly before and after this event. I use difference-in-differences to estimate the effect of exposure to the Taliban’s news and demonstrate that it increased perceptions of the group’s strength. This finding has important implications for the study of civilian attitude formation and support during conflict.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142810067","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}
Megan Becker, Jonathan Markowitz, Sarah Orsborn, Isabelle Nazha, Srividya Dasaraju, Lindsay Lauder
{"title":"Replicating the Resource Curse: A Qualitative Replication of Ross 2004","authors":"Megan Becker, Jonathan Markowitz, Sarah Orsborn, Isabelle Nazha, Srividya Dasaraju, Lindsay Lauder","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae125","url":null,"abstract":"What are the causal pathways through which natural resources are linked to civil conflict? Ross evaluates ten causal pathways across thirteen conflicts to offer the most comprehensive answer to date. However, nearly 20 years later, all thirteen conflicts have ended, and more sources are available, motivating the question: Would the findings hold if replicated today? We employ a new explicit standards approach to replicate Ross’ thirteen cases twice: First, using his original seventy-eight sources and second, employing a more up-to-date set of conflict end-dates and over 500 sources. Most findings (75 percent) hold, while 25 percent do not. We find stronger evidence for Ross’ claim that looting resources is linked to longer conflicts and that resources motivate government repression. However, we also overturn some of his key claims, by demonstrating that resources do, in fact, affect conflict onset by funding rebel start-up costs and generating grievances amongst the population.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142805342","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":"When Generalized Trust Matters? Impact of Industrial Tertiarization on Trade Preference Formation","authors":"Masafumi Fujita","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae143","url":null,"abstract":"Generalized trust has attracted attention as a non-material disposition that affects risk perception in political and economic international cooperation. However, its effect on public support for free trade or trade agreements has been debated. This debate centers on whether the economic impacts of trade are evident or uncertain to ordinary citizens because generalized trust operates only when trade impacts are uncertain and risk perception is crucial. However, the visibility of trade impacts varies significantly depending on the economic environment. This study explores the role of industrial tertiarization, the shift from agriculture and manufacturing to services, in altering the visibility of trade impacts. It hypothesizes that generalized trust shapes trade preferences primarily in highly tertiarized local economies. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Studies and World Values Survey Wave 7, this hypothesis was tested and confirmed. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that the influence of generalized trust on trade preferences varies with the level of local tertiarization. It also proposes new causal mechanisms for understanding anti-globalism in developed countries and suggests that the influence of economic impacts on trade preferences may similarly depend on local tertiarization levels.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142805343","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":"Power Grabs from the Top: A Database of Self-Coups","authors":"Arthur A Goldsmith","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae147","url":null,"abstract":"This research note introduces new global data on self-coups—rapid moves by sitting executive leaders to “overthrow” their own governments and illegitimately maintain or extend power. Self-coups are distinct from ordinary coups (sudden illegal attempts by other elites to topple the sitting executive) and overlap with incumbent takeovers (incremental quasi-legal steps by the sitting executive to amass power). Still, there is conceptual discord about what delineates self-coups and a resultant lack of consensus about basic facts, even about where and when self-coups have happened. To provide a firmer foundation for investigating the self-coup phenomenon systematically, I draw from eight datasets and original data collection and coding to present comprehensive data on 147 individual events (plus 90 candidate incidents that did not fully meet the criteria) in the 1950–2022 period. The dataset provides information on the perpetrators, targets, flashpoint dates, and methods of these events. Illustrative statistical analysis suggests that following a self-coup, the level of international economic aid tends to have a negative effect on the probability that a country will hold competitive elections. Future research may apply these data for a better understanding of the causes of self-coups and the long-term effects of self-coups on political and economic development.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142805341","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":"IMF Lending Programs and Repression in Autocracies","authors":"Stephen C Nelson, Christopher P Dinkel","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae149","url":null,"abstract":"Do International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending programs increase repression in borrowing countries? We argue that repression worsens when autocratic governments enter conditional lending arrangements with the IMF. Autocracies are likelier than democracies to harshly crackdown during episodes of heightened protest and unrest triggered by IMF-mandated adjustment and structural reform programs. But harsh repression of anticipated spikes in dissent spurred by liberalization-oriented IMF conditions may also be used by autocrats to proactively signal their commitment to preserve regime insiders’ advantages. We present several tests of the arguments in the article. In the first test, we use a compound instrumental variable to estimate the conditional difference in human rights scores between IMF program participation and non-participation in both democratic and autocratic country-years (1975–2014). We do not find evidence for clear links between IMF program participation and human rights in developing democracies. In autocracies, however, the relationship between IMF lending programs and human rights respect is consistently negative and significant. In further tests, we isolate the impact of different types of IMF conditionality. Evidence suggests that IMF programs with more numerous structural reforms (namely, pro-privatization conditions) are associated with lower human rights protections in autocratic countries.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"113 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142805340","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":"Inference with Extremes: Accounting for Extreme Values in Count Regression Models","authors":"David Randahl, Johan Vegelius","doi":"10.1093/isq/sqae137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae137","url":null,"abstract":"Processes that occasionally, but not always, produce extreme values are notoriously difficult to model, as a small number of extreme observations may have a large impact on the results. Existing methods for handling extreme values are often arbitrary and leave researchers without guidance regarding this problem. In this paper, we propose an extreme value and zero-inflated negative binomial (EVZINB) regression model, which allows for separate modeling of extreme and nonextreme observations to solve this problem. The EVZINB model offers an elegant solution to modeling data with extreme values and allows researchers to draw additional inferences about both extreme and nonextreme observations. We illustrate the usefulness of the EVZINB model by replicating a study on the effects of the deployment of UN peacekeepers on one-sided violence against civilians.","PeriodicalId":48313,"journal":{"name":"International Studies Quarterly","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142599694","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}