Jacquelyn G. Schneider, Benjamin Schechter, Rachael Shaffer
{"title":"Hacking Nuclear Stability: Wargaming Technology, Uncertainty, and Escalation","authors":"Jacquelyn G. Schneider, Benjamin Schechter, Rachael Shaffer","doi":"10.1017/S0020818323000115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818323000115","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract How do emerging technologies affect nuclear stability? In this paper, we use a quasi-experimental cyber-nuclear wargame with 580 players to explore three hypotheses about emerging technologies and nuclear stability: (1) technological uncertainty leads to preemption and escalation; (2) technological uncertainty leads to restraint; and (3) technological certainty leads to escalation through aggressive counterforce campaigns. The wargames suggest that uncertainty and fear about cyber vulnerabilities create no immediate incentives for preemptive nuclear use. The greater danger to strategic stability lies in how overconfidence in cyber exploits incentivizes more aggressive counterforce campaigns and, secondarily, how vulnerabilities encourage predelegation or automation. Both of these effects suggest worrisome relationships between cyber exploits and inadvertent nuclear use on one hand and cyber vulnerabilities and accidental nuclear use on the other hand. Together, these findings reveal the complicated relationship between pathways to escalation and strategic stability, highlighting the role that confidence and perhaps-misplaced certainty—versus uncertainty and fear—play in strategic stability.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"633 - 667"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43436479","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":"Earmarked Funding and the Control–Performance Trade-Off in International Development Organizations","authors":"Mirko Heinzel, Ben Cormier, B. Reinsberg","doi":"10.1017/S0020818323000085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818323000085","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since the 1990s, the funding of multilateral development assistance has rapidly transformed. Donors increasingly constrain the discretion of international development organizations (IDOs) through earmarked funding, which limits the purposes for which a donor's funds can be used. The consequences of this development for IDOs’ operational performance are insufficiently understood. We hypothesize that increases in administrative burdens due to earmarked funding reduce the performance of IDO projects. The additional reporting required of IDOs by earmarked funds, while designed to enhance accountability, ultimately increases IDOs’ supervision costs and weakens their performance. We first test these hypotheses with data on project costs and performance of World Bank projects using both ordinary-least-squares and instrumental-variable analyses. We then probe the generalizability of those findings to other organizations by extending our analysis to four other IDOs: the African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Using data on the performance of 7,571 projects approved between 1990 and 2020, we find that earmarked funding undermines both cost-effectiveness and project performance across IDOs. Donors seeking value for money may consider allocating more money to core funds rather than to earmarked funds.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"475 - 495"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46878022","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":"Wisdom Is Welcome Wherever It Comes From: War, Diffusion, and State Formation in Scandinavia","authors":"Eric Grynaviski, Sverrir Steinsson","doi":"10.1017/S0020818323000061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818323000061","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Prominent theories of state formation hold that states formed because of warfare and competition on the one hand, or the diffusion of organizational templates and practices through learning and emulation on the other. We propose that the two strands of theory can be linked to more accurately account for mechanisms of state formation. War, we argue, is an important source of social diffusion. War establishes contacts between political elites across borders, generates migratory flows, and establishes new economic networks. We examine the validity of the theory through a comparative case study of Nordic political units from the dawn of the Viking Age to the end of the High Middle Ages (CE 800–1300), finding that raids, settlements, and conquests by Norwegian and Danish rulers in England, Europe's most advanced kingdom, set in motion state formation processes in Norway and Denmark. In these cases, the winners emulated the losers.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"294 - 323"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47105773","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":"Something New out of Africa: States Made Slaves, Slaves Made States","authors":"J. Sharman","doi":"10.1017/S0020818323000073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818323000073","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article I explain a nexus between slavery and state formation in Africa, proceeding from initial demographic and institutional conditions to an external demand shift, individual state responses, and their collective systemic consequences. Historically, African rulers faced distinctive challenges: low population density prioritized control of people more than territory, and internal disintegration was often a greater threat than external conquest. A massive expansion in the demand for slaves offered African rulers increased opportunities to use external resources for “outside-in” state building. Many did so by creating highly militarized predatory slaving states. The collective consequence was heightened systemic insecurity. Variation in the timing of these developments reflected regional and historical variation in the expansion of the demand for slaves. Slaving states appeared first in West Africa, reflecting the late-seventeenth-century expansion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, before spreading to East Africa a century later, following the parallel later increase in the Indian Ocean slave trade. This “outside-in” path to state formation both parallels and contrasts with contemporary postcolonial state formation.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"497 - 526"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43268220","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":"Disorganized Political Violence: A Demonstration Case of Temperature and Insurgency","authors":"Andrew Shaver, Alexander K. Bollfrass","doi":"10.1017/S0020818323000024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818323000024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Any act of battlefield violence results from a combination of organizational strategy and a combatant's personal motives. To measure the relative contribution of each, our research design leverages the predictable effect of ambient temperature on human aggression. Using fine-grained data collected by US forces during the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, we test whether temperature and violence are linked for attacks that can be initiated by individual combatants, but not for those requiring organizational coordination. To distinguish alternative explanations involving temperature effects on target movements, we examine situations where targets are stationary. We find that when individual combatants have discretion over the initiation of violence, ambient temperature does shape battlefield outcomes. There is no such effect when organizational coordination is necessary. We also find that ambient temperature affects combat-age males’ endorsement of insurgent violence in a survey taken during the conflict in Iraq. Our findings caution against attributing strategic causes to violence and encourage research into how strategic and individual-level motivations interact in conflict.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"440 - 474"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42999909","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":"One for All? State Violence and Insurgent Cohesion","authors":"L. Schubiger","doi":"10.1017/S0020818323000012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818323000012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract What effect does state violence have on the cohesiveness and fragmentation of insurgent organizations? This article develops a theory of how state violence against civilians affects insurgent cohesion and fragmentation in civil war. It argues that the state-led collective targeting of an armed group's alleged civilian constituency increases the probability of insurgent fragmentation, defined as the process through which insurgent organizations split into distinct entities, each with its own social composition, goals, and leadership. This effect is driven by the interaction of several mechanisms at the individual, group, and organizational levels: state-led collective targeting enlarges the supply of fresh recruits, strengthens the bonds between immediate group members (interpersonal cohesion), and disrupts intra-organizational coordination, strategic unity, and institutional arrangements that underpin the commitment of individual fighters to the organization as a whole (ideological cohesion). The implications of this argument are empirically tested in an analysis of armed groups fighting against their governments between 1946 and 2008. The results suggest that campaigns of massive state violence directed against the civilian constituency of rebel groups increase the overall risk of insurgent fragmentation, a finding that has important implications for the duration and escalation of civil wars.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"33 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45947429","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":"Partners with Benefits: When Multinational Corporations Succeed in Authoritarian Courts","authors":"Frederick R. Chen, Jian Xu","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000297","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholars often assume that courts in authoritarian regimes cannot credibly protect foreign investors’ interests because these institutions lack judicial independence. In this article, we construct a novel data set on multinational corporations’ litigation activities in Chinese courts from 2002 to 2017. This supports the first systematic case-level analysis of foreign firms’ lawsuit outcomes in an authoritarian judiciary. We find that foreign companies frequently engage in litigation in authoritarian courts. Moreover, we theoretically and empirically distinguish between two types of government–business ties in terms of their effectiveness in incentivizing the host state to protect foreign investors’ interests. We argue that ad hoc, personal political connections deliver only trivial lawsuit success for multinational enterprises, while formal corporate partnerships with regime insiders can lead the state to structurally internalize foreign investors’ interests. In particular, we demonstrate that joint venture partnerships with state-owned enterprises help foreign firms obtain more substantial monetary compensation than other types of multinational enterprises. By contrast, the personal political connections of foreign firms’ board members do not foster meaningful judicial favoritism. These findings are robust to tests of alternative implications, matching procedures, and subsample robustness checks. This article advances our understanding of multinational corporations’ political risk in host countries, government–business relations, and authoritarian judicial institutions.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"144 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48573153","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":"War and Welfare in Colonial Algeria","authors":"Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Melissa M. Lee","doi":"10.1017/S0020818322000376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818322000376","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A distinguishing feature of the modern state is the broad scope of social welfare provision. This remarkable expansion of public assistance was characterized by huge spatial and temporal disparities. What explains the uneven expansion in the reach of social welfare? We argue that social welfare expansion depends in part on the ability of the governed to compel the state to provide rewards in return for military service—and crucially, that marginalized groups faced greater barriers to obtaining those rewards. In colonial states, subjects faced a bargaining disadvantage relative to citizens living in the colony and were less likely to win concessions from the state for their wartime sacrifices. We test this argument using a difference-in-differences research design and a rich data set of local spending before and after World War I in colonial Algeria. Our results reveal that social welfare spending expanded less in communes where the French subject share of the population was greater. This paper contributes to the state-building literature by highlighting the differential ability of the governed to bargain with the state in the aftermath of conflict.","PeriodicalId":48388,"journal":{"name":"International Organization","volume":"77 1","pages":"263 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":7.8,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42002792","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}