UCLA Political Science

American Politics Workshop with Michael Tomz
2018-04-16 00:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
American Politics Workshop with Michael Tomz
DateApril 13, 2015
Time3:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Michael Tomz, Stanford UniversityTitle: “Political Repositioning: A Conjoint Analysis”Abstract: A persistent puzzle in contemporary American politics is the polarization of political officeholders. One possible cause is the two-stage electoral process in the United States, which requires candidates to secure a nomination from their party prior to contesting a general election. We offer a theory of the costs that candidates incur when they change their positions on policy issues over time, and consider how these costs will influence the strategic choices of candidates who enter the second stage of a two-stage election with divergent policy positions. We test our theory using a conjoint experimental design that presents subjects with a choice between two candidates who have a set of randomly assigned characteristics. These characteristics include the positions the candidates take on a policy issue in the current day and the positions that they took a year prior, their party affiliations, and a range of other electorally salient attributes. We administer our experiments on a national sample of 4,200 adults. We find that repositioning brings substantial electoral costs across a range of policy issues. As a result of these costs, public opinion must be running nearly 70-30 in favor of one side of an issue before politicians who previously took the other side of the issue will find it electorally optimal to switch their positions. Thus, we conclude, the electorate itself provides strong disincentives for politicians who enter a general election with divergent positions to moderate their stances and represent the views of the median voter.About the Speaker:Michael Tomz (Ph.D. 2001, Harvard Univ.) is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at its Institute for Economic Policy Research as well as at the Stanford Center for International Development. His research interests include political economy, elections, political opinion, international relations, and methodology. His most recent book, Reputation and International Cooperation: Sovereign Debt across Three Centuries was published by Princeton Univ. Press in 2007. Another book, on Political Repositioning (co-authored with Robert Van Houweling of UC Berkeley), is under contract, also with Princeton.
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CP Workshop - Jennifer Pan
2018-04-16 00:00
CP Workshop – Jennifer Pan
DateApril 11, 2016
Time12:30pm to 2:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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IR Workshop - Richard Steinberg, UCLA
2018-04-16 00:00
IR Workshop – Richard Steinberg, UCLA
DateApril 10, 2017
Time3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:This study examines how arrests of militia leaders pursuant to international criminal warrants have affected demobilization of Rwandan militias in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Hypotheses as to causes of demobilization were derived from the literature and interviews in Eastern Congo. Models based on those hypotheses were tested against a data set of all Rwandan combatants, commanders, dependents processed through UN-operated demobilization camps in the DRC from 2003-12. The models confirm that arrests are significantly and substantially related to increased demobilization. The models also confirm other factors significantly related to the rate of demobilization, including: policies and events that increased or decreased military pressure on Rwandan militias; the UN’s mobile radio and leafleting “sensitization” campaign; and the rainy season. The findings show that decapitation by arrest may be a viable strategy for advancing peace by degrading a militia or other armed force, particularly in patronage-based militias.
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AP Workshop - Robert Van Houweling, UC Berkeley
2018-04-16 00:00
AP Workshop – Robert Van Houweling, UC Berkeley
DateApril 10, 2017
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:I formalize the intuition that legislators would prefer not to take roll calls that divide the median voter in their district from the median voter in their party’s primary electorate. Such votes inevitably create a “smoking gun” that can be exploited by a primary or general election challenger, giving incumbents an incentive to keep these roll calls off the agenda. I also offer experimental evidence to support key assumptions made in the model. The model offers an explanation for low majority roll rates and other types of majority gatekeeping rooted in individual‐level electoral incentives rather one rooted in than collective incentives and party discipline.
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CP Workshop - Arturas Rozenas, New York University
2018-04-16 00:00
CP Workshop – Arturas Rozenas, New York University
DateApril 10, 2017
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
6275 Bunche Hall (History Conference Room)
Contact
Abstract:It is commonly believed that autocratic governments censor negative news and amplify positive news. We argue that such simplistic fact-censoring may have only a limited value when it comes to economic news, because citizens can easily benchmark the official news against their own private perceptions. Instead of censoring facts about the domestic economy, the government can preserve its good reputation in face an economic calamity by `bundling’ news in a way that assigns the responsibility for bad events to exogenous causes and positive events to the efforts of the government. Using a large corpus of daily news reports from three national television channels in Russia from 2000 to 2016, we identify two empirical patterns that are consistent with this theoretical insight: First, negative and positive economic events are reported at very similar rates on Russian state-owned television indicating no evidence of fact-censoring. Second, negative news reports are more likely to implicate external factors, especially global economic processes and Western governments, but when the news are positive they are more likely to implicate the domestic government, especially president Putin.
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Earning and Learning the Latino Vote: Campaign Effects in 2008 - 2012
2018-04-18 00:00
Earning and Learning the Latino Vote: Campaign Effects in 2008 – 2012
DateApril 16, 2014
Time5:00am to 7:00am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Amidst double digit unemployment in the Latino community, Barack Obama nevertheless made substantial gains in the Latino vote in 2012. This project explores how candidates adapt and learn new strategies in targeted outreach from campaign to campaign. I argue that the Obama campaign drastically revised their 2008 strategy, to embrace immigration as a campaign issue in 2012, after seeing the strategy employed by Harry Reid in 2010, and that Latino voters were in fact motivated by immigration claims in 2012, unlike 2008. Using data from Latino Decisions surveys in 2008, 2010, 2012, this project models Latino vote choice in presidential elections and demonstrates campaign strategy matters greatly and that successful campaigns are dynamic and evolve to best win over important voting blocs.
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PT Workshop - Arash Davari
2018-04-20 00:00
PT Workshop – Arash Davari
DateApril 15, 2016
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Swarr Prize Lecture: Libby Barringer
2018-04-23 00:00
Swarr Prize Lecture: Libby Barringer
DateApril 21, 2014
Time12:15pm to 1:45pm
Location
Contact
UCLA Department of Political Scienceinvites you to the Speaker SeriespresentingLibby BarringerUCLA Political Science, Ph.D. Candidatewho is the 2011 recipient ofThe Swarr Prize”A Vocation Unto Death: Mortality and Politics in Max Weber’s Thought” Monday, April 21, 201412:15 – 1:45 PM 4357 Bunche Hall ABSTRACT:In this paper I take up Max Weber’s familiar interpretation of disenchanted modernity and the problem it poses for meaningful life—and in particular Weber’s depiction of political life—from the less familiar perspective of the meaningfulness of death. By modeling meaningful, modern death on the idealized soldier who serves on the field of battle, Weber has attempted to push back the effects of a totally rationalized, progressive understanding of life and death. Yet when contrasted to older models of soldierly death, as seen in the model of the dying hero in Homer or the soldiers eulogized by Pericles, reliance on this model in disenchanted modernity is revealed to have a price. This model of meaning, which so heavily emphasizes individual conviction in the meaningfulness of service unto death, exacerbates the tendency for political rivalry to become political war. Aside from a slim moment of the choice of which cause one is willing to die for, it is not apparent that the meaningful life lived with soldierly devotion promotes any responsible accounting for the political—therefore potentially violent—consequences of one’s actions.Click here to download the paper. NOTE: the paper is password-protected, please email Belinda Sunnu at bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu to obtain the password.
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A Vocation Unto Death: Mortality and Politics in Max Weber's Thought
2018-04-23 00:00
A Vocation Unto Death: Mortality and Politics in Max Weber’s Thought
DateApril 21, 2014
Time5:15am to 6:45am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Libby Barringer is the 2011 recipient of the Swarr Price. In this paper I take up Max Weber’s familiar interpretation of disenchanted modernity and the problem it poses for meaningful life—and in particular Weber’s depiction of political life—from the less familiar perspective of the meaningfulness of death. By modeling meaningful, modern death on the idealized soldier who serves on the field of battle, Weber has attempted to push back the effects of a totally rationalized, progressive understanding of life and death. Yet when contrasted to older models of soldierly death, as seen in the model of the dying hero in Homer or the soldiers eulogized by Pericles, reliance on this model in disenchanted modernity is revealed to have a price. This model of meaning, which so heavily emphasizes individual conviction in the meaningfulness of service unto death, exacerbates the tendency for political rivalry to become political war. Aside from a slim moment of the choice of which cause one is willing to die for, it is not apparent that the meaningful life lived with soldierly devotion promotes any responsible accounting for the political—therefore potentially violent—consequences of one’s actions.
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International Relations Workshop with Barbara F. Walter
2018-04-23 00:00
International Relations Workshop with Barbara F. Walter
DateApril 20, 2015
Time12:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Barbara F. Walter, UC San DiegoTitle: “The Logic of Rebel Strategies in Civil War”Abstract:[This] paper … is part of a book about rebel groups and how competition affects their behavior during civil wars. It starts from the observation that rebel groups often act quite differently from each other even when they are pursuing similar goals. I argue that the structure of the competitive environment in which rebel groups operate explains much about their behavior during civil war. The more competition rebel groups face from rival factions or potential factions, the more attention they are likely to pay to the needs of the local population and the better and more benevolently they will govern. In addition, the greater the competition, the more likely rebel groups are to pursue strategies designed to deter and eliminate rivals. The particular characteristics of the competitive environment, therefore, could influence the behavior of rebel groups in important ways and could help explain the variation in rebel behavior across conflicts and over time. About the Speaker:Barbara F. Walter (Ph.D. 1994, Univ. of Chicago) is Professor of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Affiliated Faculty of Political Science at UCSD. She has also been a fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, the War and Peace Institute at Columbia University, and the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. Prof. Walter is an expert on international security, with emphasis on civil wars as well as and terrorism/counter-terrorism. Her current research interests include the organization and behavior of rebel groups during civil war, as well as the rise of Islamic extremism. She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including awards from the National Science Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Guggenheim and Smith Richardson Foundations.PaperClick here to download.
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IR Workshop - Brandon Kinne, UC Davis
2018-04-23 00:00
IR Workshop – Brandon Kinne, UC Davis
DateApril 17, 2017
Time3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:Why do states join international organizations (IOs)? Cooperation theory offers a number of plausible answers to this question. However, empirical analysis of IOs has not kept pace with theory. We identify three key limitations in existing empirical research on IO membership. First, the units of analysis commonly used to model membership, such as the country-year or dyad-year, do not sufficiently distinguish between the attributes of states and the attributes of IOs. Not only do states select IOs, but IOs also select states, which necessitates careful attention to the attributes of each. Second, empirical models generally ignore the “match quality” between countries and IOs, implicitly assuming that all IOs are equally accessible to all countries. In practice, many IOs are functionally off-limits to large numbers of states, while others attract only certain types of states. Third, although cooperation theorists have long argued that IO membership is partially influenced by social effects, where the IO memberships of some states influence the memberships of others, few empirical models incorporate social effects into the analysis. We address these limitations by modeling IO membership as a dynamic affiliation network. Using newly collected data at the state-IO level, we build an inferential network model that addresses all three of the above limitations. The analysis shows that state-IO match quality and social effects are, by far, the primary determinants of IO membership.
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Test Event
2018-04-26 00:00
Test Event
DateApril 24, 2014
Time1:00pm
Location
Contact
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Test Event 2
2018-04-26 00:00
Test Event 2
DateApril 24, 2014
Time1:00pm
Location
Contact
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Life After Degree Panel
2018-04-26 00:00
Life After Degree Panel
DateApril 26, 2018
Time12:00pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone (310)206-7558bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
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Hobbes and Natural Law in Context
2018-04-27 00:00
Hobbes and Natural Law in Context
DateApril 25, 2014
Time9:00am to 10:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Early-to-mid-seventeenth century Englishmen (1620-51) debated and contested natural law within what I call the Pauline framework. After unearthing this framework, I locate Hobbes’s account of natural law within it and discuss how this reading of Hobbesian natural law challenges many well received accounts of the meaning and significance of natural law in Hobbes’s Leviathan.
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A Symposium on Privacy and Security: UCLA Joins the National Debate
2018-04-27 00:00
A Symposium on Privacy and Security: UCLA Joins the National Debate
DateApril 25, 2014
Time9:30am to 5:00pm
Location
UCLA School of Law
Contact
Title: “A Symposium on Privacy and Security: UCLA Joins the National Debate”Abstract: On Friday, April 25 the UCLA Department of Political Science, the UCLA School of Law, and the Office of Information Technology brought together thought leaders to discuss critical privacy and security issues presented by ever-evolving technologies.For more information click here.
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Political Theory Workshop with Claudia Moatti
2018-04-27 00:00
Political Theory Workshop with Claudia Moatti
DateApril 24, 2015
Time4:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Claudia Moatti, USC and Université Paris VIIIRespondent:Anthony Pagden, UCLATitle: “Saving the City: Roman Ideas on the Permanence of the ‘Public Thing’”Abstract:At the end of the Roman Republic, the issue of the permanence of the “public thing” is at the heart of the political struggle: “Save the city” (conservare civitatem or rem publicam) is the slogan of the senatorial elite. Under the Empire, the expression is visible on coins and stones, in many forms (re publica conservata, ob cives servatos, etc.). What is exactly meant by “saving”? How to ensure the permanence of a people or a city, when everything dies on earth? The question of the continuity and identity of a thing through time is an old philosophical issue; in Rome it is addressed in legal literature, as well as in philosophical treatises and in political speeches. In this paper, I will discuss some sources, with an emphasis, in the second part, on the Dream of Scipio, a section of Cicero’s “De Republica,” which offers an original response to our questions and reveals the co-existence in that time of conflicting definitions of res publica.Paper:Click here to download.
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REP Workshop - Paul Apostolidis
2018-04-27 00:00
REP Workshop – Paul Apostolidis
DateApril 22, 2016
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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PT Workshop - Simone Chambers, UC Irvine
2018-04-27 00:00
PT Workshop – Simone Chambers, UC Irvine
DateApril 21, 2017
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:Deliberative democracy often includes an unrealistic ethical and/or psychological expectation that individuals be willing to revise their positions in light of counter arguments and alternative reasoning. Public reason advocates introduce an equally unrealistic standard of public debate when they insist that citizens and their representatives ought to be constrained by a duty of civility – a form of epistemic humility. Rather than revisability or publicness, in this paper I introduce the weaker standard of criticizability. Criticizability is an attribute of utterances and is dependent on systemic features of the public sphere in which the utterances are made. It is not an ethical or psychological disposition. In stressing criticizability, this model of deliberative democracy shifts the focus from speakers to audience in the public sphere. What becomes important is not whether individual speakers are willing to change their mind or suppress their deepest convictions it is whether those who hear them speak also hear the counter arguments and criticisms.
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In Your Face Politics
2018-04-30 00:00
In Your Face Politics
DateApril 28, 2014
Time5:00am to 6:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Journalists and academics regularly decry incivility in political discourse, and public opinion polls suggest that average Americans share a similar disdain. Foundations and civic groups likewise fund initiatives to call attention to this problem. Even politicians themselves express concerns about uncivil discourse and its potential consequences. Nonetheless, this near-universal condemnation does not appear to have affected the prevalence of political incivility. Moreover, I am not convinced that the political advocates of today are necessarily any more uncivil than politicians of previous centuries. Nonetheless, I am convinced that the way the American public experiences these uncivil exchanges has changed in important ways. “In Your Face Politics” explores the practical and historical consequences of televised politics that appears in our faces in two different respects: it is both uncivil and also has the appearance of close physical proximity.
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Comparative Politics Workshop with David Laitin
2018-04-30 00:00
Comparative Politics Workshop with David Laitin
DateApril 27, 2015
Time12:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:David Laitin, Stanford UniversityTitle: “Language Policy and Human Development”Abstract:[We] explore how language policy affects the socio-economic development of nation-states through two channels: the individual’s exposure to and (in reference to an individual’s mother tongue) linguistic distance from the official language. In a cross-country framework, we first establish a robust and sizeable negative relationship between an official language that is distant from the local indigenous languages and proxies for human capital and health. To establish this relationship as causal, we instrument language choice with a measure of geographic distance from the origins of writing. Next, using individual-level data from India and a set of twelve African countries, we provide micro-empirical support on the two channels — distance to the official language and exposure — and their implications for educational, health, occupational and wealth outcomes. Finally, we present narrative evidence on why, given the welfare implications of language policy, postcolonial elites have sustained inefficient policies.Paper:Click here to download.
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American Politics Workshop with Cheryl Boudreau
2018-04-30 00:00
American Politics Workshop with Cheryl Boudreau
DateApril 27, 2015
Time4:00pm to 5:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Cheryl Boudreau, UC DavisTitle:”Racial or Spatial Voting? The Effects of Candidate Ethnicity and Ethnic Group Endorsements in Low-Information Elections”Abstract:Voters face difficult choices in elections where party labels do not distinguish the candidates’ ideological positions. In these contexts, racial/ethnic cues may help voters to choose ideologically-similar candidates (spatial voting), or make choices based on race/ethnicity (racial voting). In most elections, these behaviors are observationally equivalent because race/ethnicity and ideology are strongly correlated (i.e., minority candidates and voters are typically more liberal than whites). We disentangle racial and spatial voting by examining local elections where this is not the case. Using original surveys and exit polls, we create comparable measures of candidate and voter ideology and examine how race/ethnicity and ideology affect voters’ choices. We also embed experiments that manipulate ethnic group endorsements. We find that ideology powerfully shapes voters’ choices, but that ethnic group endorsements diminish spatial voting. We also show that co-ethnic voters react favorably to endorsements from their group, while whites’ reactions are driven by racial/ethnic stereotypes.About the Speaker:Cheryl Boudreau (Ph.D. 2007, UC San Diego) is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. Prof. Boudreau’s research examines whether and when different types of political information help uninformed voters to make political decisions that improve their welfare. This information may come from trusted endorsers, encouraging citizens to vote for a particular candidate or initiative, or from politicians competing in a debate. Citizens may also rely on the statements their peers make during discussions, the opinions of the masses — as reflected in public opinion polls — or the detailed policy information contained in voter guides. Using laboratory and survey experiments, as well as observational studies, her research sheds light on when these different types of information help uninformed voters to behave as though they are more informed.
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AP Workshop - Robert Van Houweling
2018-04-30 00:00
AP Workshop – Robert Van Houweling
DateApril 25, 2016
Time3:00pm to 5:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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CP Workshop - Laura Paler
2018-04-30 00:00
CP Workshop – Laura Paler
DateApril 25, 2016
Time12:30pm to 2:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:While there is a growing literature on the determinants of ex-combatant reintegration, few studies have examined why former combatants turn to criminal activity following demobilization. This paper investigates the economic, security, psychological, and social determinants of criminality among demobilized combatants in Colombia. We combine confidential administrative data with original survey data from a representative sample of ex-combatants in and out of prison and employ techniques for eliciting honest responses to sensitive questions on surveys. Our results reveal no support for a predominant explanation that economic vulnerability drives ex-combatants into crime, showing instead a strong relationship between conflict networks and criminality. We also shed light on why conflict networks correlate with crime, finding that they explain both individual and group crime; that ties to both peers and commanders matter; and that status-seeking and susceptibility to pressure are plausible mechanisms. The results provide some of the first quantitative evidence of the relative importance of conflict networks vis-a-vis other explanations for ex-combatant criminality, with important implications for the design of reintegration interventions.
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CP Workshop - John Ahlquist, UC San Diego
2018-04-30 00:00
CP Workshop – John Ahlquist, UC San Diego
DateApril 24, 2017
Time12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:How do international monetary and financial shocks influence domestic politics? Taking advantage of a surprise revaluation of the Swiss franc in early 2015, we examine the policy preferences and voting behavior of individuals particularly exposed to this event in Poland: holders of mortgages denominated in foreign currency. Using original survey data collected prior to the 2015 Polish parliamentary elections, we show that the material economic interests of this group strongly influenced their preferences over proposed policy responses to the shock. Their preference for a generous resolution scheme then translated into distinct voting behavior. Among former government voters, Swiss franc borrowers were more likely to desert the government. The evidence suggests that the PiS used the CHF mortgage issue opportunistically to build a winning electoral coalition that included not only its core populist constituencies, but also a subgroup of voters materially affected by the shock who were otherwise unlikely to support the party. Our analysis demonstrates that international financial shocks can influence domestic politics through multiple channels. For individuals and households with clear, well-defined material interests, such shocks strongly and directly influence policy preferences and voting behavior. At the same time, parties and candidates can also exploit such shocks for broader political effect, using them as focal points to appeal to a larger populist coalition of voters.
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REP Workshop - Davin Phoenix, UC Irvine
2018-04-30 00:00
REP Workshop – Davin Phoenix, UC Irvine
DateApril 24, 2017
Time3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:Extant political psychology literature provides a framework for understanding how the emotion state of anger both activated the racial attitudes of white Americans and mobilized them toward greater electoral activity during the contentious 2016 election. Absent from this literature, however, is an account of how anger is engendered and translates to political behavior among racial outgroup members themselves. I seek to fill this gap by uncovering the racial differences in the antecedents of anger for Black and White Americans. Additionally, I examine differences in the mobilizing influence of anger among Blacks and Whites. I present findings from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) that illuminate the manners in which anger was activated and leveraged toward distinct political actions among Blacks and Whites. Contending with the intersection of race and emotions in politics advances our understanding of how the racially divisive political climate shapes the mobilization and political behavior of the distinct racial/ethnic groups making up an increasingly diverse electorate.
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REP Workshop - Paulina Ochoa Espejo
2018-05-04 00:00
REP Workshop – Paulina Ochoa Espejo
DateApril 29, 2016
Time4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
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Entrepreneurship, the Electoral Connection, and Office Location: Estimating the Electoral Connection by Designing Stronger Instruments
2018-05-07 00:00
Entrepreneurship, the Electoral Connection, and Office Location: Estimating the Electoral Connection by Designing Stronger Instruments
DateMay 5, 2014
Time5:00am to 6:30am
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Both political science scholars as well as House members believe that being an effective representation will be electorally rewarded. In this paper we investigate the extent to which there exists an electoral connection with respect to legislative entrepreneurship. Using the freshmen House office lottery as an instrumental variable, we find little evidence that voters reward entrepreneurship (despite the observational evidence to the contrary) and discuss how methods designed to strengthen instrumental variables are appropriate in this context.
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International Relations Workshop with Aila Matanock
2018-05-07 00:00
International Relations Workshop with Aila Matanock
DateMay 4, 2015
Time12:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Contact Information
Belinda SunnuPhone bsunnu@polisci.ucla.edu
Presenter:Aila Matanock, UC BerkeleyTitle: “International Insurance: Explaining Electoral Participation Provisions in Peace Agreement Design”Abstract:Peace agreement design is a crucial component of conflict termination, but how do combatants choose which provisions to center these settlements on? In particular, “electoral participation provisions” . . . for post-conflict elections in which militant group and government parties [both] participate — have become prevalent in peace agreements. But elections potentially complicate dividing or sharing power, while often failing to usher in democracy in these contexts. Why are they chosen? I propose that international involvement is crucial. I consider several ways in which it may make these electoral participation provisions desirable, including a novel theory which, under the right conditions, these provisions help combatants credibly commit to mutually beneficial settlements. The mechanism relies on electoral processes as coordinating cycles that ease enforcement — detecting and increasing the cost of noncompliance with the agreement for both sides — especially as international actors involve themselves in democracy promotion programs. Analysis of new quantitative evidence on peace agreement design shows the expected relationships with proxies for these expectations of external engagement, and additional qualitative evidence from Guatemala demonstrates the anticipated mechanism.
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IR Workshop - Andrew Bertoli, USC
2018-05-07 00:00
IR Workshop – Andrew Bertoli, USC
DateMay 1, 2017
Time3:00pm to 4:30pm
Location
4357 Bunche Hall
Contact
Abstract:Does nationalism make interstate conflict more likely? I tackle this question by analyzing one of the most powerful sources of nationalism in the modern era—international sports. I first investigate several cases where surges of nationalism from sporting events led to military or political conflict between countries. I then analyze a regression discontinuity created by the format of the World Cup qualification process from 1958 to 2010. The results provide strong evidence that World Cup nationalism increases state aggression, especially for countries where soccer is the most popular sport.
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