Thomas Sommerer
Biographic Data
| ID | 1418293 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Sommerer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Sommerer |
| SIGNATURE | SOMMERER T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stockholm University |
| ORCID | 0009-0007-5729-140X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 408 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Artificial Resonance: AI companions as agents of social acceleration
AI companions are becoming increasingly popular, with millions of users worldwide, especially young adults. Some see the potential to fight the so-called loneliness epidemic; others see the destructive effects of addiction and harmful guidance leading users in extreme cases even to suicide. Recent research has examined AI companions through the lens of AI ethics, addressing questions of emotional dependency, controllability and emotional harm. Wh…
Baudrillard and the Dead Internet Theory. Revisiting Baudrillard’s (dis)trust in Artificial Intelligence
The goal of this paper is to revisit Baudrillard’s take on artificial intelligence and to present a critique of AI (especially considering large language models). Baudrillard expressed his skepticism about AI already in his essay Xerox and Infinity from 1993. To understand Baudrillard’s argumentation, it is necessary to open up his theoretical body of work, starting from Marxist value theory and leading up to his own concept of simulation theory,…
Effects of Popular Legitimacy on International Organizations: An Elite Survey Experiment
Whether or not popular legitimacy matters for international organizations (IOs) is a topic of extensive assumption but little rigorous research. A key obstacle has been the methodological difficulties of establishing legitimacy’s effect using observational data. This article offers the first experimental study of the effects of popular legitimacy on IOs. Theoretically, we propose that popular legitimacy affects IOs through the mechanism of govern…
Are non-democracies taking over? Autocratization and international organization membership
Broad scholarly consensus exists that the third wave of democratization had an important role in the expansion of power and influence of international organizations (IOs). The ongoing decline of democracy worldwide has sparked an extensive debate about the reversal of this development. In this paper, we argue that a systematic understanding of the relationship between changes in regime type and IO membership composition is a prerequisite for the …
Informal governance and transnational access in world politics
The governance turn in political research has led to increased attention to informal institutions. For scholars of international relations this has contributed to recent scholarship that reveals a notable growth in the number of informal intergovernmental organizations (IIGOs). Many aspects of IIGOs remain unknown, including whether they involve transnational actors (TNAs). Yet, whether IIGOs are open to TNAs or not may affect their performance a…
The state and the environment: Environmental policy and performance in 37 countries 1970–2010
The limitations and possibilities of the state in solving societal problems are perennial issues in the political and policy sciences and increasingly so in studies of environmental politics. With the aim of better understanding the role of the state in addressing environmental degradation through policy making, this article investigates the nexus between the environmental policy outputs and the environmental performance. Drawing on three theoret…
When are International Organizations Responsive to Policy Problems
When are international organizations (IOs) responsive to the policy problems that motivated their establishment? While it is a conventional assumption that IOs exist to address transnational challenges, the question of whether and when IO policy-making is responsive to shifts in underlying problems has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the responsiveness of IOs from a large-n, comparative approach. Theoretically, we develo…
Compliance without coercion: Effects of reporting on international labor rights
While a dominant position in research on compliance holds that enforcement is necessary for states to abide by their international commitments, many international organizations (IOs) do not have recourse to such coercive means. This article offers the first systematic analysis of one prominent alternative to material coercion: compliance reporting by IOs. It develops an argument for why reporting by IOs should lead states to correct non-compliant…
Introducing the Sounds of Data to the Study of Politics: A Choir of Global Legitimacy Crises
This article introduces an innovative method to describe data with sounds in political science. The method, known in ecology, physics, and musicology as “sonification,” operates by linking sound signals to quantifiable observations. We us it to compose a choir of legitimacy crises in global governance from 1994 to 2014, and to negotiate a familiar divide in research on how legitimacy should be measured. Scholars predominantly prefer one of two ap…
Why International Organizations Commit to Liberal Norms
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship tells us a lot about the trajectories of particular norms, we know much less about the broader patterns and sources of commitments to liberal norms by international organizations (IOs). This article offers the first comparative large-N ana…
Shaming by international organizations: Mapping condemnatory speech acts across 27 international organizations, 1980–2015
In the face of escalating conflicts or atrocities, international organizations (IOs), alongside non-governmental organizations (NGOs), often vocalize public condemnation. Researchers have examined NGO shaming, but no extant literature has comparatively explored if, how and why IOs shame. This article fills this gap. We conceptualize IO shaming as condemnatory speech acts and distinguish between the agent, targets and actions of shaming. We theori…
Diffusion Across International Organizations: Connectivity and Convergence
While extensive research shows that policies and institutions spread across states through processes of diffusion, we know little about diffusion among international organizations (IOs). We develop a novel approach for the study of diffusion among IOs. This approach consists of three components: a theoretical focus on connectivity among IOs as pathways for diffusion; a conceptual differentiation between alternative types of convergence effects; a…
Consequences of Legitimacy in Global Governance: Sources, Processes, and Consequences
This chapter outlines a new research agenda on the consequences of legitimacy for the effectiveness of global governance institutions. The chapter sets the stage for systematic investigation of this issue by disaggregating consequences into empirically observable components and by outlining a research strategy to study these different impacts. Specifically, the chapter highlights four sequential types of consequences, relating to: (a) the resourc…
Democratic memberships in international organizations: Sources of institutional design
Transnational Access to International Organizations 1950–2010: A New Data Set
This article introduces a new data set on the access of transnational actors (TNAs) to international organizations (IOs). While IOs were long the exclusive preserve of member governments, recent decades have witnessed a shift toward more inclusive forms of governance, involving participation by non-governmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, multinational corporations, and other forms of TNAs. Yet existing research has lacked the data …
The performance of international organizations: A Policy Output Approach
Many problems confronting today's societies are transnational in character, leading states to increasingly rely on international organizations (IOs) for policy solutions. Yet, the performance of IOs varies extensively. This contribution suggests that systematic, comparative research is required to advance our understanding of IO performance, and that a policy output approach offers particular advantages for that purpose. This approach privileges …
The environmental state as a model for the world? An analysis of policy repertoires in 37 countries
Scholars have proposed the analytical concept of the environmental state, a state where government actively addresses negative environmental externalities of economic activities. The mapping of environmental regulatory expansion in Western countries has been central in recent attempts to identify the environmental state empirically. Surprisingly little is known, however, when it comes to the environmental regulatory expansions in non-Western coun…
Explaining the Transnational Design of International Organizations
Past decades have witnessed a shift in international cooperation toward growing involvement of transnational actors (TNAs), such as nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and philanthropic foundations. This article offers a comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of TNA access to IOs. The analysis builds on a novel data set, covering formal TNA access to 298 organizational bodies from fifty IOs over the time period 195…
The Opening Up of International Organizations: Transnational Access in Global Governance
Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingly open in recent decades. Now virtually all international organizations at some level involve NGOs, business actors and scientific experts in policy-making. This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of this development. Combining statistical analysis and in-depth case studies, it maps and explains the openness of international o…
Können Staaten voneinander lernen?: Eine Vergleichende Analyse der Umweltpolitik in 24 Ländern
Race to the Bottom’ or ‘Race to Brussels’? Environmental Competition in Europe: Environmental Competition in Europe
The theory of regulatory competition in environmental policy predicts a ‘race to the bottom’ of standards. This article tests the theory using environmental output data for 24 countries from 1970 to 2005. It finds a clear ‘race to the top’ and a search for international harmonization when competition is imminent
Is there convergence of national environmental policies? An analysis of policy outputs in 24 OECD countries
A central issue of globalisation research is the question whether globalisation leads to the convergence of policies or whether domestic responses to global challenges remain strongly influenced by existing domestic structures. In the field of environmental policy, there is some analysis of the diffusion of policy innovations, but there is a lack of systematic knowledge as to whether this leads to policy convergence at a broad scale. To what exte…
Environmental Policy Convergence: The Impact of International Harmonization, Transnational Communication, and Regulatory Competition
In recent years, there is growing interest in the study of cross-national policy convergence. Yet we still have a limited understanding of the phenomenon: Do we observe convergence of policies at all? Under which conditions can we expect that domestic policies converge or rather develop further apart? In this article, we address this research deficit. From a theoretical perspective, we concentrate on the explanatory power of three factors, namely…
Unterschiedliche Pfade, ein Ziel? — Spezifikationen im Forschungsdesign und Vergleichbarkeit der Ergebnisse bei der Suche nach der Konvergenz nationalstaatlicher Politiken
Die gegenwärtige politikwissenschaftliche Konvergenzforschung beschäftigt sich mit dem Wandel, der Stabilität und der Annäherung nationaler Politiken unter dem Vorzeichen fortschreitender ökonomischer und politischer Globalisierung. Nationalstaatliche Regulierungen nähern sich beispielsweise auf dem kleinsten gemeinsamen Nenner einander an oder überbieten sich gegenseitig in einem Regulierungswettbewerb nach oben; sie gleichen sich in verschieden…
Is there convergence in convergence research? an overview of empirical studies on policy convergence
In this review, we portray findings and conceptualizations of selected empirical studies on policy convergence and related concepts. The article reveals that there is no homogenous picture of policy convergence: Although frequently observed, empirical studies often disagree as to its extent. The representation of policy fields, geographical regions and periods analysed differ, which makes an overall assessment of policy convergence impossible. Th…
Is there convergence in convergence research? an overview of empirical studies on policy convergence
In this review, we portray findings and conceptualizations of selected empirical studies on policy convergence and related concepts. The article reveals that there is no homogenous picture of policy convergence: Although frequently observed, empirical studies often disagree as to its extent. The representation of policy fields, geographical regions and periods analysed differ, which makes an overall assessment of policy convergence impossible. Th…
Environmental Policy Convergence: The Impact of International Harmonization, Transnational Communication, and Regulatory Competition
In recent years, there is growing interest in the study of cross-national policy convergence. Yet we still have a limited understanding of the phenomenon: Do we observe convergence of policies at all? Under which conditions can we expect that domestic policies converge or rather develop further apart? In this article, we address this research deficit. From a theoretical perspective, we concentrate on the explanatory power of three factors, namely…
Explaining the Transnational Design of International Organizations
Past decades have witnessed a shift in international cooperation toward growing involvement of transnational actors (TNAs), such as nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and philanthropic foundations. This article offers a comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of TNA access to IOs. The analysis builds on a novel data set, covering formal TNA access to 298 organizational bodies from fifty IOs over the time period 195…
Diffusion Across International Organizations: Connectivity and Convergence
While extensive research shows that policies and institutions spread across states through processes of diffusion, we know little about diffusion among international organizations (IOs). We develop a novel approach for the study of diffusion among IOs. This approach consists of three components: a theoretical focus on connectivity among IOs as pathways for diffusion; a conceptual differentiation between alternative types of convergence effects; a…
The performance of international organizations: A Policy Output Approach
Many problems confronting today's societies are transnational in character, leading states to increasingly rely on international organizations (IOs) for policy solutions. Yet, the performance of IOs varies extensively. This contribution suggests that systematic, comparative research is required to advance our understanding of IO performance, and that a policy output approach offers particular advantages for that purpose. This approach privileges …
Why International Organizations Commit to Liberal Norms
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship tells us a lot about the trajectories of particular norms, we know much less about the broader patterns and sources of commitments to liberal norms by international organizations (IOs). This article offers the first comparative large-N ana…
Shaming by international organizations: Mapping condemnatory speech acts across 27 international organizations, 1980–2015
In the face of escalating conflicts or atrocities, international organizations (IOs), alongside non-governmental organizations (NGOs), often vocalize public condemnation. Researchers have examined NGO shaming, but no extant literature has comparatively explored if, how and why IOs shame. This article fills this gap. We conceptualize IO shaming as condemnatory speech acts and distinguish between the agent, targets and actions of shaming. We theori…
The environmental state as a model for the world? An analysis of policy repertoires in 37 countries
Scholars have proposed the analytical concept of the environmental state, a state where government actively addresses negative environmental externalities of economic activities. The mapping of environmental regulatory expansion in Western countries has been central in recent attempts to identify the environmental state empirically. Surprisingly little is known, however, when it comes to the environmental regulatory expansions in non-Western coun…
Race to the Bottom’ or ‘Race to Brussels’? Environmental Competition in Europe: Environmental Competition in Europe
The theory of regulatory competition in environmental policy predicts a ‘race to the bottom’ of standards. This article tests the theory using environmental output data for 24 countries from 1970 to 2005. It finds a clear ‘race to the top’ and a search for international harmonization when competition is imminent
Is there convergence of national environmental policies? An analysis of policy outputs in 24 OECD countries
A central issue of globalisation research is the question whether globalisation leads to the convergence of policies or whether domestic responses to global challenges remain strongly influenced by existing domestic structures. In the field of environmental policy, there is some analysis of the diffusion of policy innovations, but there is a lack of systematic knowledge as to whether this leads to policy convergence at a broad scale. To what exte…
When are International Organizations Responsive to Policy Problems
When are international organizations (IOs) responsive to the policy problems that motivated their establishment? While it is a conventional assumption that IOs exist to address transnational challenges, the question of whether and when IO policy-making is responsive to shifts in underlying problems has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the responsiveness of IOs from a large-n, comparative approach. Theoretically, we develo…
Compliance without coercion: Effects of reporting on international labor rights
While a dominant position in research on compliance holds that enforcement is necessary for states to abide by their international commitments, many international organizations (IOs) do not have recourse to such coercive means. This article offers the first systematic analysis of one prominent alternative to material coercion: compliance reporting by IOs. It develops an argument for why reporting by IOs should lead states to correct non-compliant…
Transnational Access to International Organizations 1950–2010: A New Data Set
This article introduces a new data set on the access of transnational actors (TNAs) to international organizations (IOs). While IOs were long the exclusive preserve of member governments, recent decades have witnessed a shift toward more inclusive forms of governance, involving participation by non-governmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, multinational corporations, and other forms of TNAs. Yet existing research has lacked the data …
Are non-democracies taking over? Autocratization and international organization membership
Broad scholarly consensus exists that the third wave of democratization had an important role in the expansion of power and influence of international organizations (IOs). The ongoing decline of democracy worldwide has sparked an extensive debate about the reversal of this development. In this paper, we argue that a systematic understanding of the relationship between changes in regime type and IO membership composition is a prerequisite for the …
The state and the environment: Environmental policy and performance in 37 countries 1970–2010
The limitations and possibilities of the state in solving societal problems are perennial issues in the political and policy sciences and increasingly so in studies of environmental politics. With the aim of better understanding the role of the state in addressing environmental degradation through policy making, this article investigates the nexus between the environmental policy outputs and the environmental performance. Drawing on three theoret…
Effects of Popular Legitimacy on International Organizations: An Elite Survey Experiment
Whether or not popular legitimacy matters for international organizations (IOs) is a topic of extensive assumption but little rigorous research. A key obstacle has been the methodological difficulties of establishing legitimacy’s effect using observational data. This article offers the first experimental study of the effects of popular legitimacy on IOs. Theoretically, we propose that popular legitimacy affects IOs through the mechanism of govern…
Introducing the Sounds of Data to the Study of Politics: A Choir of Global Legitimacy Crises
This article introduces an innovative method to describe data with sounds in political science. The method, known in ecology, physics, and musicology as “sonification,” operates by linking sound signals to quantifiable observations. We us it to compose a choir of legitimacy crises in global governance from 1994 to 2014, and to negotiate a familiar divide in research on how legitimacy should be measured. Scholars predominantly prefer one of two ap…
Is there convergence in convergence research? an overview of empirical studies on policy convergence
In this review, we portray findings and conceptualizations of selected empirical studies on policy convergence and related concepts. The article reveals that there is no homogenous picture of policy convergence: Although frequently observed, empirical studies often disagree as to its extent. The representation of policy fields, geographical regions and periods analysed differ, which makes an overall assessment of policy convergence impossible. Th…
Unterschiedliche Pfade, ein Ziel? — Spezifikationen im Forschungsdesign und Vergleichbarkeit der Ergebnisse bei der Suche nach der Konvergenz nationalstaatlicher Politiken
Die gegenwärtige politikwissenschaftliche Konvergenzforschung beschäftigt sich mit dem Wandel, der Stabilität und der Annäherung nationaler Politiken unter dem Vorzeichen fortschreitender ökonomischer und politischer Globalisierung. Nationalstaatliche Regulierungen nähern sich beispielsweise auf dem kleinsten gemeinsamen Nenner einander an oder überbieten sich gegenseitig in einem Regulierungswettbewerb nach oben; sie gleichen sich in verschieden…
Environmental Policy Convergence: The Impact of International Harmonization, Transnational Communication, and Regulatory Competition
In recent years, there is growing interest in the study of cross-national policy convergence. Yet we still have a limited understanding of the phenomenon: Do we observe convergence of policies at all? Under which conditions can we expect that domestic policies converge or rather develop further apart? In this article, we address this research deficit. From a theoretical perspective, we concentrate on the explanatory power of three factors, namely…
Können Staaten voneinander lernen?: Eine Vergleichende Analyse der Umweltpolitik in 24 Ländern
Race to the Bottom’ or ‘Race to Brussels’? Environmental Competition in Europe: Environmental Competition in Europe
The theory of regulatory competition in environmental policy predicts a ‘race to the bottom’ of standards. This article tests the theory using environmental output data for 24 countries from 1970 to 2005. It finds a clear ‘race to the top’ and a search for international harmonization when competition is imminent
Is there convergence of national environmental policies? An analysis of policy outputs in 24 OECD countries
A central issue of globalisation research is the question whether globalisation leads to the convergence of policies or whether domestic responses to global challenges remain strongly influenced by existing domestic structures. In the field of environmental policy, there is some analysis of the diffusion of policy innovations, but there is a lack of systematic knowledge as to whether this leads to policy convergence at a broad scale. To what exte…
The Opening Up of International Organizations: Transnational Access in Global Governance
Once the exclusive preserve of member states, international organizations have become increasingly open in recent decades. Now virtually all international organizations at some level involve NGOs, business actors and scientific experts in policy-making. This book offers the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of this development. Combining statistical analysis and in-depth case studies, it maps and explains the openness of international o…
Explaining the Transnational Design of International Organizations
Past decades have witnessed a shift in international cooperation toward growing involvement of transnational actors (TNAs), such as nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations, and philanthropic foundations. This article offers a comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of TNA access to IOs. The analysis builds on a novel data set, covering formal TNA access to 298 organizational bodies from fifty IOs over the time period 195…
Democratic memberships in international organizations: Sources of institutional design
Transnational Access to International Organizations 1950–2010: A New Data Set
This article introduces a new data set on the access of transnational actors (TNAs) to international organizations (IOs). While IOs were long the exclusive preserve of member governments, recent decades have witnessed a shift toward more inclusive forms of governance, involving participation by non-governmental organizations, philanthropic foundations, multinational corporations, and other forms of TNAs. Yet existing research has lacked the data …
The performance of international organizations: A Policy Output Approach
Many problems confronting today's societies are transnational in character, leading states to increasingly rely on international organizations (IOs) for policy solutions. Yet, the performance of IOs varies extensively. This contribution suggests that systematic, comparative research is required to advance our understanding of IO performance, and that a policy output approach offers particular advantages for that purpose. This approach privileges …
The environmental state as a model for the world? An analysis of policy repertoires in 37 countries
Scholars have proposed the analytical concept of the environmental state, a state where government actively addresses negative environmental externalities of economic activities. The mapping of environmental regulatory expansion in Western countries has been central in recent attempts to identify the environmental state empirically. Surprisingly little is known, however, when it comes to the environmental regulatory expansions in non-Western coun…
Consequences of Legitimacy in Global Governance: Sources, Processes, and Consequences
This chapter outlines a new research agenda on the consequences of legitimacy for the effectiveness of global governance institutions. The chapter sets the stage for systematic investigation of this issue by disaggregating consequences into empirically observable components and by outlining a research strategy to study these different impacts. Specifically, the chapter highlights four sequential types of consequences, relating to: (a) the resourc…
Shaming by international organizations: Mapping condemnatory speech acts across 27 international organizations, 1980–2015
In the face of escalating conflicts or atrocities, international organizations (IOs), alongside non-governmental organizations (NGOs), often vocalize public condemnation. Researchers have examined NGO shaming, but no extant literature has comparatively explored if, how and why IOs shame. This article fills this gap. We conceptualize IO shaming as condemnatory speech acts and distinguish between the agent, targets and actions of shaming. We theori…
Diffusion Across International Organizations: Connectivity and Convergence
While extensive research shows that policies and institutions spread across states through processes of diffusion, we know little about diffusion among international organizations (IOs). We develop a novel approach for the study of diffusion among IOs. This approach consists of three components: a theoretical focus on connectivity among IOs as pathways for diffusion; a conceptual differentiation between alternative types of convergence effects; a…
Introducing the Sounds of Data to the Study of Politics: A Choir of Global Legitimacy Crises
This article introduces an innovative method to describe data with sounds in political science. The method, known in ecology, physics, and musicology as “sonification,” operates by linking sound signals to quantifiable observations. We us it to compose a choir of legitimacy crises in global governance from 1994 to 2014, and to negotiate a familiar divide in research on how legitimacy should be measured. Scholars predominantly prefer one of two ap…
Why International Organizations Commit to Liberal Norms
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and spread of a broad range of liberal norms in global governance, among them sustainable development, gender equality, and human security. While existing scholarship tells us a lot about the trajectories of particular norms, we know much less about the broader patterns and sources of commitments to liberal norms by international organizations (IOs). This article offers the first comparative large-N ana…
Compliance without coercion: Effects of reporting on international labor rights
While a dominant position in research on compliance holds that enforcement is necessary for states to abide by their international commitments, many international organizations (IOs) do not have recourse to such coercive means. This article offers the first systematic analysis of one prominent alternative to material coercion: compliance reporting by IOs. It develops an argument for why reporting by IOs should lead states to correct non-compliant…
The state and the environment: Environmental policy and performance in 37 countries 1970–2010
The limitations and possibilities of the state in solving societal problems are perennial issues in the political and policy sciences and increasingly so in studies of environmental politics. With the aim of better understanding the role of the state in addressing environmental degradation through policy making, this article investigates the nexus between the environmental policy outputs and the environmental performance. Drawing on three theoret…
When are International Organizations Responsive to Policy Problems
When are international organizations (IOs) responsive to the policy problems that motivated their establishment? While it is a conventional assumption that IOs exist to address transnational challenges, the question of whether and when IO policy-making is responsive to shifts in underlying problems has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the responsiveness of IOs from a large-n, comparative approach. Theoretically, we develo…
Informal governance and transnational access in world politics
The governance turn in political research has led to increased attention to informal institutions. For scholars of international relations this has contributed to recent scholarship that reveals a notable growth in the number of informal intergovernmental organizations (IIGOs). Many aspects of IIGOs remain unknown, including whether they involve transnational actors (TNAs). Yet, whether IIGOs are open to TNAs or not may affect their performance a…
Baudrillard and the Dead Internet Theory. Revisiting Baudrillard’s (dis)trust in Artificial Intelligence
The goal of this paper is to revisit Baudrillard’s take on artificial intelligence and to present a critique of AI (especially considering large language models). Baudrillard expressed his skepticism about AI already in his essay Xerox and Infinity from 1993. To understand Baudrillard’s argumentation, it is necessary to open up his theoretical body of work, starting from Marxist value theory and leading up to his own concept of simulation theory,…
Effects of Popular Legitimacy on International Organizations: An Elite Survey Experiment
Whether or not popular legitimacy matters for international organizations (IOs) is a topic of extensive assumption but little rigorous research. A key obstacle has been the methodological difficulties of establishing legitimacy’s effect using observational data. This article offers the first experimental study of the effects of popular legitimacy on IOs. Theoretically, we propose that popular legitimacy affects IOs through the mechanism of govern…
Are non-democracies taking over? Autocratization and international organization membership
Broad scholarly consensus exists that the third wave of democratization had an important role in the expansion of power and influence of international organizations (IOs). The ongoing decline of democracy worldwide has sparked an extensive debate about the reversal of this development. In this paper, we argue that a systematic understanding of the relationship between changes in regime type and IO membership composition is a prerequisite for the …
Artificial Resonance: AI companions as agents of social acceleration
AI companions are becoming increasingly popular, with millions of users worldwide, especially young adults. Some see the potential to fight the so-called loneliness epidemic; others see the destructive effects of addiction and harmful guidance leading users in extreme cases even to suicide. Recent research has examined AI companions through the lens of AI ethics, addressing questions of emotional dependency, controllability and emotional harm. Wh…
Political science (20 works) · Economics (15 works) · Law (15 works) · Law (12 works) · International Development and Aid (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Corporate governance (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (8 works)