Tobias Böhmelt
Biographic Data
| ID | 310081 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tobias Böhmelt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tobias |
| FAMILY NAME | Böhmelt |
| SIGNATURE | BÖHMELT T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Essex |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7661-8670 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 104 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1151 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 104 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 19 |
Protest and opposition parties’ election strategies
Intra-government democracy and policy responsiveness to public opinion
Does the internal organization of governmental parties influence their ability to respond to shifts in public opinion? We argue that intra-government democracy , defined as the average internal democracy of governmental parties, explains variation in responsiveness. Intra-government democracy has positive features such as promoting internal deliberation and it encourages attention to core supporters’ preferences. However, deliberation limits poli…
Dynamic environmental agreements and lower income countries
How do lower income countries (LICs) shape multilateral environmental agreements’ (MEAs) dynamism, i.e., the introduction of new legal commitments into treaty frameworks? I argue that LICs often have incentives to pursue treaty amendments that strengthen environmental commitments. However, when LICs are more deeply integrated into global trade and reliant on environmentally intensive exports, structural constraints may discourage support for MEA …
Can Democracy Protect Lower-Income Countries From Becoming Pollution Havens
Lower-income countries absorb a substantial part of other countries’ consumption-related environmental footprints, with international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) serving as the conduit for this environmental “insourcing.” We examine whether democratic institutions could help mitigate the risk of lower-income countries becoming pollution havens in this context. Using data on CO 2 emissions for all non-OECD countries in 1990–2019, we …
Do welfare states have lower carbon emissions? The importance of state capacity in lower-income countries
Do societies with more extensive welfare states also perform better environmentally? Surprisingly, the empirical evidence for this relationship remains inconclusive. We focus on CO 2 emissions in lower-income countries and argue that considering state capacity as a moderator helps achieving greater theoretical and empirical clarity in understanding when the welfare state – climate change mitigation relationship. We hypothesize that lower-income s…
Coercive engineered migrations and environmental stress
Countries can deliberately create, manipulate and exploit cross-border population movements to induce concessions from a target. Such ‘coercive engineered migrations’ are more likely to be successful when targeting domestically unstable states. I argue that environmental stress can add to this instability and ‘swamp’ a target’s ability to cope with cross-border population movements. Ultimately, the chances of migration-driven coercion to be succe…
How Peace Treaties Can Influence Countries’ Climate Policies
Peace agreements increasingly contain environmental provisions, yet we know little about the impact these clauses might have. This study is the first to systematically assess whether and how environmental terms in peace treaties can influence states’ climate policies. I argue that peace accords help establish the foundations for legalization and the rule of law in post-conflict societies, which facilitates that environmental terms lead to actual …
New evidence reveals curvilinear relationship between levels of democracy and deforestation
Deforestation is highly damaging to the global climate system and biodiversity. It varies strongly across countries and time, and is driven by several idiosyncratic as well as structural factors. Political regime types belong to the latter. Some studies suggest that more democratic countries are associated with lower rates of deforestation, whereas others report that such states might well be related to more clearing of forested land. We contribu…
Anti-immigration party success abroad and voter polarization at home
If anti-immigration parties perform well in national elections, the media also in other countries will cover their success. This initiates a process of cross-national influence, which we argue polarizes public opinion abroad. This article examines the case of migration attitudes and how they are shaped by national election outcomes in other countries. We analyze data from the European Social Survey (ESS), and individual-level data from the Austri…
The Importance of Un Peacekeeping Mission Orientation and Personnel for Environmental Protection
UN peacekeeping is increasingly linked to social and economic outcomes other than the provision of security or peace. Peacekeepers can also be associated with improvements in environmental protection. The research discussed here advances theoretical arguments on peacekeepers’ orientation and personnel composition to shed light on the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between peacekeepers and the environment. Through mandates or direct act…
Policy issue salience and legislative output of populist governments: Evidence From Immigration Policies
Research on political representation suggests that legislative activity is influenced by governing parties' policy emphases in their election campaigns. We argue that populist governments are an exception as they may find it difficult to draft and implement laws on an issue even if it is salient to them. The anti-elitism, people-centrism, and Manichean-discourse nature of populist party platforms significantly alters their ability to legislate on…
Supporting environmental protection in good and bad economic circumstances
This article explores the scope conditions of the effect of individual political orientation on environmental beliefs, focusing on personal economic circumstances. Distinguishing between willingness and opportunity factors, it is argued that the positive effect of left-wing ideology on public support for environmental protection is more strongly pronounced when individuals’ personal economic circumstances are better as potentially more costly reg…
The transnational influence of natural disasters on environmental attitudes
Natural disasters can affect individuals’ views about the environment, especially when these events are extreme and experienced by people directly (locally). In one of the first comprehensive and systematic attempts, we explore whether a similar relationship exists transnationally – a cross‐border effect stemming from environmental disasters abroad on public opinion ‘at home’. Spatial analyses present robust evidence that people's environmental s…
How Mechanization Shapes Coups
Civil-military relations are characterized by a fundamental dilemma. To lower coup risk, leaders frequently empower the military, which satisfies the armed forces with the status quo and enables them to fight against threats challenging the civilian leadership. Simultaneously, a too powerful military itself constitutes a potential threat that is capable of overthrowing the government. Our research adds to this debate by examining the impact of me…
Why populism may facilitate non-state actors' access to international environmental institutions
This article examines populists’ relationship with non-state actors in international environmental agreements (IEAs). We ask whether populist governments favor transnational non-state actors’ access to these institutions. Using data on the design of IEAs since the 1970s, evidence is reported suggesting that populists seek to institutionalize non-state actors’ access to IEAs. To explain this relationship, we argue that populist governments likely …
The security implications of transnational population movements: A meta-analysis
Are migrants and refugees systematically linked to insecurity? This article, for the first time, takes stock of the interdisciplinary quantitative research on this question using meta-analysis. We compiled a unique dataset comprising more than 70 published studies across a variety of spatial and temporal scales covering 1951–2016. We show that an overall effect linking foreign-born populations to insecurity may exist, but there is little evidence…
Environmental-agreement design and political ideology in democracies
Does the political ideology of negotiating parties influence the design of international environmental agreements? This article distinguishes between leftist and rightist executives in democracies to develop a twofold argument. First, left-leaning democratic governments tend to be generally more environmental-friendly, which implies that they should favor designs that are more conducive to effective institutions. Second, leftist democratic execut…
Carbon Emission Performance and Regime Type: The Role of Inequality
Existing results about the impact of regime type on states’ environmental performance are inconclusive. This could stem from failure to allow for economic inequality—a largely overlooked factor. More equal democratic societies, we contend, are likely to make greater progress in dealing with environmental problems. However, inequality undermines those processes and characteristics of democratic polities that are supposed to further environmental p…
Attitudes Toward Migration and Associational Activity: Evidence From Germany
We explore how associational activity—a key aspect of social capital—affects migration attitudes. It is argued that people’s membership in sports clubs and associations likely leads to more negative views on migration. Exploiting the panel structure of the German Longitudinal Election Data, the empirical analysis provides support for our expectations. We also show that individuals’ political orientation moderates the postulated effect. The findin…
New deals ‘The Second After Leaving?’ IO withdrawal and bilateral trade agreements
The Brexit campaign was based on the idea that newly gained British sovereignty and flexibility in global trade governance would facilitate the quick negotiation of preferential trade agreements. We explore how long it may take for a state to negotiate bilateral preferential trade agreements to offset potential losses from International Organizations withdrawals. We address the question of ‘timing’, and discuss several mechanisms that delay or sp…
Climate events and the role of adaptive capacity for (im-)mobility
The study examines the relationship between sudden- and gradual-onset climate events and migration, hypothesizing that this relationship is mediated by the adaptive capacity of affected individuals. We use survey data from regions of Cambodia, Nicaragua, Peru, Uganda, and Vietnam that were affected by both types of events with representative samples of non-migrant residents and referral samples of migrants. Although some patterns are country-spec…
How party platforms on immigration become policy
We focus on one of the most salient policy issues of our time, immigration, and evaluate whether the salience of immigration in governing parties’ manifestos translates into actual legislative activity on immigration. We contend that democratic policymakers have genuine incentives to do so. Furthermore, we argue that the country context matters for pledge fulfillment, and we find that the migration salience of governing parties’ manifestos more s…
Populism and intra‐party democracy
This article examines how populism is linked to party organization and, specifically, intra‐party democracy. Populism can be defined as an ideology (ideational perspective), which is characterized by anti‐elitism, people‐centrism and a discourse emphasizing a moral struggle between ‘good people’ and ‘the elite’. On the other hand, there are leadership‐focused definitions which see populism as a form of organization with personalistic control (a l…
Imprisonment and Terrorism
While policymakers frequently praise the impact of law enforcement for addressing the threat of terrorism, several cases suggest that the imprisonment of terrorists and potential perpetrators may actually lead to (more) radicalization and, ultimately, a higher risk of terrorism. We take systematic stock of the arguments linking terrorism with incarceration and analyze newly collected data on worldwide prison populations. The results from quantita…
Democratic Third Parties, Conflict Intensity, and International Mediation Tracking
Two well-established principles in the field of mediation are: conflicts that are especially difficult to resolve tend to attract international mediation and, secondly, democracies are more likely to mediate than other third parties. However, I argue that in the case of disputes that are both highly intense and involve third-party democracies, the joint effect is a lower probability of mediation. Mediation is not costless for third parties and do…
Coup-Proofing and Military Effectiveness in Interstate Wars, 1967–99
This study examines the influence of civil–military relations on military effectiveness. More specifically, we investigate how coup-proofing, that is, the strategies and tactics employed to prevent the military from seizing power, affects battlefield performance. The main argument claims that coup-proofing has a negative impact on soldiers’ leadership qualities, initiative, and the ability to coordinate different military units. Ultimately, the h…
Party Policy Diffusion
Do parties learn from or emulate parties in other political systems? This research develops the argument that parties are more likely to employ the heuristic of learning from and emulatingforeign successful (incumbent) parties. Spatial-econometric analyses of parties' election policies from several established democracies robustly confirm that political parties respond to left-right policy positions of foreign political parties that have recently…
Does Immigration Induce Terrorism
There is a heated debate on whether immigration is associated with domestic and transnational terrorism. As of yet, however, we lacked rigorous evidence that could inform this debate. As a contribution to address this shortcoming, we report spatial-econometric analyses of migrant inflows and the number of terrorist attacks in 145 countries between 1970 and 2000. The results suggest that migrants stemming from terrorist-prone states moving to anot…
Can Terrorism Abroad Influence Migration Attitudes at Home
This article demonstrates that public opinion on migration “at home” is systematically driven by terrorism in other countries. Although there is little substantive evidence linking refugees or migrants to most recent terror attacks in Europe, news about terrorist attacks can trigger more negative views of immigrants. However, the spatial dynamics of this process are neglected in existing research. We argue that feelings of imminent danger and a m…
The Impact of Institutional Coup-Proofing on Coup Attempts and Coup Outcomes
Coup-proofing pertains to political leaders’ strategies that will prevent groups inside or outside the state apparatus from seizing power via a coup d’état. One particular form of these strategies divides a country’s military into rivaling organizations, thereby creating an artificial balance between and structural obstacles for the armed forces. Despite the general claim that this institutional coup-proofing is indeed effective, a recent empiric…
Do Democracies Engage Less in Coup-Proofing? On the Relationship between Regime Type and Civil-Military Relations 1: Regime Type and Coup-Proofing
The existing literature on military effectiveness established the robust claim that democracies are more successful and effective in winning interstate wars. One mechanism that explains this relationship heavily draws upon the underlying effect of regime type on civil-military relations. Still, this relationship has not yet been explored systematically, and rigorous empirical research on this issue remains surprisingly scarce. In order to address…
Is There a Democracy–Civil Society Paradox in Global Environmental Governance
Civil society is commonly assumed to have a positive effect on international cooperation. This paper sheds light on one important facet of this assumption: we examine the impact of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on ratification behavior of countries vis-à-vis international environmental agreements (IEAs). The main argument of the paper focuses on a “democracy-civil society paradox”: although ENGOs have a positive effect on r…
Auxiliary Force Structure: Paramilitary Forces and Progovernment Militias
Governments often supplement the regular military with paramilitaries and progovernment militias (PGMs). However, it is unclear what determines states’ selection of these auxiliary forces, and our understanding of how auxiliary force structures develop remains limited. The crucial difference between the two auxiliary types is their embeddedness in official structures. Paramilitaries are organized under the government to support/replace the regula…
Blame the victims? Refugees, state capacity, and non-state actor violence
Existing research argues that refugee inflows may increase the risk of domestic conflict, particularly civil war that, by definition, involves the state as an actor. However, many of the postulated mechanisms linking refugees to a higher risk of such conflict pertain to tensions with locals, which do not necessarily involve any grievances against government authorities. We contend that it is more likely to identify an association between refugees…
Democratic inclusiveness, climate policy outputs, and climate policy outcomes
In an ideal inclusive political system, all citizens are equally able to influence and challenge policies. We focus on how inclusiveness affects climate policies and outcomes. We argue that more inclusive systems should produce more policies in response to environmental threats and should have better outcomes. We test these hypotheses using panel and cross-sectional data relating to climate policy outputs and outcomes. The results suggest that in…
Do natural resources matter for interstate and intrastate armed conflict
This article reviews the existing theoretical arguments and empirical findings linking renewable and non-renewable natural resources to the onset, intensity, and duration of intrastate as well as interstate armed conflict. Renewable resources are supposedly connected to conflict via scarcity, while non-renewable resources are hypothesized to lead to conflict via resource abundance. Based upon our analysis of these two streams in the literature, i…
National climate policies in international comparison: The Climate Change Cooperation Index
Populism and Environmental Performance
This article examines the impact of populism on environmental politics, focusing on countries’ outcome-level performance. I develop the argument that populist leadership likely undermines environmental quality. First, populist leaders tend to reject and refrain from implementing “green” policies, as these are usually promoted by “corrupt elites.” Second, populism erodes democratic institutions, thus offsetting a series of mechanisms that are rela…
Pitfalls of Professionalism? Military Academies and Coup Risk
Military academies tend to be strongly linked to the professionalization of the armed forces. This explains why many countries in the world have created such institutions. The following article studies a potential negative externality stemming from military schools: increased coup risk. We argue that military academies may create, inculcate, and strengthen cohesive views that could conflict with incumbent policies, and that these schools establis…
Civil society participation in global governance: Insights from climate politics
A rather unique feature of global climate negotiations is that most governments allow representatives of civil society organisations to be part of their national delegation. It remains unclear, however, why states grant such access in the first place. While there are likely to be benefits from formally including civil society, there are also substantial costs stemming from constraints on sovereignty. In light of this tradeoff, this article argues…
The impact of child soldiers on rebel groups’ fighting capacities
Several rebel groups actively recruit children to serve among their ranks. While this constitutes one of the most egregious violations of children’s rights, it remains unclear what impact recruited children have on the fighting capacities of these armed groups. The existing research suggests that, on the one hand, armed groups drafting children might also be militarily effective, since it is cheaper to provide for children, they are more obedient…
Do Terrorists Get the Attention They Want
Terrorists aim at influencing audiences beyond their immediate victims, but can only achieve this if an attack receives sufficient public attention. Previous research shows that terrorism can affect public opinion, but these studies are mainly based on emblematic single cases and relate to varying measures of influence, which are difficult to compare. This research focuses on the first-order effect of terrorism: attention. To analyze whether terr…
The role of environmental perceptions in migration decision-making: Evidence from both migrants and non-migrants in five developing countries
Could rebel child soldiers prolong civil wars
While we know why rebels may recruit children for their cause, our understanding of the consequences of child soldiering by non-state armed groups remains limited. The following research contributes to addressing this by examining how rebels’ child recruitment practice affects the duration of internal armed conflicts. We advance the argument that child soldiering increases the strength of rebel organizations vis-a-vis the government. This, in tur…
Demand, supply, and restraint: Determinants of domestic water conflict and cooperation
This article focuses on one of the most likely empirical manifestations of the “environment-conflict” claim by examining how demand for and supply of water may lead to domestic water conflict. It also studies what factors may reduce the risk of conflict and, hence, induce cooperation. To this end, the article advances several theory-based arguments about the determinants of water conflict and cooperation, and then analyzes time-series cross-secti…
The Determinants of Environmental Migrants' Conflict Perception
Migration is likely to be a key factor linking climate change and conflict. However, our understanding of the factors behind and consequences of migration is surprisingly limited. We take this shortcoming as a motivation for our research and study the relationship between environmental migration and conflict at the micro level. In particular, we focus on environmental migrants' conflictperceptions. We contend that variation in migrants' conflict …
Child soldiers as time bombs? Adolescents’ participation in rebel groups and the recurrence of armed conflict
The existent work on child soldiering began only recently to systematically study its consequences, both theoretically and empirically. The following article seeks to contribute to this by examining the impact of rebels’ child soldier recruitment practices during war on the risk of armed conflict recurrence in post-conflict societies. We argue that child soldiering in a previous dispute may increase both the willingness and opportunity to resume …
Terrorism abroad and migration policies at home
Do security concerns lead to more restrictive immigration policies? In this article, we contend that transnational influences can shape legislative output on immigration at home. Terrorist attacks in a neighboring country affect the salience of security concerns in the focal state, the policy solutions for addressing them, and the political will to implement these changes. In proximity of countries targeted by terrorism, politicians have specific…
Authoritarian regimes and civil–military relations: Explaining counterbalancing in autocracies
How do autocracies structure their civil–military relations? We contend that personalist dictators are more strongly associated with counterbalancing than other authoritarian regime types. Personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler. They thus have strong incentives to coup-proof and, as we contend, counterbalancing seems particularly attractive. Quant…
Disaggregating Mediations: The Impact of Multiparty Mediation
This article disaggregates coalitions of third-party mediators and examines their effectiveness in interventions. First, it is argued that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the size of a mediating coalition and mediation effectiveness. Secondly, mediators sharing a history of conflict and distrust will transfer their past relationships to a mediation attempt, making it less effective. Consequently, states sharing friendly and co-…
International Mediation and Social Networks: The Importance of Indirect Ties
This study extends the previous literature on actors' incentives in conflict management by examining how direct and indirect links between fighting parties influence the prospects for mediation onset from a social network perspective. The paper argues, contrary to existing research, that direct links, i.e., bilateral ties between warring parties, do not notably increase the likelihood of mediation. Rather, indirect links, i.e., ties that connect …
The Impact of Trade on International Mediation
If trade affects the costs of conflict, does it also influence the likelihood of mediation attempts? This article argues that dense bilateral trade between antagonists yields high opportunity costs since it is expensive to seek alternative markets and the belligerents will be highly vulnerable to sanctions from their counterpart. This creates incentives for combatants to limit hostility and settle conflicts through mediation. By contrast, the ext…
International Environmental Regimes: Legalisation, Flexibility and Effectiveness
In one of the first quantitative designs, we explore the impact of both legalisation and flexibility on regime effectiveness, using data on international environmental institutions. One of the main implications is that 'precision' is an important determinant of regime performance. If the rule and norm system is well defined, well understood and clear, then a regime tends to be more effective in addressing an environmental problem. We do not find …
The effectiveness of tracks of diplomacy strategies in third-party interventions
International mediation is not conducted solely by official actors such as states or international organizations. Non-official parties such as individuals and non-governmental organizations increasingly intervene as third-party mediators in conflicts. Both official and unofficial interventions are conceptualized as tracks of diplomacy (ToDs). Even though there is a vast quantitative literature on international mediation, most studies focusing on …
International Mediation Interaction: Synergy, Conflict, Effectiveness
Among other influences, a specific set of factors, which are related to the belligerents, any third parties that intervene, or both of them, determine whether a conflict is likely to see mediation efforts in the first place and ultimately the prospects for successful mediation outcomes. However, although there is an extensive body of literature, previous research has rarely addressed the interaction between these actors in conflict and mediation …
Coup-Proofing and Military Effectiveness in Interstate Wars, 1967–99
This study examines the influence of civil–military relations on military effectiveness. More specifically, we investigate how coup-proofing, that is, the strategies and tactics employed to prevent the military from seizing power, affects battlefield performance. The main argument claims that coup-proofing has a negative impact on soldiers’ leadership qualities, initiative, and the ability to coordinate different military units. Ultimately, the h…
Disaggregating Mediations: The Impact of Multiparty Mediation
This article disaggregates coalitions of third-party mediators and examines their effectiveness in interventions. First, it is argued that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the size of a mediating coalition and mediation effectiveness. Secondly, mediators sharing a history of conflict and distrust will transfer their past relationships to a mediation attempt, making it less effective. Consequently, states sharing friendly and co-…
Environmental changes and violent conflict
This letter reviews the scientific literature on whether and how environmental changes affect the risk of violent conflict. The available evidence from qualitative case studies indicates that environmental stress can contribute to violent conflict in some specific cases. Results from quantitative large-N studies, however, strongly suggest that we should be careful in drawing general conclusions. Those large-N studies that we regard as the most so…
Do Democracies Engage Less in Coup-Proofing? On the Relationship between Regime Type and Civil-Military Relations 1: Regime Type and Coup-Proofing
The existing literature on military effectiveness established the robust claim that democracies are more successful and effective in winning interstate wars. One mechanism that explains this relationship heavily draws upon the underlying effect of regime type on civil-military relations. Still, this relationship has not yet been explored systematically, and rigorous empirical research on this issue remains surprisingly scarce. In order to address…
The impact of environmental interest groups in international negotiations: Do Engos induce stronger environmental commitments
Is There a Democracy–Civil Society Paradox in Global Environmental Governance
Civil society is commonly assumed to have a positive effect on international cooperation. This paper sheds light on one important facet of this assumption: we examine the impact of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on ratification behavior of countries vis-à-vis international environmental agreements (IEAs). The main argument of the paper focuses on a “democracy-civil society paradox”: although ENGOs have a positive effect on r…
National climate policies in international comparison: The Climate Change Cooperation Index
Water-Related Intrastate Conflict and Cooperation (Waricc): A New Event Dataset
Water scarcity is widely regarded as a key factor linking climate variability and change with conflict. However, existing research on the water-conflict nexus is hampered by poor data that inhibits drawing firm conclusions on the role of water in shaping societal stability and security. This article reports on the construction of a new dataset on subnational and georeferenced events over domestic water-related cooperation and conflict for 35 coun…
Why many cooks if they can spoil the broth? The determinants of multiparty mediation
Which factors drive the onset of multiparty mediation? Despite numerous studies explaining the onset of international mediation in conflicts, the literature offers little insight into when we are likely to see 'multiparty mediation', that is, mediation attempts that are conducted by a coalition of interveners. The latter are different from those interventions that only see one mediator, however: mediators forming a coalition are likely to be cons…
Information flows and social capital through linkages: The effectiveness of the CLRTAP network
Political Leadership Changes and the Withdrawal from Military Coalition Operations, 1946-2001
Several studies have claimed that changes in the political leadership of a country affect foreign policy decision making. The following paper systematically tests this in the context of states’ participation in military coalition operations. By building on previous theoretical models, the authors argue that new leaders may differ from their predecessors in that the former (i) have dissimilar preferences with regard to the involvement in military …
Demand, supply, and restraint: Determinants of domestic water conflict and cooperation
This article focuses on one of the most likely empirical manifestations of the “environment-conflict” claim by examining how demand for and supply of water may lead to domestic water conflict. It also studies what factors may reduce the risk of conflict and, hence, induce cooperation. To this end, the article advances several theory-based arguments about the determinants of water conflict and cooperation, and then analyzes time-series cross-secti…
Environmental Interest Groups and Authoritarian Regime Diversity
The literature increasingly disaggregates political systems for examining the differences in international policies and domestic decision-making according to diverse regime typologies. The following research adds to this literature by studying the impact of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on the likelihood of ratifying international environmental agreements in different types of autocratic regimes. Building on a theory that f…
Failing to succeed? The cumulative impact of international mediation revisited
Previous studies argue that the cumulation of mediations generally decreases uncertainty and ultimately helps to solve a conflict peacefully. Yet the empirical evidence for this is inconclusive, suggesting that existent theoretical accounts might be incomplete. For addressing this shortcoming, the paper develops an argument for a curvilinear relationship between the cumulation of mediations and mediation effectiveness. Based upon this rationale, …
The temporal dimension of the credibility of EU conditionality and candidate states’ compliance with the acquis communautaire, 1998–2009
Existing research seems to agree that European Union (EU) accession conditionality facilitated processes of political and economic transformation for the recent enlargement rounds. However, despite its importance, systematic research beyond small- N qualitative studies that produces generalizable insights is scarce. Most strikingly, it remains unclear at which stage of the enlargement process and to what extent candidate countries complied with E…
One effect to rule them all? A comment on climate and conflict
A recent Climatic Change review article reports a remarkable convergence of scientific evidence for a link between climatic events and violent intergroup conflict, thus departing markedly from other contemporary assessments of the empirical literature. This commentary revisits the review in order to understand the discrepancy. We believe the origins of the disagreement can be traced back to the review article’s underlying quantitative meta-analys…
Forecasting military expenditure
To what extent do frequently cited determinants of military spending allow us to predict and forecast future levels of expenditure? The authors draw on the data and specifications of a recent model on military expenditure and assess the predictive power of its variables using in-sample predictions, out-of-sample forecasts and Bayesian model averaging. To this end, this paper provides guidelines for prediction exercises in general using these thre…
Predicting the duration of the Syrian insurgency
While there were several relatively short uprisings in Northern Africa and the Middle East during the Arab Spring, the dispute between the rebels and government forces in Syria has evolved into a full-scale civil war. We try to predict the length of the Syrian insurgency with a three-stage technique. Using out-of-sample techniques, we first assess the predictive capacity of 69 explanatory variables for insurgency duration. After determining the m…
The interaction of international institutions from a social network perspective
Basins at Risk: Predicting International River Basin Conflict and Cooperation
Growing demands for water combined with supply constraints may lead to an increased potential for international water conflicts, because many of the world’s freshwater systems cut across national boundaries. Which international river basins are likely to experience greater conflict risks or more cooperation? What factors increase or decrease conflict risk (cooperation)? We use prediction and forecasting approaches to address these questions and c…
Political science (91 works) · Law (73 works) · Economics (65 works) · Law (59 works) · Politics (57 works) · Political economy (43 works) · Sociology (42 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (39 works) · Psychology (35 works) · Democracy (21 works)