Voting patterns in the United National General Assembly provide an exceptionally good set of evidence for observing issues and alignments of states in international politics. We analyze those patterns in three post-cold war sessions of the General Assembly and compare them with the alignments and issues that characterized sessions during the cold war. We find new groups and alignments (with most of Eastern Europe now voting with rather than against West European positions) and a new prominence of long-term North-South issues as they now relate to questions of redefining “human security” in the post-cold war world. The predominant General Assembly division is between richer and poorer nations. Key correlates of voting with the North are wealth, democracy, and proportionately low levels of trade with the United States.

The theoretical and empirical literature on international alliances has tended to support the realist view that the pursuit or tightening of external alignments stems predominantly from external security threats. Consequently, the role of domestic factors has generally been ignored or downplayed. This article begins with the observation that leaders confronted with external threats make trade-offs between the pursuit of external alignments and the mobilization of domestic resources. It then argues that the choice of strategy depends on a combination of systemic and domestic factors, including the perceived degree of external threat to state security, the perceived degree of domestic instability and threat to the government, and the constraints that derive from the domestic political economy. The analysis of Egypt's alignment behavior during the period from 1962 to 1973 underscores the impact of domestic and economic political constraints on the choice of domestic mobilization or alliance formation and the central role of alliances in providing resources for confronting domestic as well as foreign threats.

In recent decades, countries have experimented with a variety of monetary institutions, including alternative exchange-rate arrangements and different levels of central bank independence. Political economists have analyzed the choice of these institutions, emphasizing their role in resolving both the time-inconsistency problem and dilemmas created by an open economy. This “first-generation” work, however, suffers from a central limitation: it studies exchange-rate regimes and central bank institutions in isolation from one another without investigating how one monetary institution affects the costs and benefits of the other. By contrast, the contributors to this volume analyze the choice of exchange-rate regime and central bank independence together and, in so doing, present a “second generation” of research on the determinants of monetary institutions. The articles incorporate both economic and political factors in explaining the choice of monetary institutions, investigating how political institutions, democratic processes, political party competition, and interest group pressures affect the balance between economic and distributional policy objectives.

National welfare programs are importantly affected by models of welfare activity institutionalized at the global level. This article examines the impact of the welfare regime advocated by and within the International Labor Organization (ILO). Countries that have recently ratified ILO conventions related to welfare show increased growth in spending, net of national characteristics. Subanalyses show that the effects of ILO ratification are strong in the industrialized capitalist democracies, particularly where prior welfare spending is low and the working class has a weakly institutionalized role in policymaking. ILO ratification seems disconnected from spending in the less developed countries. Legislative case studies point to similar patterns. These findings suggest that international norms contribute to policy where they offer compelling models that powerful actors can use to legitimate policy innovation.

In Jerusalem, Ireland, Kosovo, and Kashmir, indivisible territory underlies much of international conflict. I argue whether or not territory appears indivisible depends on how actors legitimate their claims to territory during negotiations. Although actors choose their legitimations strategically, in order to gain a political advantage at the bargaining table, legitimation strategies have unintended structural consequences: by resonating with some actors and not others, legitimations either build ties between coalitions and allow each side to recognize the legitimacy of each other's claims, or else lock actors into bargaining positions where they are unable to recognize the legitimacy of their opponent's demands. When the latter happens, actors come to negotiations with incompatible claims, constructing the territory as indivisible. I apply this legitimation theory to Ulster, arguing this territory's indivisibility was not inevitable, but a product of actors' legitimation strategies as they battled for support over the issue of Ireland's right to self-rule.For comments on this article, I thank Fiona Adamson, Tim Crawford, Consuelo Cruz, Ron Hassner, Jeff Herbst, Robert Jervis, Robert Keohane, Ron Krebs, Paul MacDonald, Daniel Nexon, John Padgett, Dan Reiter, Jack Snyder, Monica Toft, two anonymous reviewers, as well as participants in a seminar at the John M. Olin Institute at Harvard University. In addition, the John M. Olin Institute, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Center for International Studies at Princeton University, and the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California all provided support for this project.

As COVID-19 began to spread around the world, so did reports of discrimination and violence against people from marginalized groups. We argue that in a global politics characterized by racialized inequality, pandemics such as COVID-19 exacerbate the marginalization of already oppressed groups. We review published research on previous pandemics to historicize pandemic othering and blame, and enumerate some of the consequences for politics, policy, and public health. Specifically, we draw on lessons from smallpox outbreaks, the third bubonic plague, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and more recent pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, and Ebola. We also compile reports to document the discrimination and violence targeting marginalized groups early in the COVID-19 pandemic. This article lays bare the continuation of a long history of othering and blame during disease outbreaks and identifies needs for further inquiry to understand the persistence of these pandemic politics.

Nowhere is America's hegemonic decline more evident than in changing trade patterns. The United States trade balance, a measure of the international demand for American goods, is suffering historic deficits. Lowered demand for American goods has led to the under-utilization of both labor and capital in a growing number of traditionally competitive American industries. Conversely, Americans' taste for foreign goods has never been so great. Japanese cars, European steel, Third World textiles, to name a few, are as well produced as their American counterparts and arrive on the U.S. market at a lower cost.

This article analyzes the social potential of regional integration processes by using the example of European integration. Recent case law from the European Court of Justice has led some observers to argue that judicial decisions increasingly provide European politics with a “Polanyian” drive. We test this claim by distinguishing three dimensions to European economic and social integration: market-restricting integration, market-enforcing integration, and the creation of a European area of nondiscrimination. We also identify two forms of integration that have different speeds, scopes, and potentials: political integration and judicial integration. The evidence shows that the EU has come closer to Hayek's vision of “interstate federalism” than is usually warranted because market-enforcing integration and European nondiscrimination policies have asymmetrically profited from “integration through law.” The opportunities for international courts to push ahead market-enforcing integration increase as the participants of regional integration processes become more diverse. In such “Hayekian” constellations, individual rights are increasingly relocated to the central level, at the cost of subordinating the decentralized capacity for solidarity and interpersonal redistribution.

The period from 1914 to 1940 is one of the most crucial and enigmatic in modern world history, and in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy. World War I catapulted the United States into international economic and political leadership, yet in the aftermath of the war, despite grandiose Wilsonian plans, the United States quickly lapsed into relative disregard for events abroad: it did not join the League of Nations, disavowed responsibility for European reconstruction, would not participate openly in many international economic conferences, and restored high levels of tariff protection for the domestic market. Only in the late 1930s and 1940s, after twenty years of bitter battles over foreign policy, did the United States move to center stage of world politics and economics: it built the United Nations and a string of regional alliances, underwrote the rebuilding of Western Europe, almost single-handedly constructed a global monetary and financial system, and led the world in commercial liberalization.

Why do powerful states often channel coercive policies through international organizations (IOs)? The article explains this phenomenon by theorizing the political advantages of working through a neutral institution, defined as one with heterogeneous and representative member preferences. The argument centers on the notion of strategic information transmission. IO involvement sends information about the coercer's intentions and the consequences of the coercive policy to foreign leaders and their publics, information that determines the level of international support offered to the coercing state. The logic helps explain why the United Nations Security Council plays a unique role in approving and disapproving the use of force. A case study of the 1990–91 Gulf War shows how these information transmission mechanisms work in practice and that the rationalist information argument provides more traction than a legitimacy-based alternative explanation.For valuable comments on earlier drafts, I would like to thank Charles Glaser, Peter Gourevitch, Lloyd Gruber, Darren Hawkins, Keith Krehbiel, David Lake, Charles Lipson, Daniel Nielson, Kenneth Schultz, Duncan Snidal, Michael Tierney, Daniel Verdier, Erik Voeten, and Joel Westra, as well as participants in the PIPES workshop at the University of Chicago and the conference on Delegation to International Organizations at the University of California, San Diego. I also thank Lisa Martin and two anonymous reviewers for constructive suggestions. I am grateful to Matthew Scherbarth for research assistance and to the Mershon Center at Ohio State University for financial assistance.

The member states of the European Union (EU) have transferred their sovereignty over trade policymaking to the supranational level. When entering into trade negotiations with third countries, they must first reach a common bargaining position among themselves and later defend that position with a “single voice” at the international table. How do the institutional rules, through which the fifteen different voices are aggregated into a single one, affect international outcomes? Differentiating between a “conservative” and a “reformist” negotiating context, I argue that voting rules and negotiating competence in the EU determine both the probability that the negotiating parties conclude an international agreement and the substantive outcome of the negotiations. The recent EU–U.S. trade negotiations on agriculture, public procurement, and open skies are all evidence that, for a given distribution of preferences, internal EU institutional mechanisms affect the outcomes of international trade agreements.

Recent efforts to explain why some peace agreements last while others fail have focused on the strength of the agreement itself. Maintaining peace, even if both belligerents want peace, can be difficult if there are temptations to defect or there are reasons to fear that one may be played for the sucker. Strong agreements that can increase the costs of defection, enhance monitoring, or reward cooperation help to solve this enforcement dilemma and generally increase the former belligerents' incentives to remain at peace. Although we agree that such carrots and sticks can facilitate cooperation, we argue in this article that such measures will often be inadequate if the belligerents themselves are no longer committed to keeping the peace. If the belligerents believe that a renewed war can lead to better terms, peace will be precarious. We demonstrate that getting (and keeping) the terms right may be more important than any carrots and sticks incorporated into the document to enforce those terms. In particular, we show that “unnatural” ceasefires that come about as a consequence of third-party pressure are significantly more likely to fail. We also show that ceasefires negotiated after wars with consistent battle outcomes are more likely to last than those where the “right” terms of settlement are less apparent.We would like to thank Virginia Page Fortna, Dani Reiter, Nicholas Sambanis, and the anonymous reviewers and editors of International Organization for their many suggestions and insightful comments on previous versions of this article.

Recent research has highlighted combat's positive effects for political behavior, but it is unclear whether they extend to attitudes toward the conflict itself. We exploit the assignment of health rankings determining combat eligibility in the Israel Defense Forces to examine the effect of combat exposure on support for peaceful conflict resolution. Given the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to global affairs, and its apparent intractability, the political consequences of combat become all the more pressing. We find that exposure to combat hardens attitudes toward the rival and reduces support for negotiation and compromise. Importantly, these attitudes translate into voting behavior: combatants are likely to vote for more hawkish parties. These findings call for caution in emphasizing the benign effects of combat and underscore the importance of reintegrating combatants during the transition from conflict to peace.

During the past half-century, states have established a large number of international trade institutions, both multilateral and regional in scope. The existing literature on this topic emphasizes that these agreements are chiefly designed to liberalize and increase the flow of overseas commerce. Yet such institutions have another function that has been largely ignored by researchers, namely, reducing volatility in trade policy and trade flows. Exposure to global markets increases the vulnerability of a country's output to terms of trade shocks. Governments seek to insulate their economies from such instability through membership in international trade institutions, particularly the World Trade Organization (WTO) and preferential trading arrangements (PTAs). We hypothesize that these institutions reduce the volatility of overseas commerce. We further hypothesize that, because market actors prefer price stability, trade institutions increase the volume of foreign commerce by reducing trade variability. This article conducts the first large-scale, multivariate statistical tests of these two hypotheses, using annual data on exports for all pairs of countries from 1951 through 2001. The tests provide strong support for our arguments. PTAs and the WTO regime significantly reduce export volatility. In so doing, these institutions also increase export levels.

Are UN peacekeepers effective in protecting civilians from violence? Existing studies examine this issue at the country level, thereby making it difficult to isolate the effect of peacekeepers and to assess the actual mechanism at work. We provide the first comprehensive evaluation of UN peacekeeping success in protecting civilians at the subnational level. We argue that peacekeepers through their sizable local presence can increase the political and military costs for warring actors to engage in civilian targeting. Since peacekeepers’ access to civilian populations rests on government consent, peacekeepers will primarily be effective in imposing these costs on rebel groups, but less so for government actors. To test these conjectures we combine new monthly data on the location of peacekeepers with data on the location and timing of civilian killings in Africa. Our findings suggest that local peacekeeping presence enhances the effectiveness of civilian protection against rebel abuse, but that UN peacekeeping struggles to protect civilians from government forces.

This article attempts to build a bridge between the study of international organizations and the sociology of organizations. Comparisons between functionalism in the two fields are found to be especially important in understanding different treatments of international organizations. We suggest that a number of concepts from the sociology of organizations can be effectively used to illuminate issues in international organizations. We focus on organizational performance and its determinants in environment, technology, goals, and structure. The authors' current work in international population planning and social forestry shows how the sociological concepts can offer useful perspectives and hypotheses for the study of international organizations.

The global financial crisis that erupted in summer 2007 has made the reform of international prudential financial regulation one of the top priorities of global public policy. Past scholarship has usefully explained the creation and strengthening of international financial standards with reference to three policy arenas: interstate, domestic, and transnational. Despite the accomplishments of this specialist literature, the recent crisis has revealed a number of limitations in the ways scholars have understood interstate power relations, the influence of domestic politics, and the significance of transnational actors within international financial regulatory politics. Taken together, developments in each of these three arenas suggest that researchers may also need to be prepared to shift from explaining the strengthening of official international standards to analyzing their weakening in the postcrisis world. The latter task will require scholars to devote more analytical attention to a wider set of international regulatory outcomes, including “informal regulatory convergence,” “regulatory fragmentation,” and especially “cooperative regulatory decentralization.”

The importance of sovereign bond ratings has grown recently as assessments by credit rating agencies (CRAs) influence the cost of capital. Understanding how CRAs determine country ratings is difficult based on the secretive nature of these agencies. Controlling for the common explanations in the literature, we use panel data and interviews to investigate the role of the “democratic advantage” and other determinants on bond ratings set by Moody's Investor Services, Standard and Poor's, and Fitch Ratings for fifty developing countries from 1987 to 2003. We find that regime type and most other political factors have little effect on bond raters. Instead, trade, inflation, growth, and bond default strongly affect sovereign ratings. The message for policymakers in developing countries is that factors that support bond repayment are most useful for enhancing CRA ratings.The authors' names are listed alphabetically to indicate equal contribution. For comments on previous versions of this article, we are grateful to Matthias Kaelberer, Sebastian Saiegh, Tim Sinclair, Mike Tomz, Paul Vaaler, Jeff Wooldridge, as well as panelists and participants of the ISA 2006. We thank Nate Jensen, Layna Mosley, and Andy Sobel for helping us make contacts with bond raters. We also thank Tai Scelfo for her research assistance. We greatly acknowledge the generosity of the bond raters for giving us insights on the ratings process. Portions of this research were supported by a 2005 Small Grant by the American Political Science Association.

How do rising levels of international interconnectedness affect social, economic, and political conditions for women? Research on gender and international relations frequently offers clear propositions but seldom submits them to broad, quantitative testing. This article begins to fill that gap. We advance the hypothesis that, on balance and over time, increasing cross-national exchange and communication lead to improvements in women's status and equality. Economic aspects of globalization can bring new opportunities and resources to women. But equally important, globalization promotes the diffusion of ideas and norms of equality for women. In an analysis of 180 countries from 1975 to 2000, employing cross-sectional–time-series regression techniques, we examine the impact of several measures of globalization on women's levels of life expectancy, literacy, and participation in the economy and parliamentary office. International trade, foreign direct investment, membership in the United Nations (UN) and World Bank, and ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), are associated with improved conditions for women.A grant from the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Irvine, supported this research. The authors are grateful for constructive comments from participants in the faculty research colloquium of the Department of Political Science at Brigham Young University. The authors also received helpful suggestions from their fellow panelists at the 2004 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association and from the editor of IO, Lisa Martin, and two anonymous reviewers.