R-3 Repository :: Browsing by Author "Leeds, Brett Ashley"

Browsing by Author "Leeds, Brett Ashley"

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Alliance Choices and Their Effects on Interstate Disputes: adopting a new methodological approach to address endogenous treatment and sample selection bias
(2018-11-30) Wu, Ahra; Leeds, Brett Ashley
Do different types of military alliance commitments have different impacts on interstate disputes? In this dissertation, I test the effects of different alliance commitments on interstate disputes, focusing on comparing the effects of having a defense pact and those of having a consultation pact. Another contribution of this dissertation is to address two methodological issues relevant to the research question, endogenous treatment and sample selection bias. Knowing that states choose alliance commitments in the prospect of interstate disputes, one should consider the alliance choices as a treatment variable that cannot be randomly assigned. Furthermore, in studying the latter phases of interstate disputes, the sample of the subsequent decisions is not representative of the entire population unless interstate disputes randomly occur, which is hardly justifiable in the International Relations literature. The three main chapters of this dissertation can be best described as a demonstration of my learning process. Each chapter shares the same agenda described above but tackles different sets of the problems. Chapter 2 examines the effects of a consultation pact and those of a defense pact on the other states' decision to attack an alliance member, the alliance member's decision to attack others, and the alliance member's decision to respond militarily when attacked. However, this chapter does not address any of the two methodological challenges described above. Chapter 3 examines the effect of a defense pact on the first and the third decision using a switching probit model, addressing endogenous treatment issue. Chapter 4 addresses all of the research agenda mentioned above, except examining the second foreign policy decision. I develop a Bayesian multiple equation model specifically tailored to testing the effects of military alliances and use the model to study the effects of alliance choices on interstate disputes. In conclusion, by adopting several different approaches to the same research question, I find that a defense pact is negatively associated with the probability of being a target of interstate disputes. On the other hand, it is not very clear how other alliance commitments are related to interstate dispute initiation and escalation.
Careful Commitments: Democratic States and Alliance Design
(University of Chicago Press, 2015) Chiba, Daina; Johnson, Jesse C.; Leeds, Brett Ashley
Evidence suggests that leaders of democratic states experience high costs from violating past commitments. We argue that because democratic leaders foresee the costs of violation, they are careful to design agreements they expect to have a high probability of fulfilling. This may cause democratic leaders to prefer flexible or limited commitments. We evaluate our argument by analyzing the design of alliance treaties signed by countries of the world between 1815 and 2003. We find that alliances formed among democratic states are more likely to include obligations for future consultation rather than precommitting leaders to active conflict, and defense pacts formed among democratic states are more likely to specify limits to the conditions under which member states must join their partners in conflict. This research suggests that separating screening effects and constraining effects of international agreements is even more difficult than previously believed. States with the greatest likelihood of being constrained are more carefully screened.
Designed to Favor: The Effects of Appointing Ad Hoc Judges in International Courts
(2023-04-07) Pugh, Alex; Leeds, Brett Ashley
How does the institutional design of international courts, specifically the allowance of ad hoc judges, impact the outputs of courts? Ad hoc judges are appointed by a state for a case if the state does not have a judge of its nationality on the court and are one institutional solution to address concerns about impartiality. This dissertation is composed of three papers that explore the effects of appointing ad hoc judges on three outputs of international courts: judicial voting, judicial opinions, and the overall legitimacy of the court. In the first two papers, I argue that while nationality may be one important factor driving the apparent partiality of judges, the selection process of international judges influences their behavior. The first paper looks at partiality in voting, and I find evidence that ad hoc judges, both national and non-national, are more likely to be partial in their voting decisions than national member judges. In the second paper, I suggest that, given their appointment by a state in the case, ad hoc judges will use their dissenting opinions to defend the interests of their appointing state. Analysis of the texts suggests national attachments to a state in the case and not the means of judicial selection drive differences in the content of judicial opinions. The third paper evaluates whether allowing ad hoc judges poses a legitimacy trade-off for international courts: their presence may provide legitimacy benefits through representation, but their voting behavior may diminish judicial consensus and, thus the authority of rulings. Using two survey experiments conducted in Guatemala, I find evidence that suggests ad hoc judges do not pose a legitimacy trade-off: There are no significant legitimacy costs to reducing judicial consensus, and only national representation confers any legitimacy benefits. Together, these papers contribute to our understanding of the consequences of judicial selection on the functioning of international courts and comprise policy implications for legal practitioners.
Domestic Politics, NGO Activism, and Global Cooperation
(2020-04-13) Edry, Jessica; Leeds, Brett Ashley
Can international institutions affect state behavior, and if so, how? This question has motivated decades of research that has substantially deepened our understanding of how international processes affect states. This dissertation contributes to this body of research by focusing on global cooperation in environmental politics and human rights. This type of cooperation poses complex challenges because negotiators face incentives to water down treaty commitments in order to enhance participation and strategies for enforcing obligations are limited. I argue that the ability of these institutions to affect state behavior by encouraging domestic pressure for fulfillment of states' international commitments makes certain types of institutions more likely to deliver intended effects on state behavior. I also suggest, however, that this mechanism may be in danger because of growing restrictions on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) whose work is critical to the mobilization process. Therefore, this dissertation contributes new insight into the link between international institutions, domestic political dynamics, and state behavior, and offers policy recommendations for enhancing the impact of such institutions.
Essays on Durations of War and Postwar Peace
(2012-09-05) Chiba, Daina; Leeds, Brett Ashley; Reed, William L.; Fang, Songying; Morgan, T. Clifton; Boylan, Richard T.
This dissertation consists of three self-contained essays that investigate the duration of war and the duration of postwar peace. The first essay studies both durations jointly, with a particular focus on the interdependence between the two processes. It demonstrates that membership in security organizations can prolong the durability of peace after conflict, but that the expected longer peace after conflict can also prolong the duration of conflict. The second essay analyzes the duration of war in a greater detail, exploring how third-party actors influence the process. It shows that balanced intervention can shorten the duration until a negotiated settlement is reached between the disputants. The third essay looks at the stability of postwar peace by focusing on the strength of cease-fire agreements. It argues that stronger agreements can maintain longer peace after wars by helping the disputants resolve the bargaining problems. The statistical analysis that corrects for the endogeneity of agreement strength provides support for the argument.
Essays on Human Rights: Protecting and Promoting Human Rights at Home and Abroad
(2022-06-08) Bryant, Kristin Ann; Leeds, Brett Ashley
This dissertation examines dfferent issues related to the protection and promotion of human rights. Chapter 1 looks at the effect of foreign aid flows on human rights practices in recipient states. I argue that when donors direct aid toward judicial reforms, it increases respect for civil liberties in states that lack the capacity to implement such reforms on their own. In Chapter 2, I consider how a rebel group’s commitment to respect human rights affects external sponsorship decisions. I theorize that a human rights commitment informs potential state sponsors about the group, its capabilities, and its intentions -- information that increases the likelihood that a rebel group receives external support. In Chapter 3, we test the presumption that voters will punish elected officials who violate commonly held human rights norms using a survey experiment that asks voters to choose between two candidates for president with typical Democratic and Republican positions. Our treatment varies whether one candidate endorses an abuse of physical integrity rights. I test my hypotheses using large-N empirical analyses and an original survey experiment.
"Falling to peaces": Conciliatory agreements and the durability of peace
(2006) Mattes, Michaela; Leeds, Brett Ashley
States often experience disagreements such as competing territorial claims. Sometimes they attempt to address these differences by negotiating explicit, written settlements. Can these agreements help ensure a durable peace? I examine the effect of agreements that attempt to address differences after significant conflict has occurred, such as peace agreements, as well as agreements designed to manage competing claims before they reach the level of violence. I refer to these two sets of agreements together as 'conciliatory agreements'. Using the theoretical framework of the bargaining model of war, I argue that the provisions specified in conciliatory agreements make the existing peaceful equilibrium more robust against the potentially disruptive effect of environmental shocks, such as changes in relative capabilities or regime type. Furthermore, I argue that conciliatory agreements not only increase the likelihood that peace is maintained but also impact the kind of peace maintained. Specifically, competing states that experience disruptive changes may remain at peace either because they continue to accept the status quo or because they peacefully renegotiate a new settlement. I argue that varying agreement provisions can account for why, when conditions change, some states resort to force, while others peacefully renegotiate, and still others maintain their original agreement. In order to evaluate my propositions, I rely on an existing list of territorial claims from the Americas, the Middle East, and Europe between 1919 and 1995, provided by Huth and Allee's (2002) research. For each of these cases, I collect all conciliatory agreements between the claimants and use these to test my theoretical expectations about the impact of agreement provisions on the durability of peace and the occurrence of renegotiation.
Implementation of Economic Sanctions
(2013-09-16) Kobayashi, Yoshiharu; Morgan, T. Clifton; Leeds, Brett Ashley; Stevenson, Randolph T.; Sickles, Robin
This dissertation investigates implementation problems in economic sanctions and how a state's concerns about policy implementation affect its decisions and the outcomes of sanctions. This study builds on the premise that sanctions are carried out by firms within a sanctioning state, not the state itself. First, using a game-theoretical model, I show that firms' non-compliance with sanction policies not only undermines the effectiveness of unilateral sanctions, but also has a counter-intuitive effect on a sanctioning state's decision to impose sanctions. The model suggests that a state is more likely to impose sanctions when it anticipates firms' non-compliance. A number of empirical implications are derived from the model and corroborated with data. Second, this study also investigates a sanctioning state's decision to sanction multilaterally or unilaterally, and how its expectations about the enforcement of sanctions influence this decision. When the enforcement of unilateral sanctions is expected to be difficult, the state is more likely to sanction multilaterally, but only when it has enough resources and the bureaucratic capability to help other states enforce their sanctions. The empirical evidence also buttresses these theoretical results. This study highlights the importance of incorporating expectations about enforcement into a full understanding of the sanctions processes. The conclusion is that states' ability to influence firms' decisions at home as well as abroad is a crucial determinant of whether they impose, how they design, and the effectiveness of sanctions.
Information, bias, and mediation success: Evaluating the effectiveness of mediation of international conflicts
(2006) Savun, Burcu; Leeds, Brett Ashley
Why do some mediation activities produce favorable outcomes while others fail to achieve success? I investigate this question by focusing on the type and characteristics of mediators of international conflicts. Are some types of mediators more able to facilitate negotiated settlements between the disputants than others? Drawing on the bargaining theory of war and building upon Kydd's (2003) game-theoretical model of mediation, I argue that mediators that have information about the military capabilities and/or resolve of the disputants are more likely to induce negotiated settlements between the disputants than those without such information. I develop operational measures of mediator's information about the disputants and mediator's bias towards the disputants and find that having relevant information about the disputants increases a mediator's likelihood of success. However, I do not find empirical support for the argument that a mediator needs to be biased towards one of the disputants in order to credibly convey information. The findings of this study increase our confidence in the usefulness and relevance of the bargaining theory of war, which perceives information imperfections as a central cause of conflict.
Institutionalized Cooperation: How NGO Cooperation Shapes Global Governance on Human Rights
(2024-04-19) Nishimura, Yui; Leeds, Brett Ashley; Huff, Connor; Torres, Michelle
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are prominent actors in international human rights advocacy. While their access to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) has increased over time, it is not clear why international institutions provide opportunities for NGOs and even encourage NGOs to cooperate with one another in pursuit of improvements in human rights. This dissertation investigates the consequences of NGO cooperation on government behaviors at United Nations human rights mechanisms. I compile original data and employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches to reveal the impact of NGO cooperation during human rights reviews on both third-party and targeted governments. The dissertation shows third-party governments are more likely to pressure peers to improve human rights in areas that NGOs have cooperatively identified for action. Targeted governments are also more likely to comply with the peer recommendations they accept when NGOs have cooperated. Yet, targeted governments are less likely to accept recommendations for improvement in their human rights when they receive more powerful pressure due to NGO coalitions. Supplementary qualitative evidence illustrates that NGOs strategically choose joint reports to better influence governments. This dissertation suggests that IGOs can design ways to harness NGO influence at international institutions to achieve shared goals, such as human rights promotion.
The broader-deeper trade off and regional trade agreements
(2007) Anac, Sezi; Leeds, Brett Ashley
This dissertation examines the empirical underpinnings of the broader-deeper trade off. Policy makers often worry that the enlargement of regional trade agreements comes at the expense of further deepening (integration). Enlargement will lead to more preference heterogeneity and more economic divergence among members of the RTA, which will in turn stifle decision making. Yet, our empirical understanding of whether there is such a trade off is very limited. In this dissertation, I conduct a systematic analysis of whether the trade off exists and other related questions using a dataset on regional trade agreements from the post-1950 era. The main finding of the dissertation is that enlargement does not lead to a decline in the probability of deepening in RTAs when one takes into account the different issue areas of cooperation within RTAs. Therefore, the dissertation shows that policy makers' claims about the negative effects of enlargement are overly pessimistic. On the other hand, there is some evidence that such negative effects are contextual. They arise in individual issue areas such as in trade cooperation. In other words, enlargement does lead a slow down in deepening in this area.
The Cost of Security: Foreign Policy Concessions and Military Alliances
(2012-09-05) Johnson, Jesse; Leeds, Brett Ashley; Fang, Songying; Sizova, Natalia M.
One way states can mitigate external threats is by entering into military alliances. However, threatened states are reluctant to enter into military alliances because alliance membership can require significant policy concessions. An important and unanswered question is: when will states be willing to make policy concessions in exchange for military alliances? This is the question that is investigated in this project. To address this question I develop a simple three actor bargaining model of alliance formation that endogenizes both external threat and policy concessions. I test the model's implications with two sets of large N analyses and find strong support for the hypotheses. The first set of empirical analyses uses a novel research design that takes into account the attributes of challengers to evaluate states' alliance formation decisions. The second set is based on the same research design and provides one of the first analyses of foreign policy concessions among alliance members. The results suggest that threatened states are willing to make more concessions in exchange for an alliance when they are unlikely to defeat their challengers alone and when their allies have a large effect on their probability of defeating their challengers. This research highlights both the security and non-security motivations for alliance formation and demonstrates that alliances have important influences beyond international security.
The Effects of Foreign Audiences in International Dispute Settlements
(2015-12-02) Matsumura, Naoko; Leeds, Brett Ashley; Morgan , T. Clifton; Fang, Songying; Boylan, Richard
This dissertation addresses the question of why actors (i.e., states and non-state actors) use international organizations (IOs) to settle disputes when such institutions often do not have enforcement power of their own. I approach this question by looking at the influence of IO dispute settlement processes on the behavior of domestic and foreign audiences. In particular, I argue that actors use IOs in order to influence pro-compliance foreign audiences by providing two types of information: information about violations that have occurred and information about the willingness and ability of parties to comply with settlement obligations. Informed pro-compliance audiences can work as enforcers, which help facilitate a state’s compliance with an IO’s ruling. This dissertation is composed of three stand-alone essays. These essays empirically test the implications of my theoretical arguments on datasets of actors’ use of dispute settlement mechanisms in the areas of trade and foreign investment. This dissertation sheds new light on actors’ strategic use of IOs.
The Power Distribution between Allies, Alliance Politics and Alliance Duration
(2014-08-14) Chung, Jaewook; Leeds, Brett Ashley; Morgan, T. Clifton; Stoll, Richard J.; Lewis, Steven W.
This dissertation is composed of three independent essays devoted to the study of the duration of military alliances. In Chapter 2, I investigate how the power distribution and the geographical distance between allies interact and affect alliance duration. I find that geographically remote and unequal alliances are more likely to endure than geographically close and unequal alliances. In Chapter 3, I examine how the economic dependence of weaker states on their major power allies and their capability change interact and affect alliance duration in asymmetric alliances. I find that alliances with minor powers whose capabilities increase and whose economic dependence is low tend to terminate earlier than those with minor powers whose economic dependence is high. In Chapter 4, I undertake a case study of the U.S.-South Korean alliance. I find that the U.S.-Korean military alliance is deeply embedded in the socioeconomic structure of Korean society generated by export-led growth and its economic dependence on the U.S, consequently making the U.S.-ROK alliance more resilient.
Understanding the Causes and Consequences of Refugee Movements
(2018-04-23) Wood, Andrew R; Leeds, Brett Ashley
As refugee populations continue to grow, understanding their importance to international politics becomes increasingly important. In this project, I explore how refugee populations shape and are shaped by conflict. First, I develop a model of the causes of refugee flight emphasizing how individuals evaluate their prospective risk of victimization from a variety of direct and indirect experiences with violence. I find evidence that refugee flows are larger when violence takes place in heavily populated areas (direct exposure) and when a rebel group experiences significant battlefield defeats (indirect exposure). These results, and the finding that poor performance by rebel organizations is correlated with the presence of co-ethnic refugee populations, point towards the possibility of connections between refugees and militant groups. To further explore this connection, in the second section, I propose a model of the spread of civil conflict through refugee populations. I argue that refugee camps provide useful resources to improve militant’s warfighting capabilities and recover strength after suffering strategic defeats. When these groups seek to use refugee populations and camps for their benefit, the risks of civil conflict in the refugee-hosting states increases due to the presence of violent actors. I find support for these expectations using data on conflicts and refugee flows in Africa and further explore the validity of these ideas by looking closely at a set of conflicts from across the globe. Finally, after examining the ways that refugee populations can influence the spread of violence abroad, I consider how states may respond to the risks associated with hosting refugees. Specifically, I argue that states hosting large refugee populations are more likely than others to intervene in the refugee-producing conflict – especially when the state would otherwise be unaffected by the conflict due to its distance or lack of ethnic ties. This expectation is supported by data on African conflicts and interventions and supports the idea that refugee flows drive intervention by creating security risks for host states. Altogether, these findings offer compelling evidence for the importance of refugees to international politics and civil conflict and provide an impetus for further study of the dynamics of refugee flows.

Browsing by Author "Leeds, Brett Ashley"

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