Although some rebel groups work hard to foster collaborative ties with civilians, others engage i... more Although some rebel groups work hard to foster collaborative ties with civilians, others engage in egregious abuses and war crimes. We argue that foreign state funding for rebel organizations greatly reduces incentives to “win the hearts and minds” of civilians because it diminishes the need to collect resources from the population. However, unlike other lucrative resources, foreign funding of rebel groups must be understood in principal-agent terms. Some external principals—namely, democracies and states with strong human rights lobbies—are more concerned with atrocities in the conflict zone than others. Multiple state principals also lead to abuse because no single state can effectively restrain the organization. We test these conjectures with new data on foreign support for rebel groups and data on one-sided violence against civilians. Most notably, we find strong evidence that principal characteristics help influence agent actions.
Among individuals with multiple social identities in multicultural societies, why are some more p... more Among individuals with multiple social identities in multicultural societies, why are some more politically salient than others? On the basis of an empirical analysis of the 2013 referendum on the creation of an expanded canton in Swiss Jura, this paper argues that it is minority status that leads to cultural salience in multicultural societies, and that what a group emphasizes as its distinct identity can shift strategically depending on its bargaining partner. Using new micro-level quantitative data and qualitative interviews from the case of Jura, we show that religion trumps language as the key identity marker leading Jura Bernois (a French Protestant region loyal to German Protestant Berne) to vote against joining the predominantly French but Catholic canton of Jura. We also show that religious legacies operate in part through statist preferences, which shape the pro- and anti-unification vote. We then present a game-theoretic model of strategic bargaining between center(s) and peripheries in order to understand when regions are able to extract political concessions. The model suggests that concessions will be offered to peripheral regions only when the center is both dependent on the periphery and the periphery can credibly threaten to exit.
What explains change and continuity in the foreign policy behavior of small states? Given the pro... more What explains change and continuity in the foreign policy behavior of small states? Given the proliferation of small states over the past century, this topic has received relatively little systematic attention. When researchers do focus on small states, the emphasis has been on external and international factors, and the primary conclusion has been that small states are more likely to bandwagon
The Promethean Dilemma claims to challenge the current wisdom on third-party statebuilding. It co... more The Promethean Dilemma claims to challenge the current wisdom on third-party statebuilding. It contends that contemporary policy-makers and scholars mistakenly identify the early transfer of coercive capacity to local forces as the key to successful state-building. In doing so, they risk not just creating armed forces that may turn against them, but undermining long-term stability in those states—this is the crux of the Promethean dilemma. Without first building loyalty to the nation, the authors argue, the building of local coercive capabilities is more likely to prolong insurgencies and to foster future civil war than to produce stability. Successful third-party state-building requires nationbuilding before the creation of coercive capabilities, yet nation-building is a long-term process that requires at least one generation to be successful. State-building is therefore almost always likely to fail in ‘contemporary settings’. For this reason, the article’s main lesson arguably concerns the benefits of keeping Prometheus bound. Darden’s and Mylonas’s warning about the possible dangers associated with raising local forces is timely and valuable. Their analysis, however, leaves important scope conditions and policy implications unaddressed. In particular, it remains unclear what influences the severity of the dilemma and what lessons those already engaged in statebuilding efforts under fire should draw from their analysis. In our comment, we raise two related issues for further discussion. The first concerns the authors’ characterization of the current wisdom and literature on third-party state-building. We believe that the authors’ arguments about nation-building are at the core of the very ‘current wisdom’ they seek to challenge. The main difference is that the authors place less emphasis on the extreme conditions under which contemporary state-building efforts are being conducted. Our second point focuses on the causal argument, which emphasizes the appropriate sequencing of nationand state-building efforts. Our Ethnopolitics, Vol. 11, No. 1, 101–104, March 2012
... As Ghia Nodia puts it, modern nations and modern democracies alike are too large to do witho... more ... As Ghia Nodia puts it, modern nations and modern democracies alike are too large to do without this imagined quality [of nationalism].21 The precise effect of nationalism on democratic stability, we argue, depends on character of nationalist accommodation and the extent to ...
Although some rebel groups work hard to foster collaborative ties with civilians, others engage i... more Although some rebel groups work hard to foster collaborative ties with civilians, others engage in egregious abuses and war crimes. We argue that foreign state funding for rebel organizations greatly reduces incentives to “win the hearts and minds” of civilians because it diminishes the need to collect resources from the population. However, unlike other lucrative resources, foreign funding of rebel groups must be understood in principal-agent terms. Some external principals—namely, democracies and states with strong human rights lobbies—are more concerned with atrocities in the conflict zone than others. Multiple state principals also lead to abuse because no single state can effectively restrain the organization. We test these conjectures with new data on foreign support for rebel groups and data on one-sided violence against civilians. Most notably, we find strong evidence that principal characteristics help influence agent actions.
Among individuals with multiple social identities in multicultural societies, why are some more p... more Among individuals with multiple social identities in multicultural societies, why are some more politically salient than others? On the basis of an empirical analysis of the 2013 referendum on the creation of an expanded canton in Swiss Jura, this paper argues that it is minority status that leads to cultural salience in multicultural societies, and that what a group emphasizes as its distinct identity can shift strategically depending on its bargaining partner. Using new micro-level quantitative data and qualitative interviews from the case of Jura, we show that religion trumps language as the key identity marker leading Jura Bernois (a French Protestant region loyal to German Protestant Berne) to vote against joining the predominantly French but Catholic canton of Jura. We also show that religious legacies operate in part through statist preferences, which shape the pro- and anti-unification vote. We then present a game-theoretic model of strategic bargaining between center(s) and peripheries in order to understand when regions are able to extract political concessions. The model suggests that concessions will be offered to peripheral regions only when the center is both dependent on the periphery and the periphery can credibly threaten to exit.
What explains change and continuity in the foreign policy behavior of small states? Given the pro... more What explains change and continuity in the foreign policy behavior of small states? Given the proliferation of small states over the past century, this topic has received relatively little systematic attention. When researchers do focus on small states, the emphasis has been on external and international factors, and the primary conclusion has been that small states are more likely to bandwagon
The Promethean Dilemma claims to challenge the current wisdom on third-party statebuilding. It co... more The Promethean Dilemma claims to challenge the current wisdom on third-party statebuilding. It contends that contemporary policy-makers and scholars mistakenly identify the early transfer of coercive capacity to local forces as the key to successful state-building. In doing so, they risk not just creating armed forces that may turn against them, but undermining long-term stability in those states—this is the crux of the Promethean dilemma. Without first building loyalty to the nation, the authors argue, the building of local coercive capabilities is more likely to prolong insurgencies and to foster future civil war than to produce stability. Successful third-party state-building requires nationbuilding before the creation of coercive capabilities, yet nation-building is a long-term process that requires at least one generation to be successful. State-building is therefore almost always likely to fail in ‘contemporary settings’. For this reason, the article’s main lesson arguably concerns the benefits of keeping Prometheus bound. Darden’s and Mylonas’s warning about the possible dangers associated with raising local forces is timely and valuable. Their analysis, however, leaves important scope conditions and policy implications unaddressed. In particular, it remains unclear what influences the severity of the dilemma and what lessons those already engaged in statebuilding efforts under fire should draw from their analysis. In our comment, we raise two related issues for further discussion. The first concerns the authors’ characterization of the current wisdom and literature on third-party state-building. We believe that the authors’ arguments about nation-building are at the core of the very ‘current wisdom’ they seek to challenge. The main difference is that the authors place less emphasis on the extreme conditions under which contemporary state-building efforts are being conducted. Our second point focuses on the causal argument, which emphasizes the appropriate sequencing of nationand state-building efforts. Our Ethnopolitics, Vol. 11, No. 1, 101–104, March 2012
... As Ghia Nodia puts it, modern nations and modern democracies alike are too large to do witho... more ... As Ghia Nodia puts it, modern nations and modern democracies alike are too large to do without this imagined quality [of nationalism].21 The precise effect of nationalism on democratic stability, we argue, depends on character of nationalist accommodation and the extent to ...
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Papers by D Siroky