Publications
"Does Electoral Proximity Affect Security Policy?" Journal of Politics. Vol 77, No. 3 (July 2015). With Nikolay Marinov and Josh Robbins. (Gated)
How do approaching elections affect the security policy states conduct? We build on classic political economy arguments and theorize that one problem likely faced by democratic policy-makers near elections is that of time-inconsistency. The time inconsistency problem arises when the costs and benefits of policy are not realized at the same time. We develop an application of the argument to the case of allied troop contributions to Operation Enduring Freedom (“OEF”) and the International Security Assistance Force (“ISAF”) mission in Afghanistan. In that case, we argue the expectation should be one of fewer troops committed close to elections. The exogenous timing of elections allows us to identify the effects of approaching elections on troop levels. Our finding of significantly lower troop contributions near elections is the first arguably identified effect of electoral proximity on security policy
PDF | PDF with supplementary analyses | Replication Files | Cite
This research was also featured on the Empirical Studies of Conflict.
"Correspondence: Reevaluating Foreign-Imposed Regime Change.” International Security. Vol. 38, No. 3 (Winter 2013/2014).
Alexander Downes and Jonathan Monten’s article “Forced to Be Free? Why Foreign- Imposed Regime Change Rarely Leads to Democratization” offers important contributions to the study of foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC). The authors should be commended for their use of advanced empirical methods to tackle such an important substantive question. According to Downes and Monten, past research on the democratizing effect of foreign-imposed regime change has overemphasized the characteristics of the intervener and underemphasized the existing preconditions for democracy in the state targeted for intervention. Rather than the FIRC itself, it is these preconditions, Downes and Monten suggest, that explain whether a given state will democratize or not. That is, their argument posits that targets of FIRC that democratize would have done so independently of the foreign intervention.
Although Downes and Monten offer promising results in support of their hypotheses, two factors should make us skeptical of the conclusions drawn from their interpretation of the evidence. First, even though Downes and Monten duly explore the efficacy of varieties of FIRC, they omit the most critical analytical category related to the dependent variable. In evaluating the ability of FIRC to produce democracy, one should focus on cases of foreign-imposed democratization (FID) where the intervener intended to replace a nondemocratic regime with a democratic one. Second, the nature of FIRC operations has changed over time in ways unaccounted for by Downes and Monten. For historical and theoretical reasons outlined in this letter, FIRC carried out before World War I looks significantly different from FIRC carried out since 1918. A closer examination of the targets of FID after World War I reveals a fairly remarkable success rate: thirteen out of seventeen targets transitioned to consolidated democracies within ten years of the intervention. Such a record should give us pause before concluding that FIRC has little or no independent effect on a state’s democratization prospects.
PDF | Replication Files | Cite
How do approaching elections affect the security policy states conduct? We build on classic political economy arguments and theorize that one problem likely faced by democratic policy-makers near elections is that of time-inconsistency. The time inconsistency problem arises when the costs and benefits of policy are not realized at the same time. We develop an application of the argument to the case of allied troop contributions to Operation Enduring Freedom (“OEF”) and the International Security Assistance Force (“ISAF”) mission in Afghanistan. In that case, we argue the expectation should be one of fewer troops committed close to elections. The exogenous timing of elections allows us to identify the effects of approaching elections on troop levels. Our finding of significantly lower troop contributions near elections is the first arguably identified effect of electoral proximity on security policy
PDF | PDF with supplementary analyses | Replication Files | Cite
This research was also featured on the Empirical Studies of Conflict.
"Correspondence: Reevaluating Foreign-Imposed Regime Change.” International Security. Vol. 38, No. 3 (Winter 2013/2014).
Alexander Downes and Jonathan Monten’s article “Forced to Be Free? Why Foreign- Imposed Regime Change Rarely Leads to Democratization” offers important contributions to the study of foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC). The authors should be commended for their use of advanced empirical methods to tackle such an important substantive question. According to Downes and Monten, past research on the democratizing effect of foreign-imposed regime change has overemphasized the characteristics of the intervener and underemphasized the existing preconditions for democracy in the state targeted for intervention. Rather than the FIRC itself, it is these preconditions, Downes and Monten suggest, that explain whether a given state will democratize or not. That is, their argument posits that targets of FIRC that democratize would have done so independently of the foreign intervention.
Although Downes and Monten offer promising results in support of their hypotheses, two factors should make us skeptical of the conclusions drawn from their interpretation of the evidence. First, even though Downes and Monten duly explore the efficacy of varieties of FIRC, they omit the most critical analytical category related to the dependent variable. In evaluating the ability of FIRC to produce democracy, one should focus on cases of foreign-imposed democratization (FID) where the intervener intended to replace a nondemocratic regime with a democratic one. Second, the nature of FIRC operations has changed over time in ways unaccounted for by Downes and Monten. For historical and theoretical reasons outlined in this letter, FIRC carried out before World War I looks significantly different from FIRC carried out since 1918. A closer examination of the targets of FID after World War I reveals a fairly remarkable success rate: thirteen out of seventeen targets transitioned to consolidated democracies within ten years of the intervention. Such a record should give us pause before concluding that FIRC has little or no independent effect on a state’s democratization prospects.
PDF | Replication Files | Cite
Working Papers
Can International Actors Encourage Intergroup Cooperation after Conflict? Evidence from Peacebuilding in Mali.
A core concern for international peacebuilders is how to promote cooperation between members of different communities torn apart by conflict. I propose that United Nations peacebuilders, perceived as unbiased enforcers of intergroup cooperation, are particularly well-suited to this task. By contrast, former colonial powers, perceived as biased in favor of certain social groups over others, are far less effective. I test my theory with a comparison of UN and French peacebuilding practices in Mali. Specifically, I offer support for the argument in the form of a lab-in-the-field experiment in which Malians are tasked with extending cooperation to members of the Tuareg minority. Using the findings from this experiment as well as results from a follow-up survey experiment and interviews, I present direct evidence of the mechanisms underlying my theory in favor of a set of other alternatives. The results offer insight into potential best practices for peacebuilding in diverse societies.
Please contact me for a copy of the latest draft.
Why Share? An Analysis of the Sources of Power-Sharing after Conflict. Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Peace Research.
Why do former belligerents institutionalize power-sharing arrangements after a civil war ends? What explains parties’ desire to seek constitutional guarantees during peace negotiations rather than rely on electoral results alone to form governing coalitions? I suggest that elites create power-sharing institutions when the most significant threat to their political power comes from an outside group as opposed to from within their own group. That is, forward-looking and power-minded leaders of former belligerents push for the type of power-sharing at the negotiating table that affords them the greatest opportunity to influence national politics after the conflict has concluded in full. For elites facing competition from outside, this means securing power-sharing through institutional rules and guidelines in the settlement of the civil war to ensure that they are included in the governance of the state. By contrast, for elites fearing in-group rivals, complex governance institutions are at best unnecessary and, at worst, an unnecessary concession to weaker opponents. I test my theory using a cross-national analysis of a dataset of all negotiated settlements since the end of the Second World War, coded for power-sharing variation. I complement the quantitative data with illustrative examples from cases of power-sharing negotiations that offer insight into the proposed theoretical mechanisms.
What is the Mechanism Underlying Audience Costs? Incompetence, Belligerence, and Inconsistency With Nicholas Sambanis. Under review.
Audience cost theory posits that concern over the nation’s reputation pushes voters to sanction leaders who make empty threats because they tarnish the nation's honor. We question whether that theory is supported by experimental evidence in the extant literature. Using new experiments, we show that survey vignettes conflate audience costs generated by inconsistency and belligerence with approval losses arising from the perception that the leader is incompetent, which we term ``incompetence costs.'' Incompetence costs hinge on leaders not achieving audiences' preferred outcomes. Substantively, this paper contributes to the literature on audience costs by disentangling inconsistency and belligerence costs from incompetence costs, which we find are the larger component of audience costs. We also make a methodological contribution by showing that experimental designs in previous studies cannot test the different mechanisms, that they are biased because treatments affect respondents' beliefs about the likely outcome of policy actions, and by offering a new experimental framework for estimating unbiased audience costs. Our results support critics of audience cost theory who argue that audiences care more about policy outcomes than about leaders' inconsistency or belligerence during a crisis.
Please contact me for a copy of the latest draft.
How UN Peacebuilding Unintentionally Incentivizes Local-Level Violence. Under review.
This paper challenges theoretical and empirical arguments about peacebuilding effectiveness that put the state at the center of United Nations peace operations. The paper draws on evidence from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) from 2013 to 2017. I argue that state-centric UN peacebuilding operations inadvertently incentivize local-level violence in post-conflict zones. I demonstrate that when the UN supports central governments it unintentionally empowers non-professionalized militaries, paramilitaries, and warlords to settle local scores. Armed violence against civilians in turn triggers a vicious cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals. As an alternative to state-centric peacebuilding operations that incentivize local violence, I suggest that the UN should shift strategic resources away from central governments and toward UN policing, support of traditional and religious authorities, and the training of local security institutions.
Peaceful Coexistence? Soviet-Led Foreign-Imposed Regime Change
Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution brought his Communist Party to power in 1917, Vladimr Ilyich Lenin warned party members that “a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable.” Lenin undertook a foreign policy, which future Soviet premiers would continue, designed to accelerate the Proleteriat revolution abroad. As part of this policy, the Red Army would invade foreign states and replace existing governments with Communist Party leaders that would entirely re-align the domestic and foreign policy of those states, principally in favor of the Soviet Union. In this regard, 1917 marks a watershed in military intervention politics, demarcating a time period after which states—the Soviet Union as well as its adversaries in the West—used foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC), defined as foreign military intervention with the explicit purpose of removing an existing regime and replacing it with another, as a critical tool of policy-making.
I argue that due to the far-reaching ideological implications of the 1917 revolution, the Soviet Union’s FIRC operations were qualitatively different than those carried out by other states, primarily the United States and its allies. In particular, compared to other interventions, Soviet FIRCs were less likely to lead to democracy, more likely to increase bilateral trade with the intervener (the Soviet Union), more likely to increase ideological alignment with the intervener, less likely to lead to intrastate conflict, and less likely to lead to interstate conflict, both with the Soviet Union as well as with neighboring states.
Although existing cross-national studies on FIRC have included the Soviet Union, no studies have thus far examined either the Soviet FIRCs in isolation or the importance of 1917 for understanding military intervention. Existing scholars have explored the impact of FIRC on democratization (Downes and Monten 2013; Nomikos 2014), bilateral trade relations (Zachary et al. 2015), and interstate conflict (Downes and O’Rourke 2016). Yet, not all FIRCs are made the same. Between 1917 and 1989, the Soviet Union carried out 15 separate FIRC operations, more than any other state in the same period. Unlike other FIRCs, Soviet leaders pursued FIRCs with an ideological consistency: the Soviet Union would establish a Communist regime in a state within the Soviet sphere of influence that would become ideologically, economically, and military dependent on the Soviet Union.
In order to test my argument, I adopt a three-pronged approach, First, I present a quantitative analysis of the impact of Soviet FIRCs compared to other FIRCs. I control for relevant demographic and temporal variables. Second, I present historical case study evidence from the Soviet imposition of Communist rule in Bulgaria beginning in 1944. Third, I present evidence from the Soviet FIRC in Afghanistan in 1979. I show that the Soviet failures to produce a stable Communist regime in Afghanistan can best be understood as a transformation in the motives of Soviet leaders, who were, by 1979, less focused on continuing the revolution of 1917 and more on directly confronting the United States.
Please contact me for a copy of the latest draft.
Work-in-Progress
Patrolling for Peace: An Analysis of the Level-Level Effects of UN Peacekeeping. With Patrick Hunnicutt and Neil Narang.
State and Non-State Legitimacy in Liberia. With Eric Stollenwerk.
Countering Violent Extremism in Burkina Faso. With Niloufer Siddiqui.
UN Peacekeeping and International Migration. With Ingmar Sturm.
State and Non-State Legitimacy in Liberia. With Eric Stollenwerk.
Countering Violent Extremism in Burkina Faso. With Niloufer Siddiqui.
UN Peacekeeping and International Migration. With Ingmar Sturm.
Commentary
Democracies' Electoral Compromise. The National Interest. July 29, 2015. With Nikolay Marinov.
The tactic of increasing American involvement abroad without deploying troops mirrors many of President Obama and Secretary Carter’s other national security policies in 2015—sanctions against Russia and Iran, a carrier to interdict Iranian weapons moving to Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the placement of U.S. military equipment across Eastern Europe. Many different factors play into each U.S. foreign policy decision, but our research shows that the similarity in these decisions may simply be that 2015 is the beginning of a U.S. election cycle. In our analysis of fifty contributing countries to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, we find that these types of policies, which limit and/or reduce troops on the ground in order to minimize casualties, are typical of democratic countries entering electoral periods. Put otherwise, leaders choose policies that reduce the risk of casualties based on electoral considerations rather than the specific strategic needs of an international crisis, potentially undermining its successful resolution.
The tactic of increasing American involvement abroad without deploying troops mirrors many of President Obama and Secretary Carter’s other national security policies in 2015—sanctions against Russia and Iran, a carrier to interdict Iranian weapons moving to Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the placement of U.S. military equipment across Eastern Europe. Many different factors play into each U.S. foreign policy decision, but our research shows that the similarity in these decisions may simply be that 2015 is the beginning of a U.S. election cycle. In our analysis of fifty contributing countries to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, we find that these types of policies, which limit and/or reduce troops on the ground in order to minimize casualties, are typical of democratic countries entering electoral periods. Put otherwise, leaders choose policies that reduce the risk of casualties based on electoral considerations rather than the specific strategic needs of an international crisis, potentially undermining its successful resolution.
