Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: While much of the international relations literature has focused on the conflictgenerating potential of river use disputes, we focus on the politics of cooperation. Our theoretical framework investigates the demand, catalytic, and inhibiting influences on whether the riparian countries will enter into general and water supply river-managing treaties. Empirical results for the 1900-93 time period reveal that economic development (a demand factor), democracy, and common IGO memberships (catalysts) increase the chances for a treaty, while the lack of common security interests and balanced power configurations act as inhibiting factors. The demand and catalyst variables exercise substantially more influence, giving support to the rarely examined argument that factors associated with Kantian peace not only help states avoid militarized confrontations but also help foster positive peace. In the water supply context, however, the power dynamics given by the up/downstream river pattern cripple the possibility for the treaty. Our findings indicate that optimistic predictions expecting a rise in Third World river cooperation are largely unwarranted.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper addresses a crucial yet unexamined aspect of nuclear proliferation: why do states and non-state actors share nuclear weapons technology? This question, which has profound implications for U.S. nonproliferation policy, has gone virtually unasked by scholars and remains largely unanswered by the literature on nuclear proliferation. Nuclear sharing also poses an unheralded puzzle in international relations. The anarchic nature of international relations and the destructive power of nuclear weapons implies that this type of nuclear cooperation should be rare indeed. In fact, there have been 11 cases of states sharing nuclear weapons technology with other states. These gaps in our theoretical and empirical understanding of nuclear proliferation are distressing since the current wave of proliferation is driven largely by this phenomenon. The question of why states would share nuclear weapons technology, the conditions under which this is likely to occur, and the security implications of such transfers has been examined only on a case-by-case basis. This paper applies three models of decision-making that have been used profitably to analyze other aspects of nuclear proliferation to examine the motivations behind nuclear sharing. This analytical framework provides the foundation for a systematic, comparative analysis of state-sponsored nuclear proliferation and its implications for international relations theory and nonproliferation strategy. Evidence of security concerns, parochial interests, and cultural influences as motivating factors can be found in several known cases of nuclear cooperation. Further research is required to weigh the relative importance of each of these factors in decisions to engage in nuclear cooperation.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recent work in political science has identified internal migration into homelands as a key determinant of insurgency behavior. Other work has identified the existence of sanctified territory as creating intractable disputes. This project takes a larger view of the challenges that shared territory among minorities present to states. We argue that the existence of shared space among minority populations limits the ability of governments to respond to group demands and increases the likelihood of militarized dispute, not just between minority groups, but between groups and the state. This problem is exacerbated by differential trends in land use and demographic factors, such as population growth. We show support for this argument using geographic data on the location and density of minority populations around the world.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper reports on an experiment designed to assess the manner in which people obtain information regarding political choices. The experiment is undertaken in the context of cost conscious, goal oriented subjects who must obtain information on alternative candidates in order to realize their goals. This information comes at a cost, and subjects also have the opportunity to obtain information for free from other subjects. The experimental design provides an opportunity to address a range of questions. How important is individually purchased information to the subjects’ assessments of the candidates? What are the criteria imposed by subjects in their search for other subjects who will be useful information providers? In particular, how important are levels of political expertise and shared preferences in the selection of other individual subjects as sources of information?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: States worry greatly about secessionist movements and the ethno-political mobilizations that can give rise to them. Political scientists agree that the institutional framework within which identity groups interact powerfully determines the goals, violence, and trajectories of such movements. However, both small N and large N researchers disagree on the question of whether ?power-sharing? arrangements, instead of repression, are more or less likely to mitigate threats of secessionist mobilizations by disaffected, regionally concentrated minority groups. Using the PS-I modeling platform, a virtual country?Beita?was created, containing within it a disaffected, partially controlled, regionally concentrated minority. Using the tenets of constructivist identity theory as the basic driver for the algorithms controlling behavior by agents in the Beita ?landscape,? the most popular theoretical positions on this issue were tested. Data from experiments involving hundreds of histories of Beita, run under modulated, controlled conditions, lend support to some of the more sophisticated interpretations of the effects of repression vs. responsive or representative types of power-sharing. While in the short run repression works to suppress ethno-political mobilization, it does not effectively reduce the threat of secession. Power-sharing can be more effective, but it also tends to encourage larger minority identitarian movements.
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