Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Since 1975, democracy has become the world's most common form of government. With the advance of this third wave of democratization, developed countries such as the United States have implemented explicit strategies of democracy promotion by providing assistance to governments, political parties, and other non-governmental groups and organizations. This aid has been delivered through a variety of channels, including official aid agencies such as the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) and quasi-governmental foundations such as the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED). How successful has such assistance been? This project examines U.S. democratization and democracy assistance from 1990-2001 through USAID and the NED. It relies on a dataset composed principally of democratization data for the developing world and assistance provided the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID. Additional control variables include growth in wealth, progress in education, the impact of culture, as well as U.S. economic and political interests. With this original dataset, the project: a) identifies patterns in official and foundation strategies and outcomes; b) assesses the overall relationship between democracy assistance and democratization. It concludes by weighing the implications of these findings for democratization and democracy promotion policies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper studies the association between natural resource endowments and FDI inflows. Political science literature has mainly focused on the natural resource dependence on the one hand and political regime type (Ross 2000; Wantchekon 2000; Wantchekon and Jensen 2000), civil conflict (Collier and Hoeffler 2001) and economic growth (Sachs and Warner 1997, 1997, 2001; Rodriquez and Sachs 1999; Leite and Weidman 1999; Gylafson 2001; Manzano and Rigobon 2001) on the other. Interestingly, regime type, civil conflict and economic growth are some of the industry standard independent variables in the FDI literature as well. But this complexity of relationships created more questions than answers, instead of giving rise to systematic studies of the association between natural resource endowments and FDI. This specifically applies to regime type/FDI literature. Though there are many studies that do not find any relationship between regime type and FDI, or negative relationship between democracy and FDI (Oneal 1994; Alesina and Dollar 1998; and Jessup 1999), Jensen?s (2003) finds a positive association between democracy and FDI, and at some point he tries to explain this result by natural resource factor. But after finding evidence for the aforementioned claim in a cross national study looking at 1980s-90s, he still finds a positive relationship between democracy and FDI in his time series models that look at 1970-1997, though not controlling for the resource variable this time. Other scholars of regime-FDI too seem to be aware of the considerable potential role of natural resource in terms of FDI, and regime FDI association eventually. Jessup, for instance, excludes oil in his study implying its, among other natural resources, special attractiveness for FDI (1999, 21). Yet still, he finds different association between regime type and FDI inflows than Jensen (2003), which in turn makes the relationship between natural resources and FDI on the hand, and the way this relationship affects the association between regime type and FDI inflows on the other, more puzzling. This paper is an attempt at a systematic inquiry into the relationship between natural resource richness and FDI inflows. A secondary aim is to sort out how natural resource variable?s presence affects the association between regime type and FDI. Despite the generally held assumption and some findings, in this paper, those nations with more natural resource endowments are claimed have more bargaining power and thus are expected to be more successful in limiting the participation of MNCs to as small as possible controlling stakes if at all. And since such rich nations, specifically after the wave of nationalizations, had time to accumulate huge financial resources themselves (which can be expected to be positively related to resource abundance), they will need lesser FDI than those with less resources, or those who entered the market lately, like post Soviet states. These, combined with the nationalization waves of the 1970s, whose main target was natural resource related firms (Jodice 1980; Kobrin 1980), can be expected to result in a negative relationship between natural resource endowments and FDI inflows. There are different theories that expect different associations between regime type and the FDI flows. This paper is not directly dealing with it. And thus, whether regime type matters while controlling for the natural resource variable, will be of interest mainly as an empirical question. Yet for the reasons to be explained later, the expectation will be no relationship between regime type and FDI inflows. Variables and Research DesignThe dependent variable is net FDI inflows as a percentage of GDP (Jensen 2003). The main independent variable, Resource, is intended to measure a country?s natural resource abundance. It is taken from Ross (2001), which measures it as the combined value of the exports of fuel, metal and ores as the percentage of GDP. With slight modifications this operationalization is in line with Jensen (2003) and Sachs and Warner (1995). Control variables are mainly taken form WDI 2004, Polity IV (2002) and Banks (2004).

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Under an increasing global interdependence, examining political determinants of economic openness has become among stimulating topics of IPE/CPE. This paper tries to specify the domestic condition under which countries find the most optimal to expand economic interdependence. We first seek to articulate the influence of partisan arrangements with regard to economic openness, which is then subject to resource allocations of capital/labor. We argue that a partisan model of macroeconomic policies should be carefully conditional on domestic endowments of primary factors within a territory. Simply put, capital-intensive countries are more economically open under rightist governments, while labor-intensive countries are more economically open under leftist governments. In our model, a combination of partisan governments and resource endowments is necessary to predicting which country is more economically open. This paper would be unique among the field in that, unlike a partisan model of macroeconomic policies where conflicting outcomes are observed under alternative ruling parties, ours does not necessarily validate a partisan split over trade policies, since its impacts are greatly subject to the size of resources that political constituencies retain. In this sense, we challenge the previous studies maintaining the role of partisanship on economic openness or that of abundant factors of production. Using data on 21 OECD countries from 1975-92 and employing two statistical set-ups (linear-interactive model and generalized ordered logit model), we find that the relative size of capital/labor ratio has a more negative effect on leftist governments (supporting the claim that labor-intensive countries are economically open under left-wing governments), while we fail to find a support for the relationship between factor endowment and economic openness under right-wing governments. Nonetheless, our empirical study confirms the difference in effects of factor endowments between rightist and leftist governments on economic openness.

Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: While the in-migration of individuals and families from Mexico and Meso-America to the US is one of the oldest and most durable streams in the world, the current wave has gained currency among researchers, foundations and policymakers alike. Unlike earlier times, the current migration pattern has extended beyond the traditional urban “gateway destinations” or “immigration portals” to interior small towns and rural areas. In order to better understand the nature of the relationship between the circumstances of rural communities and the current migration wave, this research examines differences between those migrants choosing metropolitan destinations and those choosing destinations outside these metropolitan areas. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project the paper empirically examines the human capital endowment of rural and urban migrants from Mexico. Among other findings, the results indicate that the migrants choosing rural destinations are more likely to have lower education, job experience in unskilled labor, be less fluent in English and more likely to lack immigration documents.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The importance of the discussion regarding legitimization centers upon one of the basic understandings underlying power and authority, as politics is not merely a struggle for power but is also a contest over legitimacy. For instance, an intrinsic part of the so-called war on terrorism is its multinational cooperation. As a precondition to achieving such international cooperation, the terror organization which is combated must be de-legitimized in the international arena. Therefore, this paper addresses one primary issue: what are the factors which influence the degree of international legitimization obtained by terror organizations? Is this phenomenon best explained as a result of power balances and self-interests or as a result of normative considerations? From the viewpoint of governments, terrorists threaten states' monopoly over the use of force and destabilize the international system. Thus, in theory, as a result of breaching the international norms of the state’s monopoly over the use of force and targeting civilians, terror groups should not have received international legitimacy. In practice, however, legitimacy obtained by terror groups. Consequently, it is important to understand the factors which influence the degree of international legitimacy accorded to terror organizations.Using a one-case multiple comparative analysis, I have examined the PLO during the years 1965-2000. Meaningful events in the history of the PLO were selected, in terms of their potential influence upon this organization's international legitimacy. For each event, I have examined which of the two above-mentioned factors offers a better explanation for the stabilization and/or changes with respect to the PLO’s international legitimacy.