College of Behavioral & Social Sciences

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Essays on Optimal Aid and Fiscal Policy in Developing Economies
(2010) Banerjee, Ryan Niladri; Mendoza, Enrique G; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Essay I: Which countries receive aid as insurance and why? A theory of optimal aid policy Empirical evidence shows that developing countries with opaque institutions receive procyclical Official Development Aid (ODA) while developing countries with transparent institutions receive acyclical or countercyclical ODA. This paper provides a dynamic equilibrium model of optimal aid policy that quantitatively accounts for this fact. In the model, the donor wants to (a) encourage actions by the aid receiving government that increase output and (b) smooth out economic fluctuations. The transparency of institutions in the country affects the donor's ability to distinguish downturns caused by exogenous shocks, from those caused by government actions. The solution to the donor's mechanism design problem is dependent on the transparency of government actions. If the donor has good information about government actions, aid policy is countercyclical and aid acts as insurance. However, if the donor is unable to infer perfectly the cause of the downturn, aid policy is procyclical to encourage unobservable good actions. The model predicts a similar pattern for ODA commitments for the following year which is supported by the data. For countries with opaque institutions procyclical aid is the result of optimal policies given the information constraints of donors. Essay II: New Evidence on the Relationship Between Aid Cyclicality and Institutions This paper documents a new fact: the correlation between official development assistance (ODA) and GDP is negatively related to the quality of institutions in the receipient country. Differences in institutional indicators that measure corruption, rule of law, government effectiveness and government transparency are particularly important. The results are robust to several modifications. The results hold for both pooled and within regressions specifications and for different sources of institutional quality measures. This fact also reconciles conflicting empirical results about the correlation between ODA and GDP in the literature. For instance, Pallage and Robe (2001) find a positive correlation in two thirds of African economies and half of non-African developing economies, but Rand and Tarp (2002) find no correlation in a different set of developing countries. First, once institutions are accounted for, African economies are not treated differently by donors. Second, the sample in Rand and Tarp (2002) comprises developing economies which have relatively good institutions, therefore, those countries receive acyclical or countercyclical aid. \\ Essay II: Optimal Procyclical Fiscal Policy Without Procyclical Government Spending Procyclical fiscal policy can be caused by either procyclical government expenditure, countercyclical taxes or both. The majority of models which try to explain procyclical fiscal policy as the result of optimal policy have procyclical government expenditures. This paper develops a model which optimally generates procyclical fiscal policy while keeping government expenditures acyclical. Instead, taxes are optimally countercyclical. The model uses endogenous sovereign default to generate an environment where interest rates are lower in booms than in recessions. If household's have insufficient access to financial instruments it is optimal for the government to lower taxes and borrow during booms. This enables impatient households to benefit from the lower interest rates in booms by helping the consumer bring consumption forward.
Reluctant Realist: Jean-Jacques Rousseau on International Relations
(2010) Paddags, Rene; Butterworth, Charles E.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's best known political work, the Social Contract, begins and ends by pointing to its incompleteness. Rousseau indicates that the Social Contract's completion would require an elaboration of the principles of international relations. However, Rousseau neither completes the Social Contract nor explicitly sets forth a theory of international relations. The contradiction between pointing to the necessary completion and its simultaneous absence can be solved by arguing that the principles of international relations contradicted those of the Social Contract. A close textual analysis of the pertinent works, Rousseau's Social Contract, the Discourse on Inequality, the Geneva Manuscript, the State of War, and the Abstract and Judgment of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre's Plan for Perpetual Peace, demonstrates this thesis. The argument begins by showing the presence of two diverging principles in the Social Contract and their implications for international relations. The dominant set of principles of political self-rule necessarily leads to an international state of war. A secondary set of principles of security leads to the demand of international peace. Rousseau rejects the international implications of the latter set of principles, which can take the form of the Roman Catholic Church, balance of power, empire, and commerce as sources of international order. Instead, Rousseau strongly suggests natural law and confederations as solutions consistent with political self-rule. Yet, even these solutions fail ultimately to overcome the state of war. Rousseau's intention in suggesting possible solutions to the international state of war was to moderate the potentially deleterious effects of democratic self-rule. The incompleteness of the Social Contract is therefore due to the structure of international relations, whose principles are at the same time constituted by political societies and contradicted by them. This implies that the pursuits of security and freedom are mutually exclusive, contradicting in particular Immanuel Kant's claim of their compatibility and contradicting those contemporary theories of international relations derived from Kant.
Partition as a Solution to Ethnic Civil War: Statehood, Demography, and the Role of Post-War Balance of Power for Peace
(2009) Johnson, Carter Randolph; Lichbach, Mark I; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Partition has been proposed as a way to (i) end ethnic civil wars and to (ii) build a lasting peace after ethnic civil wars end. This dissertation builds on partition theory and the ethnic security dilemma in three ways, demonstrating empirical support for a novel theory of why violence recurs following the end of ethnic civil wars and how partition can be used to prevent such violence. The dissertation begins by introducing the puzzle of ethnic group concentration: the social sciences have demonstrated that concentrated ethnic groups produce both peace and violence. The first case study discredits the notion that ethnic group concentration produced during ethnic civil wars will produce an end to ethnic civil wars. I conducted detailed field research, producing a longitudinal study of ethnic migration and violence in the Georgia-Abkhaz civil war (1992-1993), which acts as a crucial case. I conclude that partitioning groups does not end ethnic war. This is the first accurate empirical test of the ethnic security dilemma. Next, the dissertation looks at partition's ability to build peace by concentrating ethnic groups in new homeland states, and I argue that post-partition violence is caused by weak states and the triadic political space endogenously created by partitions that do not separate ethnic groups completely. I call this the Third Generation Ethnic Security Dilemma, building on previous ethnic security dilemma research. I test this empirically by introducing an index measuring the degree to which partitions separate ethnic groups, and I compare all ethnic civil war terminations between 1945 and 2004, demonstrating that partitions which completely separate ethnic groups provide a better chance for peace. Third, I selected two cases (Moldova and Georgia) to examine the causal processes of post-war recurring violence. Georgia, which experienced post-partition violence, and Moldova, which did not, act as a structured case comparison. I conclude that mixed ethnic demography interacts with state-building to cause or avert renewed violence.
Water Resources, Institutional Capacity and Civil Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
(2009) Haxton, Wanda Jeanne; Quester, George; Kim, Soo Yeon; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Case studies where both scarcity and conflict are present have dominated research on the nexus between environmental scarcity and conflict. This dissertation offers a quantitative analysis of the effect changes in water resources have on domestic conflict in 42 Sub-Saharan African nations which differ across the dependent variable, domestic conflict, and which vary across the explanatory environmental variables. This research advances the discussion of the causal effects of environmental scarcity and degradation on domestic conflict in four ways. It grounds the domestic conflict-environmental degradation discussion in the civil and social conflict literature; research on environmental security concludes that environmental change is most likely to play a role in domestic conflicts but research on domestic conflict typically does not include environmental variables. This quantitative study addresses a methodological shortcoming of earlier research, limited variation across the variable measuring water resource availability, by testing an alternative means of operationalizing water resources using annual precipitation data weighted by land area and population and weighted by land area and gross national product. This study introduces additional variation on the dependent variable and compares the results of a dichotomous variable with the results of a dependent variable with categorical coding based on the States in Armed Conflict Database. This research extends the scope of explanatory variables to include indicators for political institutions and their capacity to manage the water resources within their national boundaries. The findings support and extend previous conclusions that water resources contribute to civil conflict and demonstrate that the use of precipitation data weighted by land area and population, a variable with variation, is a correlate for water resource availability, a static variable; and thereby providing results that are more reliable. This correlate advances the environment-conflict discourse by more directly linking the data that describes the natural world to the social changes to which those natural phenomenon are purported to relate. This study also finds that institutional capacity to manage water resources creates opportunities for rent-seeking but that open political institutions mediate between water resources and conflict.
Transboundary Water Politics: Conflict, Cooperation, and Shadows of the Past in the Okavango and Orange River Basins of Southern Africa
(2008-10-14) Sebastian, Antoinette G; Conca, Kenneth L.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Rival use of limited water resources among riparian states is often problematic and politically contentious. The hydro-politics for transboundary rivers links its riparians in complex multidimensional networks of environmental, political, economic, and security interdependencies. In regions where water is politically scarce, expected to become hydrologically more so, and shared, it may be considered more valuable, thus potentially rendering cooperation or conflict prospects more significant. Given the number of agreements, basin organizations, and joint and permanent commissions/ committees, transboundary water cooperation amongst southern Africa basin riparians is considered high. Still, a riparian state's competing claims for limited water resources is often problematic and politically contentious because: (a) water agreements are often not about water, (b) cooperation does not equal a lack of no conflict, and (c) understanding the strategic interaction among riparian states as signatories to transboundary river agreements requires a contextual framework. Water may not be the only story and history and hydro-hegemony are important. In this research, the contextual framework focuses on understanding when and under what circumstances the past, the problem, and the politics interfere with the prospects of cooperation, or enables riparian behavioral change which, in turn, produces the desired levels of cooperation. It identifies and explains how South Africa as both basin and regional hydro-hegemon is driving hydro-cooperation and pursuing its own self-interests. This research explores how the geopolitical interests and history condition the types of environmental cooperation possible in the Orange and Okavango river basins in Southern Africa. It posits a Maslowian perspective to navigating a hierarchy of obstacles blocking the journey towards reaching quality cooperation outcomes in order to create spaces for positive conflict. Several of the actors are the same in both river basins. There are, however, differences, which have their origins in history--the shadows of the past. The cases illustrate how history matters. It drives contemporary politics by forcing governments to face difficult choices among sets of priorities, which may appear to compromise one group, unmet needs, or issues over others. History suppresses knowledge, aligns power, and shapes identity by framing the language of politics and power. By doing so, it influences hydro-political dialogue.
Human Trafficking on the International and Domestic Agendas: Examining the Role of Transnational Advocacy Networks Between Thailand and United States
(2008-05-23) Bertone, Andrea Marie; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Thai activists, nonstate organizations, and transnational networks have been involved in trying to influence the Thai and international anti-trafficking agendas through their involvement with transnational and domestic advocacy networks since the early 1980s. Despite significant activism against human trafficking and related issues in Thailand throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. government and the broader international community did not seriously begin paying attention to human trafficking until the late 1990s. It was not until 2000 that both the U.S. government and the United Nations developed significant anti-trafficking policies. Why did it take until 2000 for the international community, including the U.S. government and many U.S.-based nonstate actors, to put the issue of trafficking on their political agendas, despite the fact that Thai-based nonstate actors and other Asian activists had been advocating for a response for nearly two decades? When the U.S. and the international community did finally put this issue on their agendas, how did Thai-based nonstate actors respond to international and U.S. styles of agenda-setting in Thailand? The issue of human trafficking has been put on the national political agendas in both the United States and Thailand; however, the issue took very different paths on its way to the agenda in each country. In the case of Thailand, we can find Thai activists working on related issues since the early 1980s, connecting and networking domestically and transnationally to advocate for a governmental response to complex international problems. In the case of the United States, an unlikely coalition of conservatives and feminist abolitionists has clashed with human rights organizations with regard to framing and defining human trafficking. One argument of this dissertation is that the emergence and operation of domestic and transnational advocacy networks have been instrumental in framing human trafficking in such a way to keep the issue on the national political agendas of the United States and Thailand. The primary drivers of the transnational advocacy networks are nonstate actors, and they have played key roles in spotlighting this issue, networking with one another, and interacting with governments in creative ways to address human trafficking.
Greening Export Promotion: A Comparative Study of Environmental Standard-Setting for Export Credit Agencies
(2008-01-15) Schaper, Marcus; Schreurs, Miranda A; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Export credit agencies (ECAs), private banks and the World Bank are all institutions which facilitate the construction of infrastructure projects in developing countries, which often have significant environmental ramifications. However, although all three types of institutions have also been known to acquiesce to public pressure to consider the extent of the environmental impact of their projects, export credit agencies were able to resist this pressure for 25 years, implementing environmental rules in their operations much later than did the World Bank and private banks, which introduced similar reforms within a much shorter period of time. This dissertation explains why ECAs as public institutions were less responsive to public demands than an international organization and even private banks. The answer to this puzzle is advanced in two dimensions: one dealing with the rule-making process and the other addressing the harmonization of policies among ECAs. In a cost-benefit analysis approach covering both dimensions, the political costs and benefits of changes to existing rules as well as the regulatory costs of these changes are considered. Political costs and benefits are considered to result from the effects of these rules on competing groups combined with the power these groups wield in the rule-making process. Regulatory costs result from changes in rules and procedures. They are especially pronounced when adaptations go beyond changes to regulatory targets and include modifications in regulations or even challenge meta-regulatory principles engrained in regulatory cultures. Diverging speed and scope of reform among these institutions is the consequence of variations in the power of competing demands made on them and variations in the institutional contexts enabling, channeling, and constraining the power of the groups making the demands. Adopted rules reflect these power relationships. ECA harmonization involves changes to pre-existing regulations and compromises on meta-regulatory principles. This kind of agreement is very difficult to achieve - if achieved at all. Institutional incompatibility between rules proposed by the United States and continental European regulatory cultures was a decisive obstacle to harmonization.
Sheathing the Sword of Damocles: Assessing Al Qaeda and Devising a US Response
(2007-12-18) McGrath, Kevin; Schreurs, Miranda; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Al Qaeda killed over 3,000 US citizens on September 11, 2001, and terrorism leapt to the fore of US strategic and political priorities. Yet, after nearly six year of concerted effort by the United States, the dominant power in the international system, Al Qaeda survives and is still acknowledged as a potent threat. This begs the question not just of why, but of what the United States can do to redress the situation. This dissertation seeks answers by examining the four key aspects of Al Qaeda that enable it function as a successful terrorist entity - strategy, organization, financing, and politics. These factors area analyzed relative to the dynamics of the phenomenon of terrorism in the US-Al Qaeda struggle. For each variable, Al Qaeda's perspective and efforts, as well as the perspective and efforts of the United States, are scrutinized. This dissertation assesses Al Qaeda is primarily a political threat, not a military one. Terrorists subvert legitimate political processes to achieve political ends. Al Qaeda challenges not only specific US political decisions, but also the very nature of the US political system, a classical liberal democracy, and the nature of the US-created post World War II international order. The character of the US political response is critical. As such, this dissertation concludes that US efforts to combat such a threat cannot be limited solely to a hard power approach. Such a component must be present in US strategy, for it alone directly degrades Al Qaeda's capacity for violence, the source of its power. The US approach must, however, include a greater emphasis on the US-Al Qaeda struggle's political dimension. The political aspect both drives the conflict and frames its execution, thus shaping the possible outcomes in both the near and far term. Fortunately, as the leader of the international system, the United States is in a position to politically undercut Al Qaeda. The United States can do so by adhering to globally revered traditional US political values and foreign policy emphases - the rule of law, a participatory political system emphasizing the importance of international institutions, and democratic values, such as human rights - in not just the execution, but also the formulation of US policy. The potential impact is significant. Internally, manipulating the US-Al Qaeda struggle's political dimension in accordance with traditional US values can weaken Al Qaeda's internal cohesion. Externally, the United States can narrow Al Qaeda's room for maneuver by depriving it of political support, thus strategically degrading Al Qaeda's operational capability. In the process, the United States will also stunt the terrorism process's subversive effects on the United States' political character. In short, addressing the US-Al Qaeda struggle's political dimension in a manner consistent with traditional US political values ensures US political integrity while also yielding national advantage.
Ethnic Rebellion in Democratic Experiments
(2007-11-28) Pate, Amy; Wilkenfeld, Jonathan; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Numerous studies have found that, in general, democracy decreases intensity of ethnic rebellion. However, the recent transition experiences of multinational states problematize the assumption that social peace accompanies democratization. Especially in the post-Communist world, democratization has been followed by increases in ethnic rebellion. This dissertation explores the question of why some ethnic groups maintain or increase levels of rebellion following democratization while others rely on nonviolence or at least decrease the level of violence employed against the state. I conduct a large-N cross-national comparative investigation of these questions, employing Barry Weingast's (1998) reciprocal vulnerability framework, focusing on the impact of conflictual histories, political institutions, form of democratization and uncertainty. The analysis includes 102 ethnic groups in 42 countries that attempted democratization between 1980 and 2000 and employs data from the Minorities at Risk dataset, the Polity dataset and original data on ethnic participation in democratization, autonomy and federalism, and repression. Multiple statistical methods are employed to test 13 hypotheses derived from the reciprocal vulnerability framework. Findings provide only limited support for reciprocal vulnerability as a generalizable explanation of ethnic rebellion. However, findings strongly support grievance-based theories of ethnic rebellion, and provide limited support for collective action theory of ethnic rebellion, particularly in terms of the effects of repression.
Adapting to Norms at the United Nations: the Abortion-Rights and Anti-Abortion Networks
(2007-11-20) Swinski, June Samuel; Conca, Ken; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines the practical effects of international norm construction for social movements attempting to navigate the UN system, specifically UN global conferences. Do norms become ingrained in the practices of intergovernmental organizations to such an extent that they hinder a movement with different norms or help a movement that conforms to them? In studying the UN and especially UN global conferences on issues of social significance, it has been argued that the norms stemming from classic Lockean liberalism, such as emphasis on individual liberties, a rights-based framework for developing policy, and progress through science and reason, are embodied in the procedures and frameworks of UN global conferences. I compare the strategies and influence of the abortion-rights and anti-abortion movements over time at the UN, particularly through the International Conferences on Population and Development, and trace how each movement has adjusted its strategies to accommodate the normative context it has encountered at the UN. I use a combined structural and agency-oriented framework that identifies the concrete mechanisms and processes through which the interplay of movement ideology and institutional-normative context may constrain or facilitate a social movement's actions within the UN system. What I've found in my research is that the abortion-rights network has had more success in actually influencing the debate and changing the language of population policy to reflect their goals, whereas the influence of the anti-abortion network can really only be measured by the language that they have blocked. But it is important to note that both the abortion-rights network and the anti-abortion network have adjusted over time to the UN in terms of their strategies, which is interesting because of the more progressive character of one, and the conservative character of the other. However, the progressive and conservative characters of the two movements still affected how easily each movement adapted to these norms at the UN, and the success of their strategies in that forum.

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