Domestic-level Variables Research Articles

What drives engagement in the Clean Energy Ministerial? An assessment of domestic-level factors

ABSTRACT This study concentrates on the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) as one of several high-level global forums on climate change governance. The CEM can be conceptualised as a ‘polycentric’ organisation in which its members collaborate on a wide range of issues concerning the clean energy transition. Can we identify a set of domestic-level variables that explain the member states’ participation across different CEM initiatives? And can we identify clusters of CEM initiatives for which the same set of domestic-level variables provide robust explanations? Theoretically, we concentrate on domestic factors and how these explain engagement patterns in high-level global forums. Our findings for 12 initiatives show that there is no single domestic factor that explains engagement levels equally well for all CEM initiatives. Our overarching finding is that the domestic determinants of engagement vary across the initiatives, suggesting that future research should attend more closely to their specific features.

International Constraints, Political Turnover, and Voting Consistency in the United Nations General Assembly

AbstractRecent studies demonstrate that turnover in domestic political leadership is associated with change in states’ foreign policies. While domestic changes matter even after controlling for international factors, many argue that international factors should overwhelm the effects of domestic turnover on foreign policy change. Yet existing studies tend to focus on other domestic-level variables (e.g., regime type) as constraints on domestic turnover. We consider how three sets of international factors that scholars have argued might outweigh the influence of domestic changes—security environment, socialization, and economic dependence—moderate the effects of domestic coalition changes on variance in voting patterns in the United Nations. To do this, we interact a measure of domestic coalition turnover with various proxies for international context in a statistical model of voting consistency. We find that many international factors are associated with greater consistency in voting behavior. Yet the effects of domestic change on foreign policy are remarkably resilient. We find only limited evidence that the effect of domestic change attenuates as states face more international constraints. The results reinforce the importance of understanding the role of both domestic political factors and international context in shaping foreign policy.

Diverging German and British governmental trade policy preferences in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations

ABSTRACT In EU trade policy literature it is common knowledge that EU member states can initiate, postpone and even block trade negotiations. Their importance therefore is of great significance but knowledge on member governments’ trade policy preferences is very limited. Main aim of this article is to close this research gap by calling for a stronger focus on the domestic politics towards EU trade policy-making by examining member governments’ trade policy preferences. Numerous trade negotiations have illustrated that these preferences can considerably diverge in cross-country comparison. The most recent example are the EU-U.S. trade negotiations. Why did governmental trade policy preferences towards the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) differ? Novel here is the application of the societal approach to governmental preference formation which primarily focuses on domestic-level variables, sectoral interests and value-based ideas, in shaping governmental trade positions. The relationship between these independent variables is examined in order to illustrate which of these was more dominant and under which conditions, in shaping British and German governmental trade policy preferences during TTIP negotiations.

“Leading from behind”: neoclassical realism and operation Odyssey Dawn

In March 2011, President Barack Obama ordered US air and naval forces to commence Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya to impose a no-fly zone. The decision by the Obama Administration to intervene in a limited and supporting role in Libya is an important development in US foreign policy. Operation Odyssey Dawn presents scholars with a valuable opportunity to analyze and explore how US foreign policy is made and what roles domestic politics and elite perceptions play in decisions to use force. The author argues that neoclassical realism is a useful and compelling theoretic framework with which to analyze Operation Odyssey Dawn. While the Administration intervened in response to perceived external-level threats to US national interests, salient intervening domestic-level variables and elite perceptions shaped and guided the tenor and scope of the operation.

Politics and Privatization: Exogenous pressures, domestic incentives and state divestiture in Latin America

AbstractDespite a pervasive trend towards state retrenchment in Latin America since the 1980s, there remains significant variation in the levels of privatization across the region. However, very few cross-national studies of the determinants of privatization have been conducted and we still do not truly know why states privatize. This paper examines the determinants of privatization for 14 Latin American states over the period 1975 to 2003. I contend that privatization is best conceptualized as a two-stage process involving an initial decision to privatize, followed by a subsequent decision concerning the extent and intensity of privatization. In addition, privatization cannot be simply explained by either international or domestic level-variables. Rather, endogenous and exogenous variables will have different impacts at different stages of this process. The results of the statistical tests yield two important insights. Firstly, the initial decision to privatize is primarily shaped by international factors, in particular, international diffusion, while variation in the level of state divestiture across the region can primarily be explained by domestic economic and political conditions.

Jon C. Pevehouse, Democracy from Above: Regional organizations and democratization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Democracy from Above addresses the intersection of two important political phenomena: the influence and proliferation of regional international organizations (IOs), and the sources of democratization. The central finding is that regional organizations both facilitate transitions to democracy and enhance the survivability of young democracies. With respect to the democratization literature, the book’s message is that external factors must be considered alongside domestic-level variables, the primary focus of scholars in this area. For students of international relations, Pevehouse expands our understanding of how IOs matter—including their ability to penetrate domestic politics—and shows that variation among them must be taken seriously. He also provides one of the most convincing empirical refutations to date of the Realist view that institutions merely reflect the forces of power politics. Alongside its contribution to these academic debates, the book is timely from a policy standpoint. By showing that membership in regional fora can help induce and nurture democracy, the findings highlight a type of international political engagement capable of promoting liberal reform. At a time when external imposition of democracy in Iraq is proving arduous at best, the promise of alternative pathways is especially welcome. Pevehouse suggests a number of causal mechanisms—too many to summarize here—by which the salutary effects of regional IOs on democracy occur. While some of the hypothesized mechanisms are international (e.g., states can use these organizations to pressure or offer incentives to authoritarian members or would-be members), the majority transpire in the domestic realm. The most important effects come from the conditionality associated with membership in regional organizations. By accepting these conditions, reforming governments can bind themselves and enhance their legitimacy during both the transition and consolidation phases. This minimizes opposition from publics and competing elites, especially business groups

International Regimes, Domestic Veto-Players, and Capital Controls Policy Stability

States' decisions about regulating international capital movements are shaped in part by institutions and partisanship at the domestic level, but the effects of domestic-level variables are themselves contingent on the constraints imposed by the international system. We amend the veto-players hypothesis to account for the effects of international regimes on the political influence of domestic players in state decision-making. The history of changes in international financial regulations over the past four decades provides an ideal case to study the interaction of international regimes and domestic decision-making systems. We create a data set of all capital controls policy changes that 19 OECD parliamentary democracies made during the years 1951–1998. Using these new data, we find that states with a higher number of veto-player parties in government enact fewer capital controls policy changes. Furthermore, ideologically right-of-center governments in these industrialized countries are more likely than others to enact capital controls liberalizations. We also find, however, that the independent effects of these domestic-level variables disappear after the mid-1980s, when the systemic constraints imposed on individual states increased substantially.

Domestic-International Interactions and Japanese Security Studies

This article highlights the critical structural- and domestic-level variables that will shape Japan's future security policy orientation. I argue that although most analysts recognize that both the internal and external realms are important, very few have analyzed how variables at the two levels are interrelated-a surprising state of affairs given the field's recent emphasis on domestic-international interactions. Analysts who insist on stressing factors at one level to the exclusion of the other, however, are likely to miss the most important dynamics of Japan's future security policies. We need to think more clearly about how to integrate international- and domestic-level factors and to appreciate the importance of interactions between them.

Domestic-International Interactions and Japanese Security Studies

This article highlights the critical structural- and domestic-level variables that will shape Japan's future security policy orientation. I argue that although most analysts recognize that both the internal and external realms are important, very few have analyzed how variables at the two levels are interrelated-a surprising state of affairs given the field's recent emphasis on domestic-international interactions. Analysts who insist on stressing factors at one level to the exclusion of the other, however, are likely to miss the most important dynamics of Japan's future security policies. We need to think more clearly about how to integrate international- and domestic-level factors and to appreciate the importance of interactions between them.

Realist Environment, Liberal Process, and Domestic-Level Variables

This article examines the deductive basis upon which domestic-level theorizing may be combined with liberal and realist systemic-level theory in order to account for international outcomes. It is particularly concerned with whether existing systemic theory can incorporate domestic-level variables in a causally consistent rather than ad hoc manner. In addressing such a concern, it confronts the widely held assumption in the IR theory literature that liberalism is more accommodating of domestic-level variables and their potential causal impact than is realism. When the deductive logic of systemic liberal and realist theory is examined, however, it becomes clear that domestic-level variables can be consistently causal in systemic realist theory, but are accorded little causal weight in systemic liberal theory. The article concludes that realism is actually more accommodating of domestic-level variables and theorizing than is liberalism. Given the common misconceptions within the field regarding the relationship between systemic theories and domestic-level theorizing, issues of theoretical causal compatibility must be considered if domestic-level variables are going to be incorporated in a rigorous rather than ad hoc manner.