Process Tracing Research Articles

Pathways towards power shifts: State-society synergy

Policy reformers often make bold promises to improve government responsiveness to citizen demands. Yet such proclaimed openings from above often fall short, get diverted, or are blocked. This study uses the state-society synergy approach to analyze exceptional cases when reformers within the state managed to deliver openings for citizen action that tangibly empowered otherwise excluded or marginalized groups. What happens when these reform strategies are attempted? We used process tracing, combined with qualitative comparative analysis, to identify patterns across 19 cases in the global South where state actors created a more enabling environment for citizens’ collective action. The study compares the triggers and scope of enabling state actions, the breadth and intensity of collective action, roadblocks within the state, and whether or not these interactive processes led to substantive power shifts in favor of the excluded. We find that half of these openings led to shifts towards greater power for either citizens or reformist actors within public institutions, in spite of both structural obstacles and governmental roadblocks. Notably, power shifts occurred where reformers’ initiatives to enable collective action were themselves most intensive (often but not always backed by political change). Windows of opportunity were often open only briefly, until reformers lost power, and the pathways that led to power shifts combined collaborative and adversarial relationships. The power shifts identified were all incremental and uneven, and many were limited to subnational arenas. Though some later stalled or were partly rolled back, from the point of view of socially and politically excluded groups they represented tangible improvements in the balance of power. While tangible openings from above are rare and conventional theory would expect little institutional change, the state-society synergy framework shows how state actions to reduce the risks or costs of collective action can enable pathways to power shifts.

김정은 시기 핵능력과 국가전략의 연계성 분석: 신년사 텍스트마이닝 분석과 인과적 과정 추적법의 병행

김정은 시기 핵능력과 국가전략의 연계성 분석: 신년사 텍스트마이닝 분석과 인과적 과정 추적법의 병행

How to halt deforestation in the Amazon? A Bayesian process-tracing approach

In this paper, we employ for the first time a Bayesian process-tracing approach to assess the role of different interventions designed to halt deforestation. We applied the methodology to six initiatives implemented between 2006 and 2019 in the municipality of São Felix do Xingu, namely: (i) institution of protected areas, (ii) environmental monitoring and enforcement, (iii) credit restrictions, (iv) commodity agreements, (v) multi-stakeholder processes, and (vi) value chain projects. Bayesian process tracing is an alternative to traditional counterfactual approaches that allows the gleaning of in-depth insights into ‘causal chain’ mechanisms and complex interrelationships in individual cases, rather than identifying common or cross-cutting features across different cases. Contrary to traditional process-tracing methodologies, the Bayesian approach provides analytical transparency and replicability through a formal and fine-grained assessment of the strength of the evidence. We assessed 31 individual pieces of evidence, developed using data collected through a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. We grouped these into interventions spanning three periods of time and traced the causal mechanisms linked to their success or failure. In total, we developed nine theory components. Our results reveal that we are practically certain that four theory components are true. We are also reasonably certain or highly confident that four other theory components are true, and only cautiously confident that one component is true. Drawing on the nine components, we offer a composite theory explaining deforestation outcomes. Our findings provide four implications for global debates. Namely, they provide a strong case for the importance of conceptually distinguishing: the types of actors targeted (e.g., smallholder or medium-to-large landholders) and the frontier status (i.e., whether interventions take place in active frontiers or in consolidated areas). They also prove that interventions may be well implemented for a certain period but can lose effectiveness over time. Finally, our findings call attention to synergies among interventions, and in particular to the combination of regulatory interventions to halt frontier expansion with market-based approaches to incentivize non-deforestation behaviour.

Multi-perspective conformance checking of uncertain process traces: An SMT-based approach

Conformance checking, one of the central tasks in process mining, compares the expected behavior described by a reference process model to the actual behavior recorded in an event log, with the goal of detecting deviations. Traditionally, it is assumed that the log provides a faithful and complete digital footprint of reality. However, assuming perfect logs is often unrealistic: real-life logs typically suffer from data quality issues, exposing uncertainty in their events, timestamps, and data attributes. We attack this problem by introducing a comprehensive framework for multi-perspective conformance checking dealing with uncertainty along three perspectives: control-flow, time, and data. From the modeling point of view, we consider process models formalized as Petri nets operating over data variables, and event logs presenting uncertainty at the event- and attribute-level. We cast conformance checking as an alignment problem, extending the traditional notions of alignment and cost function to deal with uncertainty along the three aforementioned perspectives. From the operational point of view, we show how (optimal) alignments can be computed through well-established automated reasoning techniques from Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT). Specifically, we show how previous results on data-aware SMT-based conformance checking can be lifted to this more sophisticated setting, obtaining a flexible framework that can seamlessly handle different variants of the problem. We formally prove correctness of our approach and implement it in the conformance checker cocomot. Finally, we perform a thorough experimental evaluation on synthetic and real-life logs, demonstrating the overall promising performance of our framework.

A tale of dualization: accounting for the partial marketization of regulated savings in France

As in other countries, regulated savings in France are intricately woven into dense regulatory frameworks driven by explicit governmental objectives. The anticipated marketization of the French economy should have eradicated them; however, a substantial portion of regulated savings has managed to evade this process. Is this phenomenon attributable to the tenacious grip of the French state-led tradition? Not entirely, as another subset of these savings has indeed undergone marketization. The landscape of French regulated savings is notably distinguished by a growing dichotomy: on one side, non-marketized products offered by banks, and on the other, increasingly marketized products provided by insurers. Drawing upon process tracing, we contend that these ostensibly conflicting developments emanate from the distinct and precise institutional dependencies between state and private actors in which these products are enmeshed. The prevailing status quo within the banking sector is owed to banks’ engagement in a mutually advantageous, long-term exchange of favors with state actors. Faced with the trade-off between offering less lucrative products and risking the endangerment of this relationship, banks have opted for the former. In contrast, an assertive strategy has gained traction in the insurance industry. Yet, strategies for the marketization of regulated savings aligned with state priorities have been implemented, even when insurers expressed opposition.

Conflict and Coalition: Securing LGBT Rights in the Face of Hostility

Under what conditions do states protect minority rights in a context of domestic resistance? Recent decades have seen rapid divergence on LGBT rights worldwide, with Africa presented as “norms antipreneur” in the face of international pressure. Yet, in 1996, South Africa was the first country in the world to provide constitutional protection on grounds of sexual orientation. This article develops an original theory on LGBT rights protection using a conflict-to-rights framework. Employing process tracing, elite interviews and archival sources, I show how a situation of insurgency allows LGBT activists to build networks and increase egalitarian attitudes to attain in-group status. Continued violence also works to block public participation in policy-making while dividing opposition forces, allowing a tiny group of activists to effectively lobby for change.

New Settlement of Holercani-Hansca Cultural Horizon in Republic of Moldova

As a result of field surveys of the last years, the new site of Holercani-Hansca cultural group – Andreevca-I settlement has been found. The purpose of this research paper is the characteristics of the mentioned site and the interim results of its study.
 Results. Andreevca-I settlement is located in Orhei raion of the Republic of Moldova, at the lands of Chiperceni Community. The site is located 0.38 km northeast of the village of Andreevca and 0.28 km northwest of the pond of the village of Andreevca; on the left bank of the stream Vorotet. The settlement is located on a smooth slope. The land area of the settlement along the line North-West-South-East is 100x200 m. Fragments of ceramics, bones of animals, pieces of burnt clay, and different stones, some of them with traces of processing, were found on the plowed surface. The settlement is multilayered. The ceramics of the Late Bronze Age prevail in the materials of the settlement. It is associated with Holercani-Hansca cultural group (12th – 10th century BCE), interim between the cultures of the early Hallstatt, and the Late Bronze Age.
 According to O.G. Levitskiy, Holercani-Hansca group fills the gap between the cultural formations of Pre-Babadag and Tămăoani type and Balta group of sites of the Late Bronze Age. In addition, Hallstatt horizon with prevailing incised ceramics, which can be conventionally called Tămăoani-Holercani-Balta, is distinguished. Chronological framework of this horizon according to analogues of Balta group and Tămăoani can be the end of the 12th – 10th century BCE. The closest analogues to this cultural formation could be the cultures of the Lower Danube region – Sihleanu, Tămăoani, Pre-Babadag, Babadag-I, and early Belozerka culture sites, including Balta group of the Late Bronze Age. The role of Chisinau-Corlateni type sites, of which Holercani-Hansca group had got a number of material borrowings while forming its cultural entity, is doubtless.

The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility: An Exceptional Borrowing Instrument?

ABSTRACT The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) authorises the European Commission to borrow up to €672.5 billion to aid member states’ economic recovery from COVID-19. Some scholars see such funding as unprecedented. Others see a tight link with earlier borrowing instruments. By comparing the EU’s pandemic facility to eleven such instruments created between 1952 and 2021, this article shows that the RRF is familiar in some respects but novel in others. Viewed through a historical institutionalist lens, the RRF shows signs of layering, but limited evidence of displacement or path dependence. Over the last seven decades, member states have added to earlier instruments, we show through process tracing, but they have rarely been locked into institutional choices. The RRF’s strict time limit is consistent with this finding. The RRF will not become permanent, our analysis suggests, but borrowing is now part of the EU’s toolkit.

Judicial resistance during electoral disputes: Evidence from Kenya

Over the last decade, African courts have played an important role in the conduct of free and fair elections. In Kenya, the Supreme Court nullified the presidential election of the incumbent. These rulings challenge the conventional wisdom that courts in hybrid regimes always support power holders despite blatant evidence of electoral fraud. Furthermore, these sparks of judicial resistance deserve our scholarly attention as they have the power to start the democratization process or limit further autocratization. Hence, this paper seeks to understand the conditions under which courts are able to resist incumbents’ pressure to legitimize electoral malpractice and side with the opposition. I argue that institutional reforms incentivize courts to resist the incumbent’s pressure and to rule in favor of the opposition during electoral disputes under two conditions. First, institutional reforms must reinforce de jure independence by enacting effective legal and constitutional mechanisms that prevent the executive branch from undermining the separation of power. Second, institutional reforms must mobilize judicial support networks by granting them the tools to engage in strategic and repeated litigation. I test this novel theory by leveraging original qualitative and quantitative data from Kenya. Using process tracing, I show how the 2010 constitution created an environment where the courts had no other choice than to annul the election of the incumbent – President Kenyatta – in 2017.

The European Peace Facility in action: rethinking EU-Africa partnership on peace and security?

The European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) have had and continue to maintain a long-standing partnership on peace and security, which dates back to the establishment of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) at the beginning of the 2000s. However, in 2021, the EU embarked on a different pathway of financing its activities in the field of peace and security by establishing the European Peace Facility (EPF). This new financial instrument allows the EU to directly finance (bypassing the AU) national and sub-regional military initiatives on the African continent, to finance lethal equipment for African armies and expand its scope globally. While the vast majority of current debates and research focus solely on the „train and equip“ provision of the EPF and its implications in the Ukrainian war, the EU engagement in Africa through the instrument mentioned above is scarcely assessed. Therefore, drawing on the theory of interregional security cooperation, this paper considers how establishing the EPF impacts the EU‘s engagement on the African continent in the security field. Empirically assessing the instances in which the EPF has been implemented on the African continent, this paper aims to answer the research question: how does the establishment and implementation of the EPF impact the EU-AU partnership on peace and security? This paper employs a qualitative research design, namely a case study approach of inquiry and process tracing methods. The results of this approach show two distinct tendencies. First, while implementing the EPF in Africa can solve certain operational and technical aspects of the EU engagement on the continent, the EU-AU partnership must be reinforced on the political and strategic levels. Moreover, considering the plethora of international and regional actors involved in managing the security dynamics on the African continent, it is essential to prioritise the political dimension of the EU-AU partnership.

Financial regulatory conundrums in the North Atlantic

AbstractThis article explains a dominant, curious and important pattern that emerges from our original data on 11 areas of financial regulation in the United States and the European Union from the Great Financial Crisis to 2020: sustained regulatory stringency in both jurisdictions. Our novel explanation, rooted in theories about international economic interdependence, temporal process and market power, emphasizes cross‐border interactions that arose from a build‐up of ‘border‐policing’ capacities. Our medium‐n study, which combines congruence analysis and process tracing, reveals a causal mechanism – ‘joint reinforcement’ – whereby the potential penalties imposed by one of the two jurisdictions prevent or temper the other from watering down‐regulation. The study pushes the boundaries of qualitative research, advances theory and speaks to debates about global public goods.

Valve-Adjustable Optofluidic Bio-Imaging Platform for Progressive Stenosis Investigation.

The clinical evidence has proven that valvular stenosis is closely related to many vascular diseases, which attracts great academic attention to the corresponding pathological mechanisms. The investigation is expected to benefit from the further development of an in vitro model that is tunable for bio-mimicking progressive valvular stenosis and enables accurate optical recognition in complex blood flow. Here, we develop a valve-adjustable optofluidic bio-imaging recognition platform to fulfill it. Specifically, the bionic valve was designed with in situ soft membrane, and the internal air-pressure chamber could be regulated from the inside out to bio-mimic progressive valvular stenosis. The developed imaging algorithm enhances the recognition of optical details in blood flow imaging and allows for quantitative analysis. In a prospective clinical study, we examined the effect of progressive valvular stenosis on hemodynamics within the typical physiological range of veins by this way, where the inhomogeneity and local enhancement effect in the altered blood flow field were precisely described and the optical differences were quantified. The effectiveness and consistency of the results were further validated through statistical analysis. In addition, we tested it on fluorescence and noticed its good performance in fluorescent tracing of the clotting process. In virtue of theses merits, this system should be able to contribute to mechanism investigation, pharmaceutical development, and therapeutics of valvular stenosis-related diseases.

Understanding how bundles of party reforms are shaped: A snowballing sequence in the French-speaking Belgian liberal party (MR)

This article introduces the concept of bundle as a new powerful tool in the study of party reforms. The intensive and intricate nature of the engineering political parties undertake to preserve the status quo amidst a challenging environment tends to be obscured by the focus on their so-called ‘conservative nature’. Applied to the process tracing of a large sequence of reforms implemented by the Belgian French-Speaking liberal party (MR) between 2019 and 2022, the bundle concept provides the opportunity to go beyond the narrow vision of party reforms only defined and empirically studied so far through their type, size and success. I triangulate a variety of sources to uncover mechanisms through which a handful of key party actors - as powerful steering agents - perceive and translate environmental factors into specific reforms. The bundle analysis brings notably to light a key sequencing mechanism – a snowball effect – explaining how the sequence actually unfolded and fed on itself, challenging our hitherto accepted understanding of party engineering. This study also offers a transferable conceptual framework with valuable insights for wider use in the field, providing an avenue for theory building through causal analysis.

PointerScope: Understanding Pointer Patching for Code Randomization

Various fine-grained randomization schemes have been designed to increase the entropy of process space, while none of them can rise from an academic exercise to industrial deployment like Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). One of the critical reasons is the incorrectness of randomization caused by the mismatch between their pointer collection capabilities and the high accuracy requirements of the pointer patching task. In this article, we present PointerScope, an accurate compile-time pointer collection scheme deriving from a group of novel observations. The success of PointerScope relies on the complete tracing of the pointer generation process, including the compilation chain from compiler to static linker and the interface specification between them. From this view, PointerScope identifies four types of pointer-related static linker behaviors and clarifies five types of inherent addressing modes in the x86-64 architecture. The vague understanding of them causes the Compiler-assisted Code Randomization (CCR) to incorrectly collect pointers and patch them to the wrong values after randomization. Further, we measure the pointer collection capability of augmented binary analysis, the experimental results show that they can mitigate challenges from the traditional binary analysis by the given premises, but additional heuristics still need to be designed to support the fine-grained randomization.

EU FAST TRACK MEMBERSHIP: CAN IT HELP UKRAINE RESOLVE ITS REAL PROBLEMS?

In 1991, during its inception process, Ukraine faced Russia's territorial claims and a cold reception from the Western world towards its leadership. After evaluating its internal and external interests, Ukraine chose to sign a friendship and cooperation agreement with Russia, compromising its rights as a sovereign state. This decision kept the complex issues of cross-border irredentism and multiple identities in check. However, during the democratic transition, external actors got involved in Ukraine's domestic politics, resulting in the removal of President Yanukovych's government. This critical juncture set the trajectory for unleashing Ukraine's state-ness issues. External involvement and political mismanagement aggravated Ukraine's problems and transformed its political issues into state-legitimacy issues, making its claim of a single entity void. Without state legitimacy, Ukraine cannot join the EU or consolidate as a democracy. Even if it enters the EU, it cannot safeguard its state sovereignty or achieve a profitable deal. This post-positivist research uses process tracing within a case study to highlight Ukraine's real problems and whether EU membership can help resolve them. The best solution for Ukraine is to focus on its domestic issues and negotiate with the other actor for a peaceful solution. Bibliography Entry Siddiqi, Houma. 2023. "EU Fast Track Membership: Can It Help Ukraine Resolve Its Real Problems?" Margalla Papers 27 (1): 13-27.

Insurgency and Terrorism in Africa. Main Lines of Action of the European Union. Case Study: Central African Republic, Mali and Niger

"This article examines the main causes of insecurity on the African continent by attempting to identify the structural factors. Starting from these, the study examines and proposes a series of generic EU action lines for an integrated response. The work aimed to answer the following questions: What are the structural factors of insecurity in Africa? What lines of action should the European Union adopt? Is the action in the security sector sufficient? The methodology used was the comparative analysis of similar phenomena in the three mentioned countries. Process tracing and document analysis techniques were also used to determine causality and similarities. The findings indicate that violent extremism, inter- and intra- community conflict, climate change, population growth and poor governance are exacerbating instability and fragmentation on the African continent. Moreover, armed conflicts have become internationalized due to the involvement of external actors such as Russia and China, even if their strategies are different and complementary in nature. In this context, the main axes of the European Union's response must be subordinated to diplomacy and political dialogue, support for socio-economic development and the strengthening of the security sector. These measures should be complemented by coordinating the actions of like-minded actors and articulating appropriate strategic communication actions. Keywords: insurgency, terrorism, extremism, actions, European Union, security, dialogue. "

THE DURABILITY OF RELIGION IN THE SECULAR AGE: RELIGIONIZATION IN INDONESIA

The global intensification of religionization has raised renewed questions about the validity of the secularization thesis. Research supporting the secularization thesis suggested an alternative perspective, emphasizing the correlation between security levels and religious adherence. It posits that as security levels rise, the reliance on religion diminishes, whereas in contexts of low security, the need for religion intensifies. An examination of the trajectories and dynamics of secularization in Indonesia reveals that among the Muslim middle class, secularization has alleviated feelings of insecurity arising from socio-political crises. Such observations suggest that historical trajectories of religionization are intricately linked to these socio-political dynamics. Furthermore, initiatives by the government and political organizations that endorse religion as a preferred choice expedite this transition towards religionization. This study uses process tracing by dividing the historical process into three periods and comparing them analytically to explain the causal mechanism among modernization, secularization, and religionization.

Conflict shapes in flux: Explaining spatial shift in conflict-related violence

In contemporary armed conflict, the spatiality of violence and the constellation of actors involved in it change frequently, but how these changes affect one another remains poorly understood. What explains the spatial shift of areas affected by violence in multi-actor conflicts? We argue that the emergence of a new dominant conflict actor facilitates a shift in conflict-related violence. We theorize the causal mechanism as ‘low-risk/high-opportunity attraction’. It exists in territories where these actors can draw on a local support base and enhance capacities to engage in violence. To demonstrate our theory’s validity, we conduct two plausibility probes: on the conflict in Colombia paired with the conflict in the Lake Chad region, and on the conflict in the Afghan–Pakistani borderlands paired with the conflict in Iraq/Syria. We adopt a mixed-methods approach integrating visualizations, spatial analysis, network analysis and process tracing, drawing, inter alia, on interviews from remote regions of war-torn Colombia and Iraq.

Social identities in conflict: Israeli Palestinians and Israeli Jews

AbstractThe Israeli–Palestinian conflict is generally referred as a territorial conflict, but it is also a conflict over the preservation of identity. This study analyzes the relations of Jews and Palestinians in Israel from an identity security perspective. It sheds light on how the communities perceive actions, discourses, and symbols as a mutual threat to their own identity. Adapting the concept of societal security dilemma (SSD), this study seeks to reveal the patterns of feeling insecure between the groups and to put forth the measures and countermeasures taken to secure identity. This approach contends that the measures and countermeasures taken to reduce the perception of threat do not lead to a feeling of security; on the contrary, it creates a cycle of constant threat perception, making the groups feel more insecure in terms of identity. I argue that this is the case for the Jews and Palestinians in Israel. The analytical dimensions of SSD are applied to the case via process tracing and historical analysis. However, I identify a gap unaddressed by these dimensions of the concept. The present study proposes an additional dimension—confrontation—to fill this gap.

COPY AND PASTE? A CASE STUDY ON A PAIR OF JAMB FIGURES OF THE FÜRSTENPORTAL BAMBERG AND THEIR CASTS

Abstract. The focus of this paper is to determine whether it is possible to detect historical casting techniques on figural copies and distinguish differences due to these techniques from those caused by environmental influences after exposure to the weather. The figures from the Fürstenportal of Bamberg Cathedral of St. Peter and St. George, part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, have experienced much deterioration since the portal was erected in the early 13th century. For this reason, the jamb figures were moulded at the beginning of the 19th century and plaster copies made. These copies remained in safekeeping for over 90 years until they were used to make stone cast copies in the late 1990s. The copies replaced the outdoor originals, which were moved to a museum to protect them from further decay. It is therefore possible to observe different temporal states of the figures. Details of the moulding process could be identified with a workflow consisting of high-resolution 3D scanning, 3D surface comparisons and archival research. The plaster copies and the stone cast copies show different traces of the casting process. Both used flexible materials in the moulding process, which caused the copy to slightly deform from the originals. Furthermore, environmental influences could be separated from the moulding phenomena. Erosion from more than 90 years between the creation of the plaster copy and the translocation of the originals to the museum was observed, as well as erosion from the last 20 years on the stone cast copies.