State Sponsorship Research Articles

Afterwork and Overtime: The Social Reproduction of Human Capital

Afterwork and Overtime: The Social Reproduction of Human Capital

Transnational state-sponsored cyber economic espionage: a legal quagmire

Transnational state-sponsored cyber economic espionage poses a threat to the economy of developed countries whose industry is largely reliant on the value of information. In the face of rapid technological development facilitating cyber economic espionage from afar on a massive scale, the law has not developed apace to effectively address this problem. Applicable United States domestic laws have been ineffective in addressing the problem due to lack of enforcement jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, and inability to hold the state sponsor accountable. Customary international law principles offer little help in combatting the issue, as countermeasures are typically unavailable since espionage may not be ongoing by the time a victimized state can confidently attribute it to a state and retortions are a relatively weak response. Although existing treaties have not been effective in addressing this problem, a multilateral global treaty specifically addressing transnational state-sponsored cyber economic espionage may be a promising way forward.

Intellectual Paraphilias: Oscar Wilde and Cultural Critique as Transgression in the Early Alfonso Reyes

From early works such as Cuestiones estéticas (1911) up until the end of his prolific critical career, the figure of Oscar Wilde constituted a constant presence in the writings of Mexican intellectual Alfonso Reyes. In particular, during his formative years as a member of El Ateneo de la Juventud, Alfonso Reyes found in Wilde’s essayistic production an intellectual model that vindicated cultural critique not only as a dignified practice comparable in its creativity to literature, but as a space of intellectual transgression. This view of critique as a form of bohemian intellectualism epitomised by Wilde’s relentless cultivation of the paradox found expression in Alfonso Reyes’s concept of “el espíritu crítico” in his collection of essays El suicida (1917). In this paper, I will show how through this concept, the Reyes of the 1910s vindicates a radically nonconformist paradigm of intellectual freedom strongly inspired by Wilde’s intellectual critique. Written at a moment of significant professional and economic distress in his career, Reyes’s meta-discursive engagement with the figure of the intellectual in this book was followed by a gradual change in his own professional development from the early 1920s onwards. Unable to harmonise Wilde’s view of cultural critique as an act of bohemian transgression with his own professional aspirations, Reyes renounced this bohemian form of cultural critique, embracing instead a new model of institutional intellectualism strongly linked to political power and state sponsorship.

D.C. District Court Enters Over $300 Million Default Judgment Award Against Syria for the Death of Marie Colvin

On February 1, 2019, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted a motion for default judgment and entered a $302,511,836.00 award against the Syrian Arab Republic (“Syria”). The court found the Syrian government liable for the death of Marie Colvin, who died in an artillery shelling on February 22, 2012, at a media center in the city of Homs. Colvin was a heralded war correspondent who had previously “cover[ed] conflict zones in Iraq, Chechnya, the Balkans, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, and Libya.” Colvin's heirs brought suit, claiming that because Syria had been designated a “state sponsor of terrorism,” it could be held liable for an extrajudicial killing of a U.S. national under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Judge Amy Berman Jackson concluded that the plaintiffs met the evidentiary burden required to support their claim after finding personal and subject matter jurisdiction.

Friends in high places: state support for violent and non-violent ethnopolitical organizations

ABSTRACTStates seek to influence or alter political outcomes in other states by supporting non-governmental groups located within their rivals or enemies. While a dyadic-relation model explains much of state support for non-governmental ethnopolitical organizations, its static view fails to capture the changing nature of their relationships. By bringing violent and non-violent organizations into the same analysis, and examining data across different international systemic periods, we add new empirical evidence to previous studies, arguing that the external support for resistance is influenced by a specific context in the post-Cold War period as well as the behaviour and characteristics of the organizations vying for support. Analysing the Middle East Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior (ME-MAROB) dataset, we find that violent organizations are more likely to obtain external support than those organizations adhering to the principles of non-violence in both the Cold War and the post-Cold War periods. However, organizational popularity, capability, and kinship with the state sponsor encourage state support only after the end of the Cold War. This suggests that the shift in the international system caused by the collapse in bipolarity encouraged state actors to reconsider their behaviour in supporting ethnopolitical organizations inside other states.

Reach for Yield by U.S. Public Pension Funds

This paper studies whether U.S. public pension funds reach for yield by taking more investment risk in a low interest rate environment. To study funds' risk-taking behavior, we first present a simple theoretical model relating risk-taking to the level of risk-free rates, to their underfunding, and to the fiscal condition of their state sponsors. The theory identifies two distinct channels through which interest rates and other factors may affect risk-taking: by altering plans' funding ratios, and by changing risk premia. The theory also shows the effect of state finances on funds' risk-taking depends on incentives to shift risk to state debt holders. To study the determinants of risk-taking empirically, we create a new methodology for inferring funds' risk from limited public information on their annual returns and portfolio weights for the interval 2002-2016. In order to better measure the extent of underfunding, we revalue funds' liabilities using discount rate s that better reflect their risk. We find that funds on average took more risk when risk-free rates and funding ratios were lower, which is consistent with both the funding ratio and the risk-premia channels. Consistent with risk-shifting, we also find more risk-taking for funds affiliated with state or municipal sponsors with weaker public finances. We estimate that up to one-third of the funds' total risk was related to underfunding and low interest rates at the end of our sample period.

Hidden by Sovereign Shadows: Improving the Domestic Framework for Deterring State-Sponsored Cybercrime

This Article analyzes the domestic legal framework applicable to state-sponsored cybercrime. The Article describes several instances where state sovereigns perpetrated cybercrimes in the United States. It then outlines the legal framework that the US government utilizes to hold accountable those who perpetrate such crimes. This Article argues that the current legal framework does not have a deterrence effect on sovereign states engaged in such activity and that prosecutors who seek to apply the current framework against state sovereigns or who misattribute the source of such attacks could negatively impact US foreign policy. To remedy these defects, this Article asserts that relevant US law should apply extraterritorially and that Congress should contemplate passing a statute that abrogates sovereign immunity for state sponsors of cybercrime and subjects such states to civil liability.

Networks of Cooperation: Rebel Alliances in Fragmented Civil Wars

When rebels make alliances, what informs their choice of allies? Civil wars are rarely simple contests between rebels and incumbent regimes. Rather, rival militant networks provide the context in which these fragmented conflicts unfold. Alliances that emerge within this competitive landscape have the power to alter conflict trajectories and shape their outcomes. Yet patterns of interrebel cooperation are understudied. The existing scholarship on rebel alliances focuses on why rebels cooperate, but little attention is given to the composition of those alliances: with whom rebels cooperate. We explore how power, ideology, and state sponsorship can shape alliance choices in multiparty civil wars. Employing network analysis and an original data set of tactical cooperation among Syrian rebels, we find compelling evidence that ideological homophily is a primary driver of rebel collaboration. Our findings contribute to an emerging literature that reasserts the role of ideology in conflict processes.

Fratricide in rebel movements: A network analysis of Syrian militant infighting

Violent conflict among rebels is a common feature of civil wars and insurgencies. Yet, not all rebel groups are equally prone to such infighting. While previous research has focused on the systemic causes of violent conflict within rebel movements, this article explores the factors that affect the risk of conflict between pairs of rebel groups. We generate hypotheses concerning how differences in power, ideology, and state sponsors between rebel groups impact their propensity to clash and test them using data from the Syrian civil war. The data, drawn from hundreds of infighting claims made by rebel groups on social media, are used to construct a network of conflictual ties among 30 rebel groups. The relationship between the observed network structure and the independent variables is evaluated using network analysis metrics and methods including assortativity, community structure, simulation, and latent space modeling. We find strong evidence that ideologically distant groups have a higher propensity for infighting than ideologically proximate ones. We also find support for power asymmetry, meaning that pairs of groups of disparate size are at greater risk of infighting than pairs of equal strength. No support was found for the proposition that sharing state sponsors mitigates rebels’ propensity for infighting. Our results provide an important corrective to prevailing theory, which discounts the role of ideology in militant factional dynamics within fragmented conflicts.

Terroryzm sponsorowany przez państwa. Casus bliskowschodnich państw-sponsorów

The point of interest in this paper is the issue of state-sponsored terrorism. The essence of this form of terrorism is the intentional (indirect or direct) support, offered by state sponsors to terrorist organizations, and the intention to let them achieve their political, strategic or tactical goals, usually concerning the citizens, governments or the territory of third-party countries. The paper presents a classification of the range of such support and concentrates on the analysis of the motives and means applied by the state sponsors. Owing to historical conditions and the range and scope of support granted, the paper uses the examples of Iran, Syria and Iraq. Only the former two states offer permanent support to terrorist organizations in the Middle East. After the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iraqi authorities have abandoned this activity as it was actually harmful to the interests of their country.

Iran: Sponsoring or Combating Terrorism?

Iran has a longstanding connection with terrorism, in particular after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It has been recognized as both a victim and state sponsor of terrorism, but has predominantly been accused of supporting terrorism worldwide. Iran has been accused of training, financing, and providing weapons and safe havens for nonstate militant actors, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. While Iran considers such groups as national liberation movements, they are by contrast designated as terrorist groups according to other countries. At the same time, Iran has suffered from terrorist attacks, although Iranian security has proven much superior to its neighbors, such as Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Regardless of claims relating to Iran as a victim or sponsor of terrorism, no official policy or document has been published by the government by way of a counterterrorism policy because any stated policy would be subject to accountability, human rights, and the rule of law. In practice, its focus is placed on the “War by Terror” as an external instrument as opposed to internal “Counterterrorism.” By analysis of official documents, statements, and laws, both Persian and English sources, this article aims to clarify Iran’s counterterrorism policy and framework and the actual practices of Iran in the Middle East.

Seaborne terrorism and counterintelligence in India: challenges and concerns

ABSTRACTThe city of Bombay (later Mumbai) has witnessed two deadly seaborne terrorist attacks in 1993 and 2008, respectively. Recurring with a gap of 15 years, the latter had a similar nature and goal as that of the former. Apart from the seaborne character, there was state sponsorship from Pakistan, nexus with organized criminal groups and communal objectives. The only difference was that the 2008 attacks were carried out with greater sophistry as a result of the right lessons learnt from 1993, and a greater involvement of the Pakistani ‘deep state’. The central question approached in this article is how does a nation cope with such a triad threat perception? On examination of the intelligence prerogative for terrorist operations, the inevitability of counterintelligence responses is established. It is argued that the intelligence solution to the terrorist problem lies in ‘counterintelligence’ (CI), especially offensive CI, rather than traditional intelligence gathering.

Business, Transnationalism, and Patrimony

This article examines how musicians involved in the government sponsored music scene in Recife, the capital of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, (meta)musically perform different versions of the ‘entrepreneurial self,’ a form of neoliberal subjectivity. Through comparing specific musicians’ practices and narratives, I argue Pernambucan state sponsorship is a mechanism which redefines citizenship on entrepreneurial terms and reinforces structural inequality. As government programs provide new opportunities to formalize and professionalize their labor, musicians face more bureaucratic and socioeconomic challenges that require them to broaden their musical labor to include skills like social media marketing and grant proposal writing. These expectations are difficult enough for middle-class, educated musicians to meet, but even harder for marginalized, lower-class, and racialized citizens to manage. By comparing how three musicians construct themselves as business-oriented, transnational, or patrimonial entrepreneurs, the article makes explicit what similar studies suggest, but often leave implicit: professionalism and entrepreneurialism are increasingly interdependent. Furthermore, while the entrepreneurial self is predicated on autonomy, these musicians' autonomy paradoxically depends on a combination of social networks and state sponsorship. In sum, the article reveals how individuals are creating new subjectivities to adapt to changing economic conditions.

Seoul's Supporting Role in Pyongyang's Sanctions-Busting Scheme

Seoul's Supporting Role in Pyongyang's Sanctions-Busting Scheme Sung-Yoon Lee (bio) Sanctions sway with the political wind, and all year the political wind behind sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been gathering into a storm—one that threatens to reverse course and derail the enforcement efforts built up over the past two years. For the Republic of Korea (ROK), the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore on June 12 provided a powerful wind to further clear the way for muffling existing sanctions on Pyongyang. Sanctions, like domestic law, are not self-executing but require constant effort to enforce. For sanctions to bear the intended results, the political will, human resources, and disincentives to subverting enforcement all must be in place, continually, until the target nation's strategic calculations are profoundly affected by the persistent pressure. If the will dissipates—for example, following a sudden change in the diplomatic environment—enforcement can weaken. When sanctions implementation comes undone and third parties return to the business-as-usual mode of nonenforcement, or in some cases even actively subsidize the target nation, the toughest sanctions on the books will be bereft of meaning. Moreover, in the wake of premature relaxation, sanctions can hardly be reactivated instantly. The resumption of enforcement takes much more time than the re-enforcement of domestic laws, as the process is largely determined by the degree and duration of international cooperation. In short, sanctions are as much dependent on the vagaries of the political wind as the currents at sea are on the natural wind. And South Korea, by virtue of its ethnic affinity and geographic proximity to the North, is a key factor in this meteorological game. The sanctions on North Korea are precariously close to undergoing an atmospheric shift in the aftermath of the dramatic first-ever summit meeting between the leaders of the United States and the DPRK. The Singapore Summit was an optically gripping political drama, choreographed by North Korea, from which Kim Jong-un walked away [End Page 13] with an overwhelming victory.1 Having made no substantive concession of his own, he won both tangible concessions from President Donald Trump, such as the suspension of the annual combined military exercises between the United States and the ROK, and the less visible, albeit far greater, victory of buying time and money for the DPRK to perfect its own nuclear posture review. The United States' engagement in a drawn-out negotiation process that could end sanctions required considerable help in the production stage, ironically, from the nation that stands to lose the most in the event of Pyongyang's completion of its nuclear strategy—South Korea.2 This essay looks first at the history of sanctions against the DPRK and then at how South Korea has undermined its own and, by extension U.S., efforts at implementing sanctions. The essay concludes by examining the future tenacity of the current sanctions regime after the Trump-Kim summit in June 2018. A Brief History of Sanctions on the DPRK U.S. sanctions against North Korea only became meaningful both on paper and in practice with the passage of the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016. In fact, prior to this occasion, with the exception of the U.S. Treasury Department's designation of Banco Delta Asia as a primary money-laundering concern under Section 311 of the U.S. Patriot Act in September 2005, U.S. sanctions against North Korea, contrary to popular perception, had been erratic, defensive, and weak—in both degree and kind—compared with U.S. sanctions against many other states.3 Between the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 and the U.S. designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1988, the sum of U.S. economic sanctions on the country consisted of trade sanctions pursuant to the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. However, such sanctions are notoriously ineffective, as the targeted state is almost always able to find alternative trading partners, including U.S. allies. The designation of the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism after North Korean agents planted a bomb on a South...

‘To further planting of trees’: Arbor Day in 20th century Ireland

Arbor Day, historically devoted to tree planting, connected people with trees and left a legacy for future generations. Reports in local and national newspapers describe Arbor Days in 20th century Ireland. They were organised by The Irish Forestry Society, 1904-1923; the Department of Lands 1935-1939 and Trees for Ireland 1950- 1984, two voluntary groups and a state sponsor, in co-operation with local authorities. While the aim was to promote afforestation, in time it fostered an interest in trees in rural and, more particularly, in urban communities, what is now known as urban forestry. Arbor Days followed a similar format with speeches by local politicians and clergy referencing the social, sometimes nationalistic role of trees, followed by tree planting by them and young people. The inculcation of a life-long interest in trees in young people was obvious in each period. Planting in school or college grounds, though evident throughout the periods under consideration, was most pronounced from 1935-1939. In the period 1952-1984, the sites selected in Dublin were located in developing suburbs or large public housing schemes. Arbor Day was adopted by local community groups who also organised tree planting. Arbor Day in Ireland mirrored Arbor Day in the US and Australia. There is little evidence to suggest that Arbor Day furthered afforestation. However, it was a valuable environmental and educational initiative in periods of political and economic change in 20th century Ireland. Arbor Day foreshadowed environmental initiatives current in 21st century Ireland and worldwide.

‘To further planting of trees’: Arbor Day in 20th century Ireland

Arbor Day, historically devoted to tree planting, connected people with trees and left a legacy for future generations. Reports in local and national newspapers describe Arbor Days in 20th century Ireland. They were organised by The Irish Forestry Society, 1904-1923; the Department of Lands 1935-1939 and Trees for Ireland 1950- 1984, two voluntary groups and a state sponsor, in co-operation with local authorities. While the aim was to promote afforestation, in time it fostered an interest in trees in rural and, more particularly, in urban communities, what is now known as urban forestry. Arbor Days followed a similar format with speeches by local politicians and clergy referencing the social, sometimes nationalistic role of trees, followed by tree planting by them and young people. The inculcation of a life-long interest in trees in young people was obvious in each period. Planting in school or college grounds, though evident throughout the periods under consideration, was most pronounced from 1935-1939. In the period 1952-1984, the sites selected in Dublin were located in developing suburbs or large public housing schemes. Arbor Day was adopted by local community groups who also organised tree planting. Arbor Day in Ireland mirrored Arbor Day in the US and Australia. There is little evidence to suggest that Arbor Day furthered afforestation. However, it was a valuable environmental and educational initiative in periods of political and economic change in 20th century Ireland. Arbor Day foreshadowed environmental initiatives current in 21st century Ireland and worldwide.

Terrorist Group Rivalries and Alliances: Testing Competing Explanations

ABSTRACTTerrorist group rivalries and alliances have important consequences, but the sources of these relationships are debated. This article offers a side-by-side examination of correlates of terrorist rivalries and alliances. Global analyses of hundreds of terrorist groups find violent rivalry is associated with drug trafficking, state sponsorship, ethnic motivation, and operating in a civil conflict country. Alliances are associated with territorial control, intermediate membership size, and religious motivation. The idea that alliances are an indicator of weakness does not find much support. When relationships are disaggregated into theoretically relevant categories (inter-field and intra-field rivalries, and domestic and international alliances), further distinctions appear.

Education in the ‘New Society’ and the Philippine Labour Export Policy (1972-1986)

The ‘overseas Filipino workers’ (OFWs) are the largest source of US dollar income in the Philippines. These state-sponsored labour migrations have resulted in an exodus of workers and professionals that now amounts to approximately 10% of the entire country’s population. From a temporary and seasonal employment strategy during the early American colonial period, labour export has become a cornerstone of the country’s development policy. This was institutionalised under the Marcos regime (1965-1986), and especially in the early years of the martial law period (1972-81), and maintained by successive governments thereafter. Within this context, this paper investigates the relationship between Marcos’ ‘New Society’ agenda, the globalization of migrant labour, and state sponsorship of labour exports. In particular, it analyses the significance of attempts made to deploy education policy and educational institutions to facilitate the state’s labour export drive. Evidence analyzed in this paper suggests that sweeping reforms covering curricular policies, education governance and funding were implemented, ostensibly in support of national development. However, these measures ultimately did little to boost domestic economic development. Instead, they set the stage for the education system to continue training and certifying Filipino skilled labour for global export – a pattern that has continued to this day.

Inter-Rebel Alliances in the Shadow of Foreign Sponsors

ABSTRACTFrom the Patriotic Front struggle against the minority rule in Rhodesia to the seven-party mujaheddin alliance in Afghanistan, inter-rebel alliances make the armed opposition more resilient and successful in the face of government repression. Why then do some rebel groups cooperate with each other while others do not? Drawing on the principal-agent theory, I argue that the presence of foreign sponsors is likely to encourage alliance formation in civil wars especially when two rebel outfits share a state sponsor. Shared sponsors may demand cooperation between their agents and credibly threaten to punish them for non-compliance. They may also insist on the establishment of umbrella institutions to improve their monitoring and sanctioning capacity, and to increase the legitimacy of their agents. I test this argument using the UCDP Actor dataset with new data on alliances between rebel groups. I find strong evidence that shared sponsors increase the probability of inter-rebel alliance.

Delegating Terror: Principal–Agent Based Decision Making in State Sponsorship of Terrorism

ABSTRACTState sponsorship of terrorism, where a government deliberately provides resources and material support to a terrorist organization, is common in the international system. Sponsorship can provide significant strategic and political benefits for a state, but there are inherent international and domestic risks associated with delegating foreign policy to these actors. Using principal–agent analysis, I develop a model that evaluates the impact of potential costs and benefits on a state’s decision to sponsor terrorism. I test my model by using a novel dataset on sponsorship behaviors that ranges from 1970 to 2008. The results of my analysis support the validity of the principal–agent model in explaining sponsorship, as states will be more likely to engage in sponsorship when the strategic benefits of weakening the targeted state are high and the risks of international reputation loss and domestic dissatisfaction are low.