A common explanation for the increasing polarization in contemporary American foreign
policy is the absence of external threat. I identify two mechanisms through which threats …

There are currently over 100 stateless nations pressing for greater self-determination around
the globe. The vast majority of these groups will never achieve independence. Many groups …

Why do some leaders and segments of the public display remarkable persistence in
confrontations in international politics, while others cut and run? The answer given by …

With a population in excess of 370 million, the Arab nations constitute a significant and
growing region of the world. In an attempt to broaden our understanding of the business …

Of all the issues in international relations, disputes over territory are the most salient and
most likely to lead to armed conflict. Understanding their endurance is of paramount …

We test the efficacy of judicial independence in preventing regime reversals toward
authoritarianism. Using a dataset of judicial constraints across 163 different countries from …

Every country, every subnational government, and every district has a designated
population, and this has a bearing on politics in ways most citizens and policymakers are …

Purpose–Wasta is an Arabic word that means the intervention of a patron in favor of a client
in attempt to obtain privileges or resources from a third party. In Arab countries, wasta is …

In the global trend of democratic backsliding, Hong Kong provides an illustrative case of how
democratic institutions could be degenerated by “exporting autocracy”. After 1997, Hong …

Research arguing that external threats determine regime type has generally failed to provide
systematic evidence in favor of the peace‐to‐democracy hypothesis. We suspect that the …