|
|
|
Sort Order |
|
|
|
Items / Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
147902
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
As this symposium suggests, we are in the middle of a boom time for multimethod research in the social sciences. Gary Goertz's essay shows how case studies can test claims about causal pathways; this suggestion should be seen as an element of a broader set of possibilities. “Integrative multimethod designs” provide a family of compelling strategies for linking qualitative and quantitative components of an overall design, while also enhancing the quality of causal inferences. Given that rigorous and credible causal inferences are essential to both scholars and policymakers, integrative multimethod research designs deserve our attention.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2 |
ID:
147905
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Why do some states generate competent, professional military organizations, while others fail to do so even when they have the required economic, demographic, and technological endowments? Variation in states’ military organizational practices—their core policies related to promotion patterns, training regimens, command arrangements, and information management—holds the key. This article develops a typology of such practices and explains why and how they vary in response to the internal and external threats facing particular regimes. The article then subjects this argument to a carefully designed plausibility probe comparing the threat environments and military organizational practices of two states whose differences are both intuitively and theoretically puzzling: North and South Vietnam during the period 1954–1975. The initial evidence provides support for the theory and casts doubt on existing explanations of military organizational behavior focused on external threats, democracy, or the degree of political intervention in the military. The findings have important implications for foreign policy, as well as for future research on authoritarianism, civil-military relations, and military effectiveness.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 3 |
ID:
147903
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Many scholars and policymakers are concerned that the emergence of drone warfare—a first step toward the robotics age—will promote instability and conflict at the international level. This view depends on the widely shared assumption among International Relations scholars that military hardware spreads easily, especially in the age of globalization and real-time communications. In this article, we question this consensus. Drawing from the literature in management, we advance a new theory of diffusion of military innovations and test its two underlying causal mechanisms. First, we argue that designing, developing, and manufacturing advanced weapon systems require laboratories, and testing and production facilities, as well as know-how and experience that cannot be easily borrowed from other fields. Second, we argue that the adoption of military innovations requires both organizational and infrastructural support. We test our two claims on three types of combat-effective drones: loitering attack munitions (LAMs), intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance drones (ISR), and unmanned combat autonomous vehicles (UCAVs). We find that even wealthy, advanced, and militarily capable countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France have struggled to produce or adopt such platforms. We conclude that concerns about the diffusion of drone warfare appear significantly exaggerated, as do claims that globalization redistributes military power at the global level. More generally, our analysis sheds light on how the interaction between platform and adoption challenges affects the rate and speed of diffusion of different military innovations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4 |
ID:
147906
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
China has played an inconsistent role in multilateral governance, sometimes contributing to the creation and maintenance of international regimes, sometimes free riding or even threatening to undermine multilateral regimes to improve its position. We show that the strategic context of a particular issue of international concern affects China's approach to multilateralism and argue that our approach adds additional leverage to existing theories that rely on assumptions about its inherent disposition or socialization processes. An emerging global power will be willing to invest more in supporting a regime when its outside options are relatively poor. When its outside options are good, it will free ride on the efforts of more established states if it is not a necessary player in maintaining regimes, and if it is seen as indispensable it will threaten to hold up regime support as a way to win concessions. We show that these two factors, outside options and indispensability, can help explain changes in China's strategy with respect to the issue of North Korea's nuclear program and the regulation of international finance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 5 |
ID:
147899
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
This article conceptualizes multimethod research as doing cross-case causal inference—statistical analyses, experiments, or Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)—together with within-case causal inference in the form of case studies. In addition, game theoretic multimethod work is explored as combining a game theoretic model with case studies. The role of case studies is to explore causal mechanisms which cannot be captured in the cross-case, for example, statistical analyses. The article then describes the logic of case selection for case studies in order to explore causal mechanisms. Various combinations of X and Y variables are analyzed, some of which are useful for causal mechanism analysis and others which are not. Finally, the Avoid Overdetermination Rule is presented, which deals with issues of confounders, control variables, and alternative explanations.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6 |
ID:
147900
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Formal theory and historical case studies, especially those that use process tracing, are extremely well suited companions in research. To bolster future research employing both case studies and formal theory, we suggest some best practices as well as some (common) pitfalls to avoid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 7 |
ID:
147901
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Many security studies scholars concerned with the policy relevance of the field have argued that the use of quantitative methods impairs policy relevance. I investigate this claim by looking at the relationship between research methods on the one hand and the supply of and demand for policy-relevant research on the other. I argue that scholars using quantitative methods, either on their own or in tandem with qualitative methods, appear to be increasingly likely to conduct and disseminate policy-relevant research. I also find that curricular changes in policy schools as well as new information technologies mean that policymakers are increasingly able to consume research based on quantitative methods. These trends suggest that the current focus on methodology as the explanation for policy irrelevance may be misplaced.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 8 |
ID:
147898
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
The articles in this collection constitute Security Studies's fourth and final symposium on qualitative and multimethod research in the study of national and international security. The symposia are the product of two workshops held in the fall of 2013, the first at the American Political Science Association annual meeting in Chicago and the second at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. The conveners and participants are convinced that it would benefit scholars of security studies to be aware of some of the recent developments and debates among methodologists concerning qualitative and multimethod research. Each symposium comprises a longer essay with the author's view of the state-of-the-art on the topic at hand and three shorter essays—typically one on specific applications to security studies, another on relevance to foreign policy making, and a final one featuring critical reflections.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 9 |
ID:
147904
|
|
|
|
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Despite efforts to bolster failed states over the past two decades, many states in the international system still exhibit endemic weakness. External intervention often leads to political instability and in most cases fails to foster state consolidation, instead empowering and creating ties with the ones it aims to weaken. Using the case of Afghanistan, I develop a typology of political orders that explains variation in degrees of state consolidation and provides the basis for more systematic comparative analysis. I demonstrate the resilience of a political logic according to which non-state armed actors (warlords) “shape-shift” and constantly reinvent themselves to adapt to changing political environments. This article, based on extensive field research in Afghanistan, shows why failed states are unlikely to consolidate and exhibit Western-style state building, as a result of intervention or otherwise.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|