Alexander H. Montgomery

Network Analysis for International Relations

International relations research has regarded networks as a particular mode of organization, distinguished from markets or state hierarchies. In contrast, network analysis permits the investigation and measurement of network structures -- emergent properties of persistent patterns of relations among agents that can define, enable, and constrain those agents. Network analysis offers both a toolkit for identifying and measuring the structural properties of networks and a set of theories, typically drawn from contexts outside international relations, that relate structures to outcomes. Network analysis challenges conventional views of power in international relations by defining network power in three different ways: access, brokerage, and exit options. Two issues are particularly important to international relations: the ability of actors to increase their power by enhancing and exploiting their network positions, and the fungibility of network power. The value of network analysis in international relations has been demonstrated in precise description of international networks, investigation of network effects on key international outcomes, testing of existing network theory in the context of international relations, and development of new sources of data. Partial or faulty incorporation of network analysis, however, risks trivial conclusions, unproven assertions, and measures without meaning. A three-part agenda is proposed for future application of network analysis to international relations: import the toolkit to deepen research on international networks; test existing network theories in the domain of international relations; and test international relations theories using the tools of network analysis.

Power Positions International Organizations, Social Networks, and Conflict

A growing number of international relations scholars argue that intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) promote peace. Existing approach esemphasize IGO membership as an important causal attribute of individual states, much like economic development and regime type. The authors use social network analysis to show that IGO memberships also create a disparate distribution of social power, significantly shaping conflicts between states. Membership partitions states into structurally equivalent clusters and establishes hierarchies of prestige in the international system. These relative positions promote common beliefs and alter the distribution of social power, making certain policy strategies more practical or rational. The authors introduce new IGO relational data and explore the empirical merits of their approach during the period from 1885 to 1992. They demonstrate that conflict is increased by the presence of many other states in structurally equivalent clusters, while large prestige disparities and in-group favoritism decrease it.

Power or Plenty How Do International Trade Institutions Affect Economic Sanctions

Does the dramatic rise of the number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) worldwide make economic sanctions more likely through increasing the leverage of the powerful and pitting states against each other in competition (power) or less likely through increasing the benefits of trade, resolving disputes, and promoting like-minded communities (plenty)? The authors offer the first systematic test of these propositions, testing hypotheses on sanctions onset using a data set of episodes from 1947 through 2000. In favor of the plenty argument, increases in bilateral trade do decrease sanctioning behavior; in favor of the power argument, an increase in the potential sanctioners GDP or centrality in the network of all PTAs make sanctioning much more likely. However, mutual membership in PTAs has no direct effect on the propensity of states to sanction each other.

The Hegemon's Purse: No Economic Peace between Democracies

Cox & Drury broaden the democratic peace literature from the domain of militarized conflict to economic sanctions. Their analysis of economic sanctions data from 1978 through 2000 finds that democracies are more likely to enact sanctions but are less likely to do so against other democracies. In this article, their analysis is extended in three different ways: first, their methodology and sample size are improved; second, interactions between variables are examined; and, third, additional hypotheses are tested. This article finds that the substantive effects of joint democracy on the likelihood of sanctions disappear after accounting for the disproportionate role of the United States (and correcting for method); the United States has a significantly different pattern of implementing sanctions than other states; and the trade dependence of a potential sender plays a significant role in determining the likelihood of sanctions.

War, Trade, and Distrust: Why Trade Agreements Don’t Always Keep the Peace

There is growing evidence that preferential trade agreements (PTAs) provide strong institutional incentives to prevent international conflict among member states, often creating the conditions of trust that can help prevent militarized aggression. We provide an approach to the study of how international institutions influence conflict behavior that considers how PTAs exclude as well as include members and create asymmetrical relationships among members that could exacerbate conflict. PTAs do more than create expectations of economic gains and reduce opportunism; they also create hierarchical relations between states, which can encourage conflict under different conditions due to distrust. We theorize these conditions for militarized international disputes, develop appropriate measures using social network analysis, and test our expectations on new PTA data during the period 1950 to 2000.

Centrality in Transnational Governance: How Networks of International Institutions shape Power Processes

In this article, I argue that network centrality approaches can illuminate power processes in transnational security governance. Most approaches to power and centrality focus on the direct effects of the possession of resources or ties. By contrast, I argue that centrality can also inform how network structures constrain behavior through diffuse power processes. I illustrate my argument by replicating two important papers on socialization through democratic international organizations and producing order through alliance hierarchies. I demonstrate that using network conceptualizations and measurements of these processes allows for better connections between theory and empirics, more precise hypothesis testing, broadened scope, and improved models. I find that socialization by democratic IOs is more important than dispute resolution mechanisms in preventing conflict and that ordering through hierarchical structures occurs throughout the entire international alliance system.

Gabrielle Hecht. Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2012. xx + 451 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Photographs. Bibliography. Index.

from the Algerian population. The oil rent has served not only to enrich the elite but also to relax state budget constraints and finance ambitious economic projects, without bringing in economic diversification. She also explains how an undiversified economy based on oil can be severely affected by the international environment, namely, the volatility of oil price. From a GDP rate of 5.2 percent in 1984, Algeria experienced an economic downturn in 1997 (-1.4 %) and 1988 (-2.7 %), right after the oil price decreased from

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The Network Politics of International Organizations: Structural Inequality in the International System

10 in the summer of 1986. Instead of introducing sound policies (as in Indonesia, for example), Algerian officials chose to increase their foreign borrowing. Such ill-advised policies created the preconditions to the civil war of the 1990s. These actions provoked disillusionment and excluded guerilla or opposition movements such as the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS). Lowis account of the poverty of politics does not neglect the role of Western strategic allies. To her, the nullification by the military-bureaucratic oligarchy of the first round of the multiparty legislative elections won by the FIS in December 1991 was tacitly supported by Western countries. The regime tightened its political and economic relationships with the United States through cooperation against terrorism after 9/11 and through oil and gas contracts. Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics is not only a well-written case study of Algeria, tracing its political trajectory from independence, but also a welldocumented study of rentier states. Its comparative perspective reveals the importance of leadership choices over natural resource endowments. Jean-Marc Kilolo-Malambwe Institut de la statistique du Quebec Montreal, Canada jean-marc. kilolo-malambwe@doc.polytechnique. org

Ringing in Proliferation: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Network

This paper concerns the rise and evolution of structural inequality in world politics created by the global network of IOs. We take as our starting point the assumption, widely disregarded in political science,that organizations create social networks. In the same way that firms organize corporate networks of relations or that schools organize social interactions among children, IOs structure international relations among nations, binding states together in affiliation networks created by joint membership.