Brian Frederking

Simulations and Student Learning.

ABSTRACT While many political scientists advocate simulations as an effective teaching tool to facilitate student learning, we have very little systematic evidence that this is true. In this research note I provide experimental evidence showing that six of eight measures of student learning were significantly higher in introductory American Government courses that included a simulation of the United States Senate. These results provide quantitative support for the widespread anecdotal evidence about the teaching effectiveness of simulations.

Constructing Post-Cold War Collective Security

September 11 did not fundamentally change world politics. Instead, it exacerbated already existing tensions about how to implement post-cold war collective security rules. Using a rule-oriented constructivist theory of global security, I argue that the dominant post-cold war global security trend is the gradual construction of collective security rules, including rules punishing human rights abuses, terrorism, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Using an interpretive method called dialogical analysis, I analyze the debate about intervention in Kosovo and argue that the recent conflict over intervention in Iraq revolves around similar claims about how to implement collective security rules. This analysis challenges arguments that September 11 ushered in a new era of world politics that necessarily justifies more aggressive, preemptive U.S. policies.I would like to thank Karin Fierke, Yale Ferguson, Gavan Duffy, and David Ahola for comments on earlier drafts, as well as Maximo Sanchez Pagano for research assistance. Any errors are my own.

Language Games: Dialogical Analysis of INF Negotiations

This essay proposes dialogical analysis as a method of modeling political interactions. The method combines the formal theory of dialogical disputation, a family of theories drawn from linguistic pragmatics, and formal proof procedures. By analyzing models of their explicit and implicit contents in context, the method identifies the argumentative thrust of negotiation dialogues and shows systematically how the parties signal intent and commitment to one another. The paper illustrates the method by applying it to superpower interactions in the 1980s INF negotiations. The analysis indicates that American force deployments did not motivate the Soviet retreat from their early insistence on compensation for European missiles. The change in the Soviet position is better attributed to their strategic reconceptualization of the Cold War insecurity dilemma.

Legitimacy and the UN Security Council Agenda

Is the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) a legitimate organization? Do the veto powers legitimately pursue international security, or do they protect their narrow national interests? One way to evaluate the legitimacy of the UNSC is through its agenda. Does it address the most significant conflicts in world politics? Or is it influenced by the national interests of the veto powers? This article addresses these questions with a dataset that includes the number of UNSC meetings held and resolutions passed on 40 conflicts from 1991 to 2013. This analysis provides evidence for the legitimacy of the UNSC—conflicts with more refugees and more deaths are significantly more likely to be on the agenda. The analysis does not support critics of the UNSC—the national interests of the veto powers, measured as arms sales to and trade with the conflict participants, do not significantly alter the UNSC agenda.