Brigitte Weiffen

The Cultural-Economic Syndrome: Impediments to Democracy in the Middle East *

Compared to other world regions, the Middle East is exceptional in its resistance to democratization. Whereas a cultural explanation for this democracy gap refers to historical legacies, especially to the dominant role of Islam, an economic explanation emphasizes oil wealth as the main barrier to democracy. According to various quantitative studies, both claims seem to be valid. Nevertheless, none of the explanations is uncontested, as there are always examples that demonstrate the opposite. This paper argues that it is exactly the combination of culture and economic structure that makes democracy in the Middle East unlikely. Both factors mutually reinforce each other on the macro, meso and micro level and thus constitute a cultural-economic syndrome with a strong negative impact on democratic performance. Regression analyses demonstrate the significance of this interaction effect: If the cultural-economic syndrome of Islam and oil wealth is present in a country, its negative impact on democratic performance becomes even stronger than the sum of the additive effects of Islam and oil wealth.

South American Re-armament: From Balancing to Symbolizing Power

Abstract: Since the year 2000, several South American countries strongly invested in armaments. At the same time, they increasingly resorted to diplomacy and cooperative institutions to maintain peace. This paper establishes a nexus between motivations for re-armament and recent debates on regional security governance and the emergence of regional powers. Most traditional theories have considered armament to be a function of either the perception of external threat or the availability of economic means. In contrast, this article contends that the rise in arms spending cannot be understood without taking into consideration: (a) the coexistence of a stable power balance, security community thinking and practices in regional security governance; and (b) the desire of emerging states to increase their regional or global roles. This analysis emphasizes non-conflict-driven external motives for military procurement as a new and vital determinant, largely neglected in previous research on the regions military spending. Case studies of three major South American spenders, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela, underscore the significance of non-conflict-driven external factors in military procurement. Their experience shows how emergence of regional powers has the potential to offset the contradictions between conventional security logics, as the tendency of states to purchase arms for non-conflict-related reasons equally supports balance of power and security community thinking.

Brochures/Reviews/Reports: The Journal of Spurious Correlations: Why do we need a Journal of Negative Results in the Social Sciences?

In general, research results are perceived to be good and positive things. A carefully constructed referential system validates certain statements as useful and worthy of dissemination, and discards statements that fall outside this set. Yet these other findings are also an important output of the research process; they are conclusions not within the range of the validation system used to select some of the output as &dquo;results&dquo;.

Domestic elites and external actors in post-conflict democratisation: mapping interactions and their impact

Abstract Following the end of the Cold War, post-conflict democratisation has rarely occurred without a significant international involvement. This contribution argues that an explanation of the outcomes of post-conflict democratisation requires more than an examination of external actors, their mission mandates or their capabilities and deficiencies. In addition, there is a need to study domestic elites, their preferences and motivations, as well as their perceptions of and their reactions to external interference. Moreover, the patterns of external–internal interactions may explain the trajectory of state-building and democracy promotion efforts. These issues deserve more attention from both scholars and practitioners in the fields of peace- and state-building, democracy promotion, regime transition and elite research. Analyses of external actors and domestic elites in post-conflict democratisation should therefore address three principal issues: (1) the identification of relevant domestic elites in externally induced or monitored state-building and democratisation processes, (2) the dynamics of external–domestic interactions and (3) the impact of these interactions on the outcomes of post-conflict democratisation.

Institutional Overlap and Responses to Political Crises in South America

The current regional security architecture in South America is characterized by a proliferation of institutions. Most regional organizations have by now adopted mechanisms to respond to domestic political crises and unconstitutional changes of government. This chapter studies whether overlapping mandates and activities in the management of political crises are harmful or beneficial for regional cooperation. The first part theorizes the effects of overlap on member states’ strategies, regional organizations’ interaction patterns, and the policy outcome. The second part explores overlapping democracy clauses in South America and analyzes six episodes where OAS, MERCOSUR, and/or UNASUR have simultaneously taken action in defense of democracy. The results show that, in the face of power shifts and competitive inter-organizational dynamics, overlapping actions by regional organizations might jeopardize the norms they set out to protect.

Re-Thinking Latin American Regional Security: The Impact of Power and Politics

Latin American security is still viewed through a Cold War lens. Yet, the regional scenario has changed since then and is characterized by developments like the disengagement of the United States, the emergence of ‘regional powers’, the creation of ever more multilateral security institutions, and new interpretations of the concepts of regionalism and regional integration. We argue that we cannot understand the management of security challenges without accounting for regional and global power shifts and political dynamics. Therefore, the introductory chapter presents an analytical framework to assess the impact of global and regional power shifts on the regional governance of specific security challenges such as interstate disputes, internal political violence, terrorism, drug-trafficking, and illegal migration. It will also give an outlook on how the different contributions substantiate our argument.

Nuanced negative result reporting.

A. Franco, N. Malhotra, and G. Simonovits (“Publication bias in the social sciences: Unlocking the file drawer,” Reports, 19 September, p. [1502][1]) present convincing evidence of publication bias in the social sciences. Encouraging publication of negative results will indeed benefit the