Gabriele Spilker

Climate Variability, Economic Growth, and Civil Conflict

Despite many claims by high-ranking policymakers and some scientists that climate change breeds violent conflict, the existing empirical literature has so far not been able to identify a systematic, causal relationship of this kind. This may either reflect de facto absence of such a relationship, or it may be the consequence of theoretical and methodological limitations of existing work. In this article we revisit the climate–conflict hypothesis along two lines. First, we concentrate on indirect effects of climatic conditions on conflict, whereas most of the existing literature focuses on direct effects. Specifically, we examine the causal pathway linking climatic conditions to economic growth and to armed conflict, and argue that the growth–conflict part of this pathway is contingent on the political system. Second, we employ a measure of climatic variability that has advantages over those used in the existing literature because it can presumably take into account the adaptation of production to persistent climatic changes. For the empirical analysis we use a global dataset for 1980–2004 and design the testing strategy tightly in line with our theory. Our empirical analysis does not produce evidence for the claim that climate variability affects economic growth. However, we find some, albeit weak, support for the hypothesis that non-democratic countries are more likely to experience civil conflict when economic conditions deteriorate.

A Comparison of International and Domestic Sources of Global Governance Dynamics

Existing empirical models of international co-operation emphasize domestic determinants, although virtually all theories of international relations focus on interdependencies between countries. This article examines how much states’ linkages with the international system, relative to domestic factors, such as income and democracy, influence the dynamics of global governance efforts. To this end, we study the ratification behaviour of 180 countries vis-a-vis 255 global environmental treaties. Except for integration into the world economy, which affects co-operative behaviour negatively, our results show that international factors have a stronger and more positive impact on cooperative behaviour than domestic factors. This implies that Galton’s advice not to examine the effects of internal and external variables in isolation is also useful in the study of international politics.

Do natural resources matter for interstate and intrastate armed conflict

This article reviews the existing theoretical arguments and empirical findings linking renewable and non-renewable natural resources to the onset, intensity, and duration of intrastate as well as interstate armed conflict. Renewable resources are supposedly connected to conflict via scarcity, while non-renewable resources are hypothesized to lead to conflict via resource abundance. Based upon our analysis of these two streams in the literature, it turns out that the empirical support for the resource scarcity argument is rather weak. However, the authors obtain some evidence that resource abundance is likely to be associated with conflict. The article concludes that further research should generate improved data on low-intensity forms of conflict as well as resource scarcity and abundance at subnational and international levels, and use more homogenous empirical designs to analyze these data. Such analyses should pay particular attention to interactive effects and endogeneity issues in the resource–conflict relationship.

Helpful Organizations: Membership in Inter-Governmental Organizations and Environmental Quality in Developing Countries

Does membership in intergovernmental organizations help developing countries enhance their environmental performance? This article argues that IGO membership can improve the environmental performance of developing countries, by linking different issues, promoting the general idea of environmental sustainability and providing a channel through which these countries receive technologies and resources necessary to reduce pollution. This argument has been tested on panel data for 114 developing countries in 1970–2000. The results confirm that, controlling for a countrys income and its political system, IGO membership is indeed associated with a reduction in both air pollution and greenhouse gases. To understand the mechanisms behind this result better, IGO membership is disaggregated according to both function and the degree of institutionalization of the respective organization.

The Charmed Life of Superstar Exporters: Survey Evidence on Firms and Trade Policy

What factors determine firms’ attitudes toward trade policy? This paper considers producers’ policy preferences and political behavior in light of two key patterns in modern international trade: industries that face import competition often have many exporters, and foreign sales are concentrated in the hands of a small number of “superstar” exporters. Using a new survey of Costa Rican firms matched to systematic firm-level data on export behavior, we find that firm features are generally more important predictors of attitudes toward trade liberalization than industry-wide comparative advantage. We also show that export intensity is strongly associated with interest and lobbying activity on trade policy. The largest exporters, who are the strongest supporters of global integration, dominate trade politics.

The effects of treaty legality and domestic institutional hurdles on environmental treaty ratification

We study the effects of treaty design and domestic institutional hurdles on the ratification behavior of states with respect to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Specifically, we examine whether (1) strong legality mandated by a treaty such as precisely stated obligations, strong monitoring/enforcement mechanisms, and dispute resolution procedures, and (2) high domestic constitutional hurdles such as requirements for explicit legislative approval deter countries from ratifying a treaty. To test our theoretical claim, we use a new time-series-cross-sectional dataset that includes information on the ratification behavior of 162 countries with respect to 220 MEAs in 1950–2000. We find that treaties that are characterized as ‘hard’ indeed deter ratification. Furthermore, explicit legislative approval requiring supermajority also makes treaty ratification less likely.

Does WTO Dispute Settlement Enforce or Inform

Whereas some researchers emphasize how World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement reduces complexity and clarifies legislation, others argue that dispute rulings promote co-operation by providing an enforcement mechanism. This article identifies empirical implications from these distinct arguments and tests them on WTO disputes from 1995 to 2006. The studys analytical approach combines a three-step coding of dispute escalation with a strategic bargaining model and statistical backwards induction to account for governments’ forward-looking behavior. It finds strong support for the argument that WTO dispute settlement primarily serves as an enforcement device. It finds much less support for the argument that dispute settlement reduces complexity and clarifies trade law. These results suggest that the role of WTO dispute settlement in generating information on acceptable trade policy standards is less relevant than proponents of the complexity argument tend to assume.

The interaction of international institutions from a social network perspective

Abstract The literature increasingly acknowledges that international institutions do not exist in isolation, but regularly interact with each other. This interplay might induce influence, affecting institutions’ development and performance. The following research adds to this debate by systematically analyzing the quantitative evidence on how institutional interaction drives institutional design from a network perspective. Using dyadic cross-sectional data on international environmental agreements in 1952–2000, the authors find support for their theoretical argument that regimes’ similarity in design as captured by their degree of legalization strongly depends on institutions’ interaction. However, while “soft law” disseminates between regimes that are well connected through direct or indirect links, this does not apply to “hard law.” The authors explain this divergence with states’ concerns about binding-law commitments and sovereignty costs associated with the latter. This research may have important implications for studies of international institutions and of network analysis in general.

What Kinds of Trade Liberalization Agreements Do People in Developing Countries Want

ABSTRACT One of the most striking developments in the global economy in the past decades is the rapid proliferation of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), with many of them concluded among or with participation of developing countries. On the presumption that current popular debates on trade policy are not so much about whether citizens want free trade but rather what kinds of trade liberalization they want, we examine individual trade policy preferences with regard to PTAs that can vary in content along several dimensions. To that end we carried out conjoint choice experiments embedded in representative surveys in three developing countries that differ strongly in income levels, political system, and trade liberalization history: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. We conceptualize trade policy preferences as preferences over the scale and scope of trade liberalization, environmental and labor standards, and labor market access (migration). Two main findings emerge. First, non-economic considerations, such as sympathy/antipathy toward particular countries and environmental and labor rights concerns influence citizens’ preferences at least as much as factors based on standard economic logic. Second, preferences over particular facets (attributes) of trade liberalization, that is PTA content, are surprisingly consistent across countries, despite strong differences in macro-economic and political context.