John O'Loughlin

The Diffusion of Democracy, 1946–1994

We examine the relationship between the temporal and spatial aspects of democratic diffusion in the world system since 1946. We find strong and consistent evidence of temporal clustering of democratic and autocratic trends, as well as strong spatial association (or autocorrelation) of democratization. The analysis uses an exploratory data approach in a longitudinal framework to understand global and regional trends in changes in authority structures. Our work reveals discrete changes in regimes that run counter to the dominant aggregate trends of democratic waves or sequences, demonstrating how the ebb and flow of democracy varies among the worlds regions. We conclude that further analysis of the process of regime change from autocracy to democracy, as well as reversals, should start from a “domain-specific” position that dis-aggregates the globe into its regional mosaics.

Climate variability and conflict risk in East Africa, 1990–2009

Recent studies concerning the possible relationship between climate trends and the risks of violent conflict have yielded contradictory results, partly because of choices of conflict measures and modeling design. In this study, we examine climate–conflict relationships using a geographically disaggregated approach. We consider the effects of climate change to be both local and national in character, and we use a conflict database that contains 16,359 individual geolocated violent events for East Africa from 1990 to 2009. Unlike previous studies that relied exclusively on political and economic controls, we analyze the many geographical factors that have been shown to be important in understanding the distribution and causes of violence while also considering yearly and country fixed effects. For our main climate indicators at gridded 1° resolution (∼100 km), wetter deviations from the precipitation norms decrease the risk of violence, whereas drier and normal periods show no effects. The relationship between temperature and conflict shows that much warmer than normal temperatures raise the risk of violence, whereas average and cooler temperatures have no effect. These precipitation and temperature effects are statistically significant but have modest influence in terms of predictive power in a model with political, economic, and physical geographic predictors. Large variations in the climate–conflict relationships are evident between the nine countries of the study region and across time periods.

Geo-economic competition and trade bloc formation: United States, German, and Japanese exports, 1968-1992

In the post-cold war world, geo-economic competition is thought to be replacing geopolitical competition as the focus of great power relations. The cold war years corresponded to the period of U.S. hegemony in world trade and relations in the Western bloc. With the shrinking of the power gap between the United States and the other two great trading states, Japan and West Germany, as well as increased competition for trade shares, a division of the world economy into trade blocs has been anticipated. An examination of export shares for the three great powers with 114 partners in the past quarter century, 1968 to 1992, indicates there is not much evidence for the hypothesis of a world devolving into trade blocs. While regional links have intensified somewhat between the United States and its neighbors in the Americas and between West Germany and its European Union partners, Japan is broadening and deepening its export linkages with extraregional partners. Fears of the formation of blocs in the world trading system are greatly exaggerated.

Bringing geography back to the study of international relations: Spatial dependence and regional context in Africa, 1966–1978

The study of international relations usually occurs in a geographic vacuum. Little attention is given to the spatial context, both local and regional, in which interstate relations take place. A methodology for situating interstate relations in context is proposed. It evaluates the separate effects of national attributes, spatial dependence or neighbor effect, and regional heterogeneity on relations among states. Using the example of African interstate cooperation and conflict between 1966 and 1978, geographic context is identified as a strongly local (first‐order neightbor) phenomenon by the use of an index of spatial association for dyadic data. Using the methods of spatial econometrics, the levels of conflict and cooperation for 42 African states in the study could be explained with a high degree of accuracy but individual dyadic relationship require more careful specification of attribute and geographic distance models. Both spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity are strongly present in the Afri...

New borders for new world orders: territorialities at the fin-de-siecle

After decades of relative silence, the study of frontiers and boundaries is resuming a prominent place in political geography. The impetus for the revival of limology (border studies) comes from the global context of a post-Cold War order, which has led to challenges to existing political arrangements, and from the identity turn in human geography and related disciplines. The study of frontiers and borders needs to be integrated into the main theories of the discipline. World-system theory, long criticized for its lack of a territorial footing, offers an opportunity for extension of its three geographic scales (world-economy, nation-state and locality) to incorporate two newly-emerging spatial dimensions at the macro-regional (bloc) and sub-national levels. Global and geopolitical trends, as well as shifting identities at national and sub-national scales, are reviewed and their effects on the changing scales of territoriality are reviewed. A geographic model illustrating the shifting and overlapping nature of borders is developed based on the contemporary developments in Eastern Europe. The case of contemporary Ukraine, as an example of state-and nation-building, shows these geopolitical changes as complex and dynamic.

Responses: Geography as space and geography as place: The divide between political science and political geography continues

Steven Spiegels article ‘Traditional Space vs. Cyberspace’ exemplifies the divide between political science and political geography. In trying to incorporate geographic factors into his consideration of post‐Cold War geopolitics, Spiegel equates his view with distance and less explicitly with territory. The attempt to position geography as central to international politics has failed once again because of the equation of spatial analysis with the field of geography. Ignorance and neglect of the place tradition, prominent in contemporary geography, is the most important factor in the continued failure of communication between Geography and International Relations.

Detecting the Effects of Wars in the Caucasus Regions of Russia and Georgia Using Radiometrically Normalized DMSP-OLS Nighttime Lights Imagery

Satellite data can provide a remote view of developments in often dangerous conflict zones. Nighttime lights imagery from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) satellite was used to detect the effects of war in the Caucasus region of Russia and Georgia. To assess changes over time, the data were radiometrically normalized using cities with a relatively stable nighttime lights signature over the course of the study period, 1992-2009. Buffers were created around these stable cities to select the pixels that were then used to normalize cities and towns whose nighttime lighting fluctuated over time. The results show that conflict-related events such as large fires that burn for weeks and large refugee movements are possible to detect, even given the relatively coarse spatial resolution (2.7 km) of the DMSP-OLS imagery.

HOUSING REHABILITATION IN THE INNER CITY: A COMPARISON OF TWO NEIGHBORHOODS IN NEW ORLEANSt

Rehabilitation of old homes is proceeding at a rapid pace in two neighborhoods, Algiers Point and Lower Marigny, close to downtown and the Vieux Carre in New Orleans. Although both neighborhoods are similar in size and socioeconomic composition, the scale of rehabilitation is greater in Lower Marigny because of its proximity to areas previously renovated. Respondents pointed to two major sets of forces, the attraction of historic buildings and proximity to urban services, as reasons for their housing rehabilitation decision. Property sales have increased dramatically since the onset of rehabilitation. The pattern of sales is contagious in Lower Marigny, reflecting the greater degree of renovation in that area, but, as yet, does not display any predictable pattern in Algiers Point. Both neighborhoods are moving toward a composition similar to other inner-city rehabilitated areas occupied by white, middle-class professionals with displacement of indigenous groups.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Wars, 2008-2009: Micro-geographies, Conflict Diffusion, and Clusters of Violence

A team of political geographers analyzes over 5,000 violent events collected from media reports for the Afghanistan and Pakistan conflicts during 2008 and 2009. The violent events are geocoded to precise locations and the authors employ an exploratory spatial data analysis approach to examine the recent dynamics of the wars. By mapping the violence and examining its temporal dimensions, the authors explain its diffusion from traditional foci along the border between the two countries. While violence is still overwhelmingly concentrated in the Pashtun regions in both countries, recent policy shifts by the American and Pakistani governments in the conduct of the war are reflected in a sizeable increase in overall violence and its geographic spread to key cities. The authors identify and map the clusters (hotspots) of conflict where the violence is significantly higher than expected and examine their shifts over the two-year period. Special attention is paid to the targeting strategy of drone missile strikes and the increase in their number and geographic extent by the Obama administration.

The Regional Factor in Contemporary Ukrainian Politics: Scale, Place, Space, or Bogus Effect?

A U.S. political geographer, examining regional political divisions in post-independence Ukraine, argues that the debate between the school positing that regional cleavages are ebbing and that which holds that Ukraine has not yet become a political community is also fundamentally a geographic question regarding scale and place. Using two measures of political preferences, votes in the 1999 presidential runoff election and the political attitudes expressed in 1992 and 1996 Eurobarometer surveys, the regional effect in Ukraine is shown to be complicated by the nature of the political question and by local disparities from regional trends. New methods of analysis clarify these complications and challenge both schools of researchers to heed issues of measurement, technique, and geographic issues of scale. 11 figures, 4 tables, 61 references.