Shale Horowitz

The Jewish Exodus from the New South Africa: Realities and Implications

In the 1990s, the Jewish population of South Africa declined at an unprecedented rate in marked contrast to Jewish populations in other Englishspeaking countries. Possible explanations include fear of political instability and political violence, deteriorating economic conditions and prospects, fear of directly discriminatory government policies, rising violent crime rates, and more permissive immigration policies in desirable destination countries. All but the last of these factors appear to have played some role. However, only changes in violent crime rates provide an explanation for the unprecedented surge in net emigration, persisting even after a successful political and economic transition to majority black rule under moderate African National Congress governments. Changes in crime rates also provide the most satisfactory explanation for related changes in internal migration patterns.

The Balance of Power: Formal Perfection and Practical Flaws

A game-theoretic model is used to show that the balance-of-power mechanism has much greater formal power than hitherto understood. Under the strong assumption that all threatened countries must be able to function as crucial coalition partners in deterring any threat, all members of minimum winning coalitions are guaranteed not to lose any resources. Under the traditional, weaker assumption that some coalition must be available to deter any threat, even countries that are not members of minimum winning coalitions are guaranteed against losing any resources. These formal results are significant in two ways. First, they make it possible to reconcile apparently contradictory views in the literature, and to offer a satisfying intuitive interpretation of the balance-of-power mechanism. Second, they point to a variety of factors - operating both separately and interactively - that may cause the balance-of-power mechanism to fail. Examples are uncertainty combined with risk-loving preferences, conflict-averse preferences, offensive technological advantages, economic growth, and technological and political rigidities in the formation of alliances and rivalries. It is argued that efforts to test balance-of-power theory should focus on assessing the relative importance of such factors.

Political Alternation as a Restraint on Investing in Influence: Evidence from the Post-Communist Transition

The authors develop and implement a method for measuring the frequency of changes in power among distinct leaders and ideologically distinct parties that is comparable across political systems. The authors find that more frequent alternation in power is associated with the emergence of better governance in post communist countries. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that firms seek durable protection from the state, which implies that expected political alternation is relevant to the decision whether to invest in influence with the governing party or, alternatively, to demand institutions that apply predictable rules, with equality of treatment, regardless of the party in power.

Mapping Pathways of Ethnic Conflict Onset: Preferences and Enabling Conditions

Recent quantitative studies of ethnic conflict tend to have characteristic strengths and weaknesses. Strengths are typical of sophisticated statistical work: the influence of many explanatory variables is examined across large datasets. Weaknesses are largely traceable to shortcomings of theory and measurement. Territorial and other ethnic conflicts are sometimes pooled with other types of internal conflict, which seem likely to have a different range of causes. Also, theory indicates that different conflict pathways have varying probabilities of giving rise to territorial ethnic conflict. These pathways involve different types of elite-level preferences, for either the outsider ethnic group or state side of a potential conflict, and for either incumbent or challenger elites. The pathways are also likely to be conditioned by different constraints. Yet little effort has been made to measure variation along these discrete pathways. More readily measurable variables, such as economic development and dependence on oil exports, often pick up predicted variation from multiple theoretical pathways. Regressions including such broad dependent and independent variables may deflate the estimated impact of discrete-pathway variables on ethnic conflict onset, and hence must be interpreted with care. There are significant practical barriers to measuring variation along the different conflict pathways; but further effort is necessary if the quantitative literature is to become more robust, easily interpreted and helpful in understanding specific cases.

Democracies Fighting Ethnic Insurgencies: Evidence from India

Ethnic insurgencies have received less scholarly attention than colonial or ideological insurgencies—even as they have become the predominant form of insurgency following the decolonization process and then the end of the Cold War. In the face of ethnic insurgencies, what determines the effectiveness of the various counterinsurgency strategies adopted by host states? Are democracies more likely to succeed by pursuing some kinds of counterinsurgency strategies rather than others? Theory indicates that multiple counterinsurgency strategies, if thoroughly implemented, can defeat ethnic insurgencies. Host state regime type—particularly democracy—is important as a constraint on the will to employ and thoroughly implement some counterinsurgency methods. Democracies are most likely to defeat ethnic insurgencies by employing more cooperative or “balanced” strategies. Although such strategies employ economic and political inducements and rely on local ethnic elements to help fight the insurgents, they also depend on a credible host state commitment to sustain the counterinsurgency for as long as it takes to win. Case studies of Indias multiphased counterinsurgency efforts in Punjab and Kashmir offer some preliminary evidence in support of this theory. In both Punjab and Kashmir, early counterinsurgency efforts relied on less discriminate campaigns conducted by central armed forces or by illegitimate local proxies. The outcomes were strengthened insurgencies. In both cases, the Indian state adapted by seeking the cooperation of legitimate local moderates in more discriminate counterinsurgency efforts. These later, “balanced” strategies were more effective. This was particularly true in Punjab, where conditions for local cooperation were more favorable.

Restarting Globalization after World War II Structure, Coalitions, and the Cold War

The present period of economic globalization originated following World War II. Given the strongly protectionist tendencies prevailing at the time, how did this happen? Structural economic and military causes, along with intervening coalitional and institutional factors, are considered. Trade policy change is examined in the five largest trading economies—Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, and the United States. Structural economic causes best explain why protectionist tendencies were so strong, and why they were weakest in the United States and the Federal Republic. The liberalizing trend inaugurated in the United States and the Federal Republic was also facilitated by coalitional side payments to agriculture. Cold War–related military interests appear to have been the strongest impetus behind the unilateral form of the liberalization.

Turnover in Power as a Restraint on Investing in Influence: Evidence from the Postcommunist Transition

We develop and implement a method for measuring the frequency of changes in power among distinct leaders and ideologically distinct parties that is comparable across political systems. We find that in the postcommunist countries, more frequent changes in power in the early years of transition are associated with better governance in the later years. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that more frequent turnover in power lowers the returns to firms seeking to buy political influence: i.e. that government turnover serves as a restraint on investing in influence regardless of the ideology of the government.

Anti-Americanism in Electoral Politics: Insights from South Korea's 2002 Presidential Election

Since September 11, 2001, anti-Americanism has emerged as an important issue in international politics. In democratic election campaigns, anti-Americanism should be an attractive issue where it is expected to have a favorable impact on key swing vote constituencies. Anti-Americanism has certain inherent ideological appeals and more varied historically-based attractions. Anti-Americanism should be least attractive where countries continue to rely on U.S. security guarantees. South Koreas December 2002 presidential election, in which winner Roh Moo-hyun openly sympathized with anti-American demonstrators, appears to contradict this expectation. Yet closer analysis of individual-level polling data shows that anti-Americanism was, both statistically and substantively, much less significant than alternative campaign issues. By activating the numerous voters hostile to the North Korean regime, anti-Americanism actually hurt the victors electoral chances. The approach appears useful in understanding why anti-Americanism is a more prominent ideology and electoral issue in some regions, such as Western Europe and Latin America, and a less prominent one in others, for example Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Oceania.

Explaining Peasant-Farmer Hegemony in Redistributive Politics: Class-, Trade-, and Asset-Based Approaches

What are the most important cleavages created by political struggles over redistributive economic policies? What are the likely policy outcomes of these struggles? The classic answer to the first question is that the most important cleavage is that of class, dividing rich and poor. The class-based model is usually not taken to yield clear predictions about outcomes, because rich and poor would be expected to engage in an inconclusive bidding war for the support of the median voter or pivotal middle stratum. A more recent answer is that the most important cleavages will reflect the position of a given country in the international economy, pitting those benefiting from international trade against those hurt by it. This trade-based model yields stronger predictions about outcomes, since there is usually a clear majority that either does or does not benefit from international trade. Finally, there is a long, though loose, tradition that largely grows out of empirical observation. This emphasizes the pivotal role that the agricultural population appears to play in the more important political battles concerning institutional development and economic policy.

Nationalist and Power-Seeking Leadership Preferences in Ethno-Territorial Conflicts: Theory, a Measurement Framework, and Applications to the Breakup of Yugoslavia

Theoretically, variation in leadership preferences is often taken to be an important predictor of ethno-territorial conflict outcomes. Yet there is a significant gap when it comes to applying this theory. Case studies do not take a consistent approach to measuring leadership preferences, while statistical research tends to omit the variable altogether. This paper suggests a standardized approach to measuring leadership preferences along two dimensions – a dimension that captures the weight given to achieving ideal nationalist goals as against minimizing conflict costs and downside conflict risks, and a dimension that indicates how much intrinsic nationalist goals are valued relative to the goal of taking and maintaining political power. The resulting measurement template is then applied to seven potential ethno-territorial conflicts in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. These cases indicate that leadership preferences may help to explain ethno-territorial conflict outcomes and, at the same time, are sometimes not well predicted by other important variables, such as the balance of power and the pre-conflict status quo.