Politics remains prominently absent in the literature showing that higher levels of trade integration lead to a larger public sector. As openness increases, the state, acting as a social planner, adopts a salient role to minimize the risks of economic integration and secure social peace. Given the highly redistributive nature of both trade and fiscal policies, we claim, however, that the interaction of the international economy and domestic politics leads to three distinct political-economic equilibria. First, nations may embrace protectionist policies to shore up the welfare of key domestic sectors—without engaging, therefore, in substantial public spending. Second, to maintain trade openness in democracies, policymakers develop compensation policies to muster the support of the losers of openness. Finally, given the tax burden of public compensation, pro-free trade sectors may impose an authoritarian regime to exclude (instead of buying off) their opponents. After formally stating the conditions under which each regime emerges, we test the model on a panel data of around sixty-five developing and developed nations in the period 1950–1990 and explore its implications through a set of key historical cases drawn from the last two centuries.

Why are extremists able to sabotage peace processes in some cases but not others? And under what conditions will the public respond to such provocation and return to unpopular wars? We seek to show that extremist violence is not indiscriminate or irrational as many people have assumed but quite strategic. We argue that extremist violence intentionally plays on the uncertainty that exists between the more moderate groups who are attempting to negotiate a peace agreement. Using a game-theoretic model of the interaction of extremist violence and mistrust, we identify the conditions under which extremists will succeed and fail. We find that extremists are most likely to succeed in derailing a peace process when the targeted side believes that opposition moderates are strong. At these times, the public perceives moderates as best able to control and suppress extremists within their own ranks. When moderates are viewed as weak and unable to crack down on extremists, terrorism is more likely to fail. We discuss this finding, as well as a number of additional implications of the model, in connection with the Israeli–Palestinian case.

The relationship between democratization and war has recently sparked a lively debate. We find that transitions from autocracy that become stalled prior to the establishment of coherent democratic institutions are especially likely to precipitate the onset of war. This tendency is heightened in countries where political institutions are weak and national officials are vested with little authority. These results accord with our argument that elites often employ nationalist rhetoric to mobilize support in the populist rivalries of the poorly-institutionalized democratizing state but then get caught up in the belligerent politics that this process eventually unleashes. In contrast, we find that transitions that quickly culminate in a fully coherent democracy are much less perilous. Further, our results refute the view that transitional democracies are merely the targets of attack due to their temporary weakness: in fact, they tend to be the initiators of war. We also refute the view that any regime change is likely to precipitate the outbreak of war: transitions toward democracy are significantly more likely to generate hostilities than transitions toward autocracy.

This article explains how consensus decision making has operated in practice in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO). When GATT/WTO bargaining is law-based, consensus outcomes are Pareto-improving and roughly symmetrical. When bargaining is power-based, states bring to bear instruments of power that are extrinsic to rules, invisibly weighting the process and generating consensus outcomes that are asymmetrical and may not be Pareto-improving. Empirical analysis shows that although trade rounds have been launched through law-based bargaining, hard law is generated when a round is closed, and rounds have been closed through power-based bargaining. Agenda setting has taken place in the shadow of that power and has been dominated by the European Community and the United States. The decision making rules have been maintained because they help generate information used by powerful states in the agenda-setting process. Consensus decision making at the GATT/WTO is organized hypocrisy, allowing adherence to the instrumental reality of asymmetrical power and the sovereign equality principle upon which consensus decision making is purportedly based.

International relations research has paid little attention to why states often spend precious resources building and maintaining domestic institutions in other states. I identify 198 cases of forcible domestic institutional promotion, the most costly form of such interventions, between 1555 and 2000. I note several patterns in the data: these interventions come in three historical clusters; they are carried out by states of several regime types; states engage in the practice repeatedly; target states tend to be undergoing internal instability; states tend to promote their own institutions; and targets tend to be of strategic importance. The most intensive periods of promotion coincide with high transnational ideological tension and high international insecurity. I argue that these two conditions interact: forcible promotion is most likely when great powers (1) need to expand their power; and (2) find that, by imposing on in smaller states those institutions most likely to keep their ideological confreres in power, they can bring those states under their influence. Although in periods of high insecurity domestic variables alone may account for institutional impositions, such impositions may nonetheless extend the promoting states' influence and thereby alter the balance of international power.

Why have trends in government welfare spending in developing countries diverged from those in developed countries? I address this question by investigating the effects of capital and trade flows on government welfare spending in fifty-three developing countries. Using an original measure of labor power in developing countries, I test the links between international markets, labor's political strength, and the welfare state. I argue that labor's collective-action problems, caused by large populations of low-skilled and surplus workers, offset labor's potential political gains from globalization. I show that when the proportion of low-skilled workers in a nation is high, globalization will lead to a decline in welfare spending. Most significantly, the results suggest that in nations where labor-market institutions are not yet well developed, government social-welfare spending is constrained by international market, forces.

The bargaining product of the Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference—the Amsterdam Treaty—dwindled down the draft proposal to a consensus set of all fifteen member states of the European Union (EU). Using the two-level concept of international bargains, we provide a thorough analysis of how this consensus set was reached by issue subtraction with respect to domestic ratification constraints. Drawing on data sets covering the positions of all negotiating actors and ratifying national political parties, we first highlight the differences in the Amsterdam ratification procedures in the fifteen member states of the EU. This analysis allows us to compare the varying ratification difficulties in each country. Second, our empirical analysis of the treaty negotiations shows that member states excluded half of the Amsterdam bargaining issues to secure a smooth ratification. Because member states with higher domestic ratification constraints performed better in eliminating uncomfortable issues at the Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference, issue subtraction can be explained by the extent to which the negotiators were constrained by domestic interests.