General Areas of Interest:

1. The Political Economy of International and Internal Armed Conflict
   

2. International Sovereign Finance
   

3. Domestic Roots of Foreign Policy
   

4. International Political Economy
   

5. Comparative Political Economy

Publications:

“Guns, Butter and Debt: Sovereign Creditworthiness and Military Expenditure, 1981-2007”

Journal of Peace Research LINK

I argue that favorable access to sovereign credit provides governments with greater autonomy to invest in security by allowing political incumbents to relax fixed-budget constraints. Borrowing permits leaders to delay and minimize the macroeconomic and redistributive costs associated with domestic sources of finance. Consequently, leaders of creditworthy states face fewer political costs when increasing military expenditure in response to growing demand or maintaining military expenditure when government revenues fall. A cross-sectional time-series analysis supports two observable implications of the argument. First, creditworthiness is positively associated with military spending with an effect on par with regime type. Second, creditworthiness conditions the effect of external threats on military expenditure suggesting that poor credit terms constrain the provision of security.

“The Physical Consequences of Fiscal Flexibility: Sovereign Credit and Physical Integrity Rights.” (With K. Chad Clay)

Forthcoming, The British Journal of Political Science PDF

Leaders are assumed to face fiscal constraints on their ability to remain in office by providing a competitive distribution of public and/or private goods. However, many leaders can relax this constraint by borrowing on sovereign credit markets. We argue that states with the fiscal flexibility offered by favorable credit terms have the resources necessary to (1) respond to citizen demands with policies other than widespread repression and (2) avoid agency loss that may result in unauthorized repression by state agents. Empirical analyses indicate that creditworthy states have greater respect for physical integrity rights and are less likely to suffer diminished respect for those rights when facing violent dissent or negative shocks to government revenues.

“Sovereign Credit and the Fate of Leaders: Reassessing the Democratic Advantage” (with Patrick Shea)

International Studies Quarterly  LINK

The democratic advantage - a prominent theory of sovereign credit - asserts that democracies can credibly commit to maintaining their creditworthiness. In this article, we contend that the democratic advantage literature exaggerates the potential political backlash from credit downgrades in democracies. Moreover, the democratic advantage overlooks the importance of sovereign credit to non-democratic regime survival. We argue that non-democratic regimes receive higher marginal benefit from credit compared to democratic regimes, and therefore are more sensitive to changes in credit prices of credit access. To test this argument, we provide the first empirical examination of the electoral punishment mechanisms of the democratic advantage using duration analysis, data on leader tenure, and sovereign credit ratings. We find that non-democratic leaders are more sensitive to the effects of credit downgrades than democratic leaders.

“The Fiscal Autonomy of Deciders: Sovereign Creditworthiness and Conflict Initiation” LINK DATA

Foreign Policy Analysis

Liberal theory claims that the constraint taxpayers impose on military expenditure is an important mechanism through which democracy and international commerce help prevent conflict. However, leaders with affordable access to sovereign credit have often overcome this constraint by raising revenue on credit markets. By minimizing or deferring the economic burden imposed on taxpayers and the macroeconomic stress associated with alternative financing strategies, I argue that these leaders have greater autonomy to pursue an aggressive foreign policy if they so desire. Leaders that lack creditor confidence risk increased political opposition and removal from office if hostilities generate macroeconomic stress or disturb the domestic fiscal balance. They also face a higher likelihood of defeat or retreat, and the subsequent political consequences, if they pursue conflict without sufficient resources. Estimates of a heteroskedastic probit model support this hypothesis and indicate that creditworthy states initiate conflict with a greater mean probability and greater variance than their non-creditworthy counterparts.

”Tightening the Belt: Austerity and Alliance Formation.” (with Michael A. Allen)

International Studies Quarterly LINK DATA

The funding of military ventures through borrowed money has been practiced for centuries. Sovereign debt enables states to maintain stable tax rates while increasing expenditures to confront sudden budgetary needs such as economic downturns or wars. Affordable access to credit, then, serves as both a source of power and an important buffer between security and the political consequences fiscal policy.  The alternatives to debt (taxes, monetary expansion, and social spending reduction) have consequences for the aggregate economy and salient domestic constituencies.  Given the importance of economic conditions for political survival, states that lack the confidence of investors must make tough choices between continued security and their electoral fortunes.  We suggest that as governments lack access to affordable credit they will substitute military capacity with alliance formation.  Alliances provide a means for leaders to offset the flexibility provided by credit without disturbing the domestic political economy.  Using previous models of alliance formation as a guide, our empirical evidence indicates that states with lower credit ratings or that have recently defaulted are more likely to form an alliance than those states with affordable access to credit markets. 

“Good For the Money? International Finance, State Capacity and Internal Armed Conflict” (with Colin M. Barry and Rich W. Frank).

Journal of Peace Research 49(3) LINK DATA

Previous research indicates that a lack of state capacity is a key determinant of internal armed conflict.  Scholars identify several internal dimensions of state capacity, but they have yet to explore how international finance influences state resources.  This is surprising because sovereign lending has increased dramatically in recent decades and plays an increasing role in the functioning of both developed and developing governments. In this article, we explore this relationship between a state’s integration into global credit markets and its subsequent capacity to promote domestic stability.  We argue that international capital increases a state’s ability to respond to internal opposition because states that maintain favorable credit terms can expand their resource base beyond domestic constraints to deter, accommodate or repress opposition, while maintaining a level provision of resources to their political base.  We examine the influence that both capital access and credit terms have on the risk of civil conflict in 141 countries from 1981-2009. Our empirical results indicate that states with affordable credit access are indeed less likely to experience civil conflict.

Conference and Working Papers:

“Commodity Shocks, Shock Absorbers/Amplifiers and Civil Conflict” (With Rich W. Frank)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C., 2014

“Arms Vs. Democratic Allies” (With Paul Poast)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C., 2014

“Fiscal Constraints and the Pursuit of Peace”

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Toronto Canada, 2014

“Economic Competition and Labor Rights” (With K. Chad Clay & Colin M. Barry)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Toronto Canada, 2014

“Propping up Leaders with Foreign Aid” (with Michael E. Flynn)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 2014

“Do INGOs Dampen the Effects of Economic Crises?” (with Amanda Murdie)

Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 2014

“Sovereign Credit, Discount Factors, and Domestic Coalition Failure”

Presented at the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association in Chicago, IL 2013

“Guns, Butter and Debt: Sovereign Creditworthiness and Military Expenditure, 1981-2007”

Scheduled to be presented at the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association in New Orleans, LA 2012

“Bullets and Bonds: International Finance and Rivalry Behavior.”

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association in Montreal, QC 2011 & the Annual Meeting of the Peace Science Society in Los Angeles, CA 2011.

“Austere Alliances: Sovereign Credit and Asymmetric Alliance Formation.” (with Michael A. Allen)

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association in San Diego, CA 2012.

“State Opposition: Separation, Simultaneity, and Sequential Causation in Terrorism and Civil Conflict.” (With Michael A. Allen and Richard W. Frank)

Scheduled to be presented at the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association in New Orleans, LA 2012

“A Good Friend Isn’t Hard to Buy: Economic Interdependence and Alliance Reliability.”

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2009, Toronto, Canada.

“Does Trade Foster Common Interests?”

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-West Political Science Association in Chicago, IL 2009. (with Benjamin O. Fordham).