Scott Walker | United Arab Emirates University (original) (raw)

Papers by Scott Walker

International Journal of Peace Studies, 2006

Even before the Iraq war of 2003, a body of literature was developing concerning the possibility ... more Even before the Iraq war of 2003, a body of literature was developing concerning the possibility of implanting democracy in developing states. Recent works by Mark Peceny (1999a and 1999b) suggest that those U.S. military interventions that specifically promote "free and fair elections" have frequently resulted in remarkably resilient new democracies. We empirically evaluate the track record of liberalizing interventions, focusing on countries Peceny deems to be cases of successfully imposed democracy. We find that when factors such as human, political, and civil rights, as well as judicial independence are used as measures of democratic success, the " forcing them to be free " strategy does not clearly emerge as an agent for democratic transformation.

Conflict Management and Peace Science

Human Rights Quarterly, 2002

American Review of Politics, 2012

Did mounting troop casualties during the Iraq War tum the American public against the con-flict? ... more Did mounting troop casualties during the Iraq War tum the American public against the con-flict? Analyzing public opinion data from over 400 public polls during the first six years of the war, this article attempts to identify whether there was a "body bag effect" in play. We create a multi-variate model that tests a number of potential hypotheses including cumulative and marginal troop casualty as well as death milestone effects. We find that cumulative casualties provide a better explanation for the decline in public support than marginal casualties during the Iraq War. Contrary to the findings from the Korean and Vietnam Wars, this holds true during both periods of escalation and de-escalation. Did news of mounting U.S. casualties from the 2003 Iraq War and subsequent insurgency play a role in tuming American public opinion against the war? This paper will evaluate the relative merits of several competing explanations for what drove public support during the Iraq War. Using casualty and public opinion data from March 2003 to December 2008, the authors examine whether aggregate casualties, marginal casualties, or death count milestones provide satisfactory explanations for support ofthe war. This paper is divided into flve sections. The flrst section provides an overview of the theoretical arguments and previous research relating to the "body bag effect." It begins by describing why public opinion matters on issues of war and peace, and subsequently describes the hypothesized causal mechanism ofthe body bag effect. In section two, a review of a number of hypotheses regarding how the body bag effect might work is conducted in order to understand what drove public opinion after the launch of the Iraq war. Was the relationship driven by cumulative casualties, marginal casualties, death toll milestones, a cumu-lative/marginal casualty mix, or does the evidence favor a null hypothesis relating to elite opinions and partisan cues? The third section presents the casualty and public opinion data over the timeline of this study using tables and a flgure. It then assesses the different hypotheses outlined in the previous section based on a visual examination of the data to identify any discemable trends. Section four offers empirical tests for the competing hypotheses presented in section two to assess if the body bag effect, in conjunction with

Political Studies Review, 2015

The set of works reviewed here suggest that the problems inherent in post-Cold War democracy prom... more The set of works reviewed here suggest that the problems inherent in post-Cold War democracy promotion cannot be explained solely by policy failures. Attempts to push for democracy have been met with resistance, whether in response to the imposition of democracy or to 'softer' approaches. Collectively, the research in these volumes suggests that if democratization efforts are to succeed, those who hope to promote them must be more reflective about their own role in the process and cognizant of the fact that democracy promotion efforts are subject to political forces at the domestic, global and intermestic levels. Bridoux, J. (2011) American Foreign Policy and Postwar Reconstruction: Comparing Japan and Iraq. During the period immediately following the end of the Cold War, optimism about prospects for the advancement of global democracy reached a high-water mark. In the 1990s, Nils Petter Gleditsch described a collective sense in the field of international relations that the world was entering a 'liberal moment' centered on three liberal bastions: democracy, trade and international organization (Gleditsch, 2007, p. 691). The 1990s will always be known for Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which helped pave the way for a bevy of academic articles and books on the topics of democracy and capitalism. Much of the language of the time referred to the idea of newly democratizing countries as being in the midst of some sort of 'transitional' period, referring to the fact that these polities appeared to be destined for some sort of democratic, capitalistic end point. While democratic consolidation was not seen as inevitable , many of the weaknesses we have seen with democracy promotion strategies themselves were not foreseen. Democracy proponents held high hopes for the possibility of promoting regime change – either via direct force or by 'soft' means such as aid, sanctions, trade and support for democracy NGOs. Fast forward more than twenty years. We have, both practically and academically speaking, moved on quite a bit from Gleditsch's 'liberal moment', and it is clear that a good deal of resistance has emerged – much of it from unexpected sources. By the same token, a good deal of learning has also occurred, and democracy scholars have had time to reflect on the events of the past twenty-plus years. Our understanding of democratization processes during the 1990s was heavily influenced by the recent successes of southern Europe and Latin America as well as the early evidence from a number of

International Interactions, 2006

The current study is a replication and expansion of an earlier piece by Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rot... more The current study is a replication and expansion of an earlier piece by Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rothchild (2001) exploring civil war settlement characteristics and stability. Their research focused on the importance of territorial autonomy provisions and the role of third party guarantors in predicting settlement success and stability. They employed a model that controlled for such conflict characteristics as international system structure, nature of the previous regime, conflict duration, conflict issue, and conflict intensity. Our study replicates Hartzell et al. using the Regan (2001) civil war dataset, employing a broader definition of conflict and a more stringent definition of when a conflict has ended. The results presented here differ from the previous study to have find that the importance of territorial autonomy provisions as a predictor of settlement stability is greatly diluted when one examines only those conflict settlements that have lasted for six months or longer without reciprocated violence. Third-party guarantors, however, remain a strong factor determining conflict settlement stability in the revised dataset. We also expand the previous work by including cases where the conflict ended through military victories, as well as by adding a dimension to the negotiated settlement variable that separates settlements that were coerced due to external military presence from those that were not coerced.

Political Science, 2007

Are governments in highly diverse societies are more likely to use political repression against t... more Are governments in highly diverse societies are more likely to use political repression against their citizens? A notable dialogue occurred between Lord Acton and John Stuart Mill. Mill argued that governmental institutions in relatively homogeneous states are more likely to be free and effective, and thus less prone to violating individual rights. Conversely, Lord Acton argued that the presence of a diverse range of social groups in a polity necessitates a high degree of political tolerance. A number of current scholars are engaged in this debate as well. In recent decades, researchers have identified a number of factors that may lead to higher levels of state-sponsored repression, including population size and growth rate, economic development, the presence of formal guarantees of rights, regime type, and the presence of civil or international war. However, only a small number of works have focused on the role of ethnic and religious diversity as a potential determinant of the level of government respect for basic human rights. Most research thus far has focused on the relationship between diversity and genocide or mass killing (i.e., Krain 1997). Researchers have generally failed to address the relationship more broadly. This study examines the effect of cultural diversity in the developing world. Are regimes in more diverse societies more likely to use political terror against their citizens than are governments in more homogeneous settings? To empirically address the contribution of cultural diversity, the study employs multivariate analytical techniques to pooled cross-sectional time series data in order to assess the relative impact of ethnic and religious diversity on political repression on a 1 global sample of developing countries. The findings lend a modest degree of support to the argument that cultural diversity is associated with lower levels of state terror.

Political Science, Jun 2012

To date, no research has attempted to evaluate human rights in the Pacific region in comparative ... more To date, no research has attempted to evaluate human rights in the Pacific region in comparative perspective. Employing commonly used cross-national measures of basic human rights, the author examines how well regimes in the region respect political and civil rights as well as the right to physical integrity. The results reveal that, as regards political and civil rights, the region appears to resemble parts of the developing world more than the developed world. In contrast, the region performs relatively well with regard to available measures of personal integrity rights. Moreover, the results reveal that levels of respect for certain key individual human rights in different states across the region are far from uniform. The author subsequently poses questions for future research based on these findings.

Journal of Human Rights, Jun 2011

Over the past several decades, there has been a disconnect between the international community an... more Over the past several decades, there has been a disconnect between the international community and the South Pacific region in terms of human rights. Countries in the region have been slow to adapt international declarations and conventions and slow to implement those they do ratify. Is this lack of agreement between the global human rights movement and local leaders due to the fact that human rights are perceived differently in the South Pacific region? This article suggests some possible points of difference between the South Pacific region and the dominant vision of human rights as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related treaties.

Taiwan Journal of Democracy, Jun 2010

Over the past seven decades, democratic powers, led by the United States, have attempted to bring... more Over the past seven decades, democratic powers, led by the United States, have attempted to bring about democracy through external military imposition. While research to date has generally pointed toward the conclusion that such efforts are often not successful in effecting full-fledged democracy, studies almost exclusively have focused on how interventions have affected institutional measures of democracy in target countries (as opposed to political rights or political competitiveness). In addition, such studies have not recognized that there is more than one way to denote a democratizing intervention. I find that, regardless of what measure of democracy one uses, attempts to force democracy are generally not successful. However, "success" also depends to a degree upon how one chooses to define attempts at forced democratization. This research reinforces existing research, indicating that democratizing interventions are rarely found to result in healthy consolidated democracies over the long term.