Open Access Article Published in EJIS

The February 2020 issue (5:1) of the European Journal of International Security (Cambridge University Press) features the article “Paths towards Coalition Defection: Democracies and Withdrawal from the Iraq War“. The study examines democratic war involvement in Iraq across 51 leaders from 29 countries. The article is the first QCA study that covers the entire period of coalition operations in Iraq, from 2003 until 2010, across all democratic governments that were involved in the multinational coalition.

Among other findings, the article challenges some previous studies’ results on the effects of leadership turnover and electoral incentives (here and here). The set-theoretic analysis documents causal heterogeneity, where multiple paths lead towards coalition defection and leadership turnover only brought about the outcome of coalition withdrawal when combined with specific other conditions. For electoral incentives, contrary to expectations derived from prior studies, it could not be shown that upcoming elections were associated with coalition defection. Finally, the article documents the importance of casualties and prior commitment as factors that had previously been neglected. Replication data is hosted a Harvard Dataverse (R script, data, supplement).

Abstract: Despite widespread public opposition to the Iraq War, numerous democracies joined the US-led multinational force. However, while some stayed until the end of coalition operations, and several increased their deployments over time, others left unilaterally. How to explain this variation?

While some studies suggest that democratic defection from security commitments is primarily motivated by electoral incentives or leadership change, scholars have not reached a consensus on this issue. To account for the complex interplay between causal factors, this article develops an integrative theoretical framework, using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) on original data on the Iraq War involvement of 51 leaders from 29 democracies.

The findings document the existence of multiple paths towards coalition defection. Among others, the results show that: (1) leadership change led to early withdrawal only when combined with leftist partisanship and the absence of upcoming elections; (2) casualties and coalition commitment played a larger role than previously assumed; and (3) coalition defection often occurred under the same leaders who had made the initial decision to deploy to Iraq, and who did not face elections when they made their withdrawal announcements.

Reference:

Mello, Patrick A. (2020) Paths towards Coalition Defection: Democracies and Withdrawal from the Iraq War, European Journal of International Security 5 (1): 45-76 (https://doi.org/10.1017/eis.2019.10)

Article forthcoming in Foreign Policy Analysis

Foreign Policy Analysis (Oxford University Press) has accepted the article “Patterns of Political Ideology and Security Policy” (with Tim Haesebrouck) for publication.

A Pre-Print of the article is available here. Replication data will be made available on the Foreign Policy Analysis Dataverse upon publication of the article.

The article examines the relationship between the ideology of political parties and their general support for military missions. Empirically, the study confirm a curvilinear relationship: with support peaking among center-right parties and dropping the further one moves to the far-left and far-right. However, when looking at actual military participation the pattern is different. Here, left-of-center parties have deployed to military missions more often than their rightist counterparts.

Founded in 2005, Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) aims to serve “as a source for efforts at theoretical and methodological integration and deepening the conceptual debates throughout this rich and complex research tradition”. The journal is published by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the International Studies Association (ISA).

Abstract: Recent studies on political ideology suggest the existence of partisan divides on matters of foreign and security policy – challenging the notion that “politics stops at the water’s edge”. However, when taken as a whole, extant work provides decidedly mixed evidence of party-political differences outside domestic politics. This article first conducts a systematic empirical analysis of the relationship between parties’ left-right positions and their general attitude towards peace and security missions, which suggests that right-leaning parties tend to be more supportive of military operations. Yet, the results also show that the empirical pattern is curvilinear: centrist and center-right parties witness the highest level of support for military missions, while parties on both ends of the political spectrum show substantially less support. The second part of our analysis examines whether the stronger support of rightist parties for peace and security missions translates into a greater inclination of right-wing governments to actually deploy forces to military operations. Strikingly, our results suggest that leftist governments were actually more inclined to participate in operations than their right-leaning counterparts. The greater willingness of left-wing executives to deploy military forces is the result of their greater inclination to participate in operations with inclusive goals.

Image: Georgetown University Press

Textbook on Qualitative Comparative Analysis

My book Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Research Design and Application provides a hands-on introduction to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) – emphasizing research design, practical application, and real-life examples from published studies. Beginners are taken through each step in the research process so as to apply the procedures to their own projects. Experienced users will refresh their knowledge of QCA, including discussions of best practices, the critical reception of QCA, recent trends, and new ways to apply the method. Both groups will profit from many illustrated examples across the social sciences, and a compendium of suggestions to improve QCA research design, the interpretation of findings, and the presentation of results. The book is complemented by a concise R Manual.

The book is under contract with Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.

Pre-prints of selected chapters: Introduction, Set Theory, Calibrating Sets, Measures of Fit (versions: July 2019).

Supplementary Online Material (R scripts, data sets) will be made available upon publication (scheduled for 2020).

Photo: Ryan Lum / Unsplash

The Politics of Multinational Military Operations

On November 6-8, 2019 I teach a Guest Course on “The Politics of Multinational Military Operations” at the Department of International Relations at Charles University Prague (Syllabus here). Thanks to Head of Department Jan Karlas and Deputy Michal Parízek for the kind invitation!

The three-day course introduces participants to current topics surrounding the politics of international security, and specifically political debates about countries’ participation in multinational military operations, taking a comparative perspective.

It draws on work from a Special Forum in Contemporary Security Policy, which I co-edited together with Steve Saideman, as well as articles that appeared in in the European Journal of International Security, and West European Politics, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations (a Special Issue co-edited with Dirk Peters and an article co-authored with Philippe Lagassé), among others.

The content is split into six sessions, starting with (1) a general introduction to gain an overview over recent political and academic debates surrounding these topics. Individual sessions will focus on (2) party politics and security policy, (3) parliamentary involvement in decision-making on the use of military force, (4) the British parliament and war involvement, (5) coalition and alliance dynamics, including coalition formation, burden-sharing, and coalition withdrawal, and (6) national restrictions in multinational military operations.

Photo: Universität Erfurt

Methoden der Außenpolitikanalyse: Ansätze, Daten und Perspektiven

Am 26. und 27. September 2019 findet im Internationalen Begegnungszentrum der Universität Erfurt die Tagung „Methoden der Außenpolitikanalyse: Ansätze, Daten und Perspektiven“ statt.

Die Tagung wird von Dr. Patrick A. Mello, Gastwissenschaftler an der Willy Brandt School of Public Policy der Universität Erfurt und Dr. Falk Ostermann von der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen gemeinsam organisiert und ausgerichtet im Rahmen der Themengruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft (DVPW).

Die theoriegeleitete Außenpolitikforschung (Foreign Policy Analysis) hat sich als eigenständiges Feld innerhalb der politikwissenschaftlichen Disziplin Internationale Beziehungen etabliert. Aus methodologischer Sicht fehlt bislang jedoch eine eingehendere Auseinandersetzung mit vorhandenen Ansätzen, zugrundeliegenden Daten und Entwicklungsperspektiven zur Erforschung von Außenpolitik. Für welche Forschungszwecke sind welche methodischen Ansätze geeignet und was sind die Voraussetzungen für deren Anwendung? Mit welchen qualitativen und quantitativen Daten arbeitet die Außenpolitikanalyse und wie wirkt sich die technologische Entwicklung auf die Datengewinnung aus? Und welche Perspektiven bestehen für die weitere Entwicklung des vorhandenen Methodenspektrums?

Im Rahmen der Tagung (Programm) soll diesen Fragen über fünf Panels und 16 Beiträge nachgegangen werden. Abgedeckt werden dabei so unterschiedliche Themen wie Narrativanalyse, Big Data und Social Media, Normen und Diskurs, quantitative und vergleichende Ansätze als auch historische und pragmatische Ansätze.

Die Tagung wird durch die Willy Brandt School of Public Policy und die Forschungsförderung der Universität Erfurt unterstützt.

Die Veranstaltung steht allen Interessierten offen. Aufgrund der begrenzten Plätze wird um vorherige Anmeldung unter aussenpolitik2019@mailbox.org gebeten.