Patrick A. Mello

International Politics, Security, and Methods

Latest Updates

  • Paths towards Coalition Defection

    Article Published in the European Journal of International Security

    The European Journal of International Security (Cambridge University Press) has published a first view version of “Paths towards Coalition Defection: Democracies and Withdrawal from the Iraq War“. The open access article PDF is available here. Replication data is hosted a Harvard Dataverse (R script, data, supplement). The article examines democratic war involvement in Iraq across 51 leaders from 29 democracies. It is the first set-theoretic study that covers the entire time frame of coalition operations, from 2003 until 2010. Its counter-intuitive findings document the existence of multiple paths towards coalition defection, emphasizing the importance of casualties and prior commitment. The European Journal of International Security (EJIS), founded in 2016, aims to publish “the cutting-edge of security research”, taking a cross-disciplinary approach that seeks to cover all areas of international and global security. EJIS is a journal of the British International Studies Association (BISA).

    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.

  • ECPR Joint Sessions, Mons 2019

    47th ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops at UCL Mons, Belgium

    From 8-12 April 2019, UCL Mons hosted the 47th ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops. I took part in the workshop “Formal and Informal Intergovernmental Organisations in Time: Explaining Transformations in Global Governance”, chaired by Eugénia Heldt (TU Munich) and Duncan Snidal (University of Oxford). The three-day workshop featured 22 research papers from 27 contributors from the USA, Australia, and all across Europe. Our research team presented first empirical results from the ongoing DFG project “International Bureaucracies as ‘Runaway Agents’? How Organizational Structure Affects Agency Slack” (2018–2021, grant volume 488.000 €), based on a paper co-authored with Eugénia Heldt, Omar Ramon Serrano Oswald, and Anna Novoselova (all from the Bavarian School of Public Policy, TU Munich). Details on the DFG research project can be found here. For Information on the ECPR Joint Sessions in Mons see this link.

  • ISA Toronto 2019

    60th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, 27-30th March 2019, Toronto

    At the Annual Convention of the ISA in Toronto, I have three program appearances. I contribute a paper to a panel on “Democratic Alliance Reliability and the Global Coalition Against the Islamic State“, chaired and organized by Justin Massie, with Olivier Schmitt as discussant. The panel includes papers from Marina E. Henke, Rasmus Brun Pedersen, Yf Reykers, Jonathan Paquin, Stéfanie von Hlatky, and Justin Massie  – a great lineup of scholars, many of which also contributed to our CSP Special Forum 2019 on “The Politics of Multinational Military Operations“, which I co-edited with Steve Saideman. I also take part in the second installment of the “Methods Café: Foreign Policy Analysis – Methods and Approaches“. At ISA 2018 in San Francisco the methods café was nominated as ISA Innovative Panel and due to the popularity of the format Marijke Breuning, Falk Ostermann, and I decided to submit a similar panel for ISA Toronto. We are honored to have an excellent lineup of scholars for the Methods Café, including Klaus Brummer, Rose McDermott, Stephen Benedict Dyson, Stefano Guzzini, Ted Hopf, Mark Schafer, Burcu Bayram, and Soumita Basu join us for the Methods Café! The café brings together scholars that represent diverse methods and approaches in foreign policy analysis. The format provides an informal setting where participants can meet panelists at separate tables to discuss methods-related questions. Please join us for the methods café! Finally, I am part of a roundtable on “Teaching Foreign Policy Analysis at the Undergraduate Level“, chaired and organized by Baris Kesgin. We will be joined by Marijke Breuning, Ozgur Ozdamar, Cristian Cantir, Raul Salgado Espinoza, Jeffrey Lantis, Kai Oppermann, Nicolas Blarel, Bertjan Verbeek, and Akan Malici to discuss our approaches to teaching FPA and the practicalities of classroom settings. The roundtable is sponsored by the Foreign Policy Analysis section of the International Studies Association. The conference website for ISA Toronto 2019 can be found here. There is even an official welcome letter from PM Justin P.J. Trudeau!

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