The European Political Science Review issued a correction for the article “Incentives and Constraints: A Configurational Explanation of European Involvement in the Anti-Daesh Coalition“, originally published on February 24, 2022. The original publication contained erroneous illustrations. The correct versions of Table 1, Table 3, Table 4, and Table 5 are entailed in the corrigendum.

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On April 13, 2022 I gave a virtual guest talk on “QCA in International Security” at the Social Science Research Lab, Department of Social Sciences of the United States Military Academy at West Point. In recent years, QCA has seen an increasing number of empirical applications on security-related topics, and IR research at large. In my talk, I gave a concise introduction to the method and its application in the field, outlined the structure of my QCA textbook, and provided an illustration of how QCA has been used to analyze coalition defection in the Iraq War. Thanks to Jordan Becker, Director of the Social Science Research Lab, and his colleagues for the invitation and the fruitful discussion after the talk!

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Incentives and Constraints: A Configurational Account of European Involvement in the anti-Daesh Coalition

The European Political Science Review (Cambridge University Press) published my article “Incentives and Constraints: A Configurational Account of European Involvement in the anti-Daesh Coalition“. Supplementary material to the set-theoretic analysis, including the results of robustness tests, can be accessed here.

Abstract: In 2014, the USA initiated the formation of a multilateral military operation against Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Eventually, more than 70 states joined the anti-Daesh coalition. However,contributions to the military effort have been characterized by great variance, especially among EU member states. While some states took leading roles in the airstrikes, others provided training for Iraqi and Kurdish forces, and still others did not get involved beyond voicing their support for the policy. Against this backdrop, this article makes a two-fold contribution to the literature on military coalitions and security policy. Empirically, the article provides a mapping of the then 28 EU member states’ military engagement in the fight against Daesh in Syria and Iraq. Analytically, fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is applied to account for the observed pattern of military involvement, using an integrative framework that combines international and domestic factors. The results demonstrate that multiple paths led towards EU military involvement in the anti-Daesh coalition. At the same time, international level incentives, such as external threat and/or alliance value feature prominently in all three identified paths. The analysis further underscores the value of a configurational perspective, because neither an external threat nor alliance value are sufficient on their own to bring about the outcome. Across the set-theoretic configurations, these conditions either combine with other ‘push’ factors or with the absence of constraints against military involvement. In line with the latter, the article highlights the policy relevance of institutional constraints, especially legislative veto rights, since most of those countries that were involved in the airstrikes of the anti-Daesh coalition did not have formal parliamentary involvement on matters of military deployment policy.

Corrigendum: The published article contains erroneous illustrations. A correction notice has been published on the EPSR website. Meanwhile, a correct preprint version of the article can be accessed here.

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Am 22. April 2021 habe ich an der Zeppelin Universität am Lehrstuhl für Global Governance von Prof. Andrea Schneiker einen virtuellen Gastvortrag zum Thema “Democracy and War Involvement” gehalten. Nach einem Überblick zu Kriegsbeteiligungen westlicher Demokratien in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten lag der Schwerpunkt auf meiner vergleichenden Studie zum Abzug aus dem Irakkrieg, welche Bedingungen für den Abzug bzw. Verbleib westlicher Regierungen im Irak identifiziert (51 Regierungen aus 29 Demokratien im Zeitverlauf, 2003-2008). Herzlichen Dank an Prof. Andrea Schneiker und das Lehrstuhlteam für die Einladung und an die teilnehmenden Studierenden für die sehr engagierte Diskussion! Der Artikel im European Journal of International Security ist 2020 erschienen und frei verfügbar (open access). Eine Zusammenfassung findet sich im EJIS-Blog.

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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.

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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.

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Am 12. Dezember 2019 habe ich am Institut für Politikwissenschaft der Technischen Universität Chemnitz im Rahmen der Vorlesung “Einführung in die Außenpolitikanalyse” von Prof. Dr. Kai Oppermann einen Vortrag zum Thema “Parlamente in der Sicherheitspolitik: Erfüllungsgehilfen oder Vetospieler?” gehalten.

Der Vortrag bot einen Überblick über die jüngere Forschung zu parlamentarischen Kontrollrechten bei Streitkräfteneinsätzen (Mello & Peters 2017; 2018) sowie eine Erörterung der These des “parlamentarischen Friedens” (Dieterich et al. 2015; Wagner 2018). Zudem wurde die  Entwicklung einer neuen politischen Konvention parlamentarischer Beteiligung in Großbritannien anhand von Abstimmungen und Debatten zu Militäreinsätzen unter der Regierung Cameron (2010-2016) nachgezeichnet (Mello 2017). Zuletzt wurde die parlamentarische Beteiligung in Deutschland und Kanada während der Afghanistan-Einsätze verglichen, unter Berücksichtigung von öffentlicher Meinung und Medienberichterstattung (Lagassé & Mello 2018).

Informationen zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen der Professur Internationale Politik der TU Chemnitz finden sich hier. Vielen Dank für die Einladung nach Chemnitz!

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Contemporary Security Policy (CSP) has published a Special Forum on “The Politics of Multinational Military Operations”, guest edited by Patrick A. Mello (University of Erfurt) and Stephen M. Saideman (Carleton University). The special forum contains contributions from Gunnar Fermann (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Per Marius Frost-Nielsen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Olivier Schmitt (University of Southern Denmark), Daan Fonck (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Tim Haesebrouck (Ghent University), Yf Reykers (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Stéfanie von Hlatky (Queen’s University), Justin Massie (Université du Québec à Montréal), and Kathleen J. McInnis (Congressional Research Service). CSP is a peer reviewed journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal is indexed in the Social Science Citation Index, expecting its first Impact Factor for June/July 2019 (International Relations). CSP has a Scopus CiteScore of 1.07 (2017) and is ranked in the first quartile in Political Science & International Relations [more information].

Introduction to the Special Forum:

Mello, Patrick A., and Stephen M. Saideman (2019) The Politics of Multinational Military Operations, Contemporary Security Policy 40 (1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1522737 (Open Access)

Contributing Articles (in alphabetical order):

Fermann, Gunnar and Per Marius Frost-Nielsen (2019) Conceptualizing Caveats for Political Research, Contemporary Security Policy 40(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1523976

Fonck, Daan, Tim Haesebrouck and Yf Reykers (2019) Parliamentary Involvement, Party Ideology and Majority-Opposition Bargaining: Belgian Participation in Multinational Military Operations, Contemporary Security Policy 40(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1500819

Mcinnis, Kathleen J. (2019) Varieties of Defection Strategies from Multinational Military Operations: Insights from Operation Iraqi Freedom, Contemporary Security Policy 40(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1506964

Mello, Patrick A. (2019) National Restrictions in Multinational Military Operations: A Conceptual Framework, Contemporary Security Policy 40(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1503438 (Open Access)

Schmitt, Olivier (2019) More Allies, Weaker Missions? How Junior Partners Contribute to Multinational Military Operations, Contemporary Security Policy 40(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1501999

Von Hlatky, Stéfanie and Justin Massie (2019) Ideology, Ballots, and Alliance: Canadian Participation in Multinational Military Operations, Contemporary Security Policy 40(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1508265

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Contemporary Security Policy has published an advance online version of “National Restrictions in Multinational Military Operations: A Conceptual Framework”. The open access article is part of a forthcoming CSP Special Forum on “The Politics of Multinational Military Operations”, co-edited by Stephen Saideman and myself,  with articles from Gunnar Fermann, Per Marius Frost-Nielsen, Olivier Schmitt, Daan Fonck, Tim Haesebrouck, Yf Reykers, Stéfanie von Hlatky, Justin Massie, and Kathleen McInnis.

Individual articles can be accessed here as they become available.

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