The analysis using the new Regime Legitimation Expert Survey (RLES) demonstrates that non-democratic rulers in post-Soviet countries use specific combinations of legitimating claims to stay in power. Most notably, rulers claim to be the guardians of citizens' socioeconomic well-being. Second,...

International sanctions have been one of the most commonly used tools of Western foreign policy in the post-Cold War era to instigate democratization globally. However, despite long-term external pressure through sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and/or the United...

This paper examines the impact of regionally imposed sanctions on the trajectory of the Burundian regime and its involvement in the peace process following the 1996 coup in the country. Despite the country's socioeconomic and geopolitical vulnerability, the Buyoya government withstood the...

Research on sanctions has hitherto focused on their implementation and effectiveness, whereas the termination of such measures has received only little attention. The traditional model, which looks at sanctions and their removal in terms of rational, interstate bargaining, focuses on how...

This Working Paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on state and non-state violent actors in the Global South. We provide an ACLED-based interregional mapping of trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and subSaharan Africa. Cross-regional case...

Based on current literature, this paper analyses the nature and effects of external pressure imposed on authoritarian regimes. Around three-quarters of all countries under United Nations, United States, and European Union sanctions are authoritarian, and 'democracy sanctions' that aim at...

Since the end of the Cold War, Western powers have frequently used sanctions as a reaction to declining levels of democracy and human rights violations in authoritarian regimes. However, some of the world's most repressive authoritarian regimes have never been subjected to sanctions, while other...

The present article illustrates how the main actors in global health governance (GHG) - governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), intergovernmental organizations (IOs), and transnational pharmaceutical companies (TNPCs) - have been interacting and, as a result, modifying the global...

The worldwide diffusion of the good governance agenda and new public management has triggered a renewed focus on state capability and, more specifically, on the capability to raise revenue in developing countries. However, the analytical tools for a comprehensive understanding of the capability...

Botswana has been dubbed an 'African miracle'. The country has been praised not only for maintaining a multiparty system and high growth rates since independence but also for its good governance record. In contrast to other African countries, the extent of neopatrimonialism, which runs counter...