Existing research on the connection between alliance formation and conflict initiation has explicitly focused on the direct effect of alliances on conflict by including some measure of alliance behavior as an independent variable in models of conflict behavior. Existing research misspecifies the...

Existing work cannot explain why countries form alliances when direct security threats are not a key political issue, though we know countries routinely do engage in that behavior. Countries form alliances to manage the essential problem that they must use finite budget resources to provide...

The WTO says nothing about corruption. This paper uses qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine whether the GATT/WTO, without deliberate intent, helps nations improve governance and fight corruption. Under GATT/WTO rules, policymakers are obligated to act in an evenhanded manner, to...

Corruption (the abuse of entrusted authority for illicit gain) is pervasive, hard to measure, and damaging both to economic growth and human rights. Corruption is also intimately associated with trade. However, the international organization governing trade, the WTO, says nothing about...

The WTO system has democratic rights spillovers. In this paper, we show how GATT and WTO rules induce memberstates to advance several democratic rights: specifically political participation, due process and access toinformation. We use qualitative and quantitative tools to examine this process....