Scholars have argued for some time that the rally ’round the flag phenomenon creates incentives for political leaders to use military force to divert attention away from domestic turmoil. It is hypothesized that a state’s strategic or historical context conditions its use of...

Treaty-making involves the constitutional struggle for policy control. Both the Executive and Senate are defined as official actors in establishing international commitments and both closely guard their constitutionally defined roles.Yet most research concludes that Congress rarely matters when...

This article argues that the systemic security environment influences the structure of domestic political and economic institutions. If states have been primarily created to protect one group from predation by another, then the state may visibly change as external threats rise and fall. The...

Research on the `democratic peace' has received considerable attention in the last few years. Democracies, though, are often thrown together when examining the propensity of different regime types to become engaged in international conflict. Yet, democratic governments vary dramatically across...

Political vulnerability is thought to influence the opportunities available to the US president to engage in uses of force abroad. Conventional theories linking economic misfortune and partisan opposition to presidential uses of force detail the incentives and constraints facing the president in...

While piracy may evoke romanticized visions of swashbuckling, rum swigging, and skirt chasing pirates hoisting the Jolly Roger, maritime piracy has changed substantially by taking advantage of modernization and substantial upgrading of the weapons, vessels, and weapons it employs. In addition,...