Previous studies of U.S. foreign aid have firmly established that foreign policy and domestic considerations strongly influence allocations of military and economic development assistance. Uncharted, however, is the question of similar influences on U.S. humanitarian aid. Analyzing U.S. foreign disaster assistance data from 1964 through 1995, this paper concludes that foreign policy and domestic factors not only influence disaster assistance allocations but that they are the overriding determinant. This impact is, however, somewhat differential: the initial "yes/no" decision to grant disaster assistance is markedly political, but the subsequent "how much" decision is also not devoid of political considerations.Studies of U.S. foreign aid have focused overwhelmingly on military and development assistance, firmly establishing that domestic as well as international political considerations strongly influence allocations (Carleton and Stohl 1987;

Objectives. We sought to better understand the challenges of communicating with the public about emerging health threats, particularly threats involving toxic chemicals, biological agents, and radioactive materials. Methods. At the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we formed an interdisciplinary consortium of investigative teams from 4 schools of public health. Over 2 years, the investigative teams conducted 79 focus group interviews with 884 participants and individual cognitive response interviews with 129 respondents, for a total sample of 1013 individuals. The investigative teams systematically compared their results with other published research in public health, risk communication, and emergency preparedness. Results. We found limited public understanding of emerging biological, chemical, and radioactive materials threats and of the differences between them; demand for concrete, accurate, and consistent information about actions needed for protection of self and family; active information seeking from media, local authorities, and selected national sources; and areas in which current emergency messaging can be improved. Conclusions. The public will respond to a threat situation by seeking protective information and taking self-protective action, underlining the critical role of effective communication in public health emergencies.

Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott have written probably the most comprehensive empirical study of economic sanctions in their volume Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy. They conclude their analysis with several policy recommendations. However, there are problems with their empirical analysis that significantly affect these recommendations. To overcome these problems, I reanalyze their data using ordered logit estimation. In addition to modeling their policy recommendations, I add three hypotheses derived from the sanction literature. The results show that most of the relationships between the variables in their recommendations are insignificant, calling their accuracy and importance into question. In two cases, the original recommendations are accurate only when conditioned by other variables. Cooperation only has a negative effect on success when international organizations are not involved, and nations trying to subvert the sanctions only succeed when the target was originally dependent on the sender for its imports. I conclude by discussing the policy implications these findings have for the future use of economic sanctions.

The democratic peace literature has focused primarily on militarized conflict; however, aspects of the democratic peace may influence how states use economic sanctions. This article investigates how democracies sanction both each other and other non-democracies. Because economic sanctions are very different from military force, some aspects of the democratic peace, such as the more peaceful nature of democracies, do not apply to the decision to sanction. However, several democratic peace factors should influence the use of economic sanctions, such as institutional constraints, shared values, and quick resolutions often found between two democracies. Using updated economic sanction data from 1978 through 2000, the article employs rare-event logit analysis to show that the democratic peace does influence the use of economic coercion - democracies are less likely to sanction each other. It also shows that democracies employ sanctions more than other regime types, in part because democracies pursue human rights and democratization goals with economic sanctions. The results further reveal that unlike other countries, the United States is not hesitant to sanction its allies.

Scholars have long suspected that political processes such as democracy and corruption are important factors in determining economic growth. Studies show, however, that democracy has only indirect effects on growth, while corruption is generally accepted by scholars as having a direct and negative impact on economic performance. We argue that one of democracy's indirect benefits is its ability to mitigate the detrimental effect of corruption on economic growth. Although corruption certainly occurs in democracies, the electoral mechanism inhibits politicians from engaging in corrupt acts that damage overall economic performance and thereby jeopardize their political survival. Using time-series cross-section data for more than 100 countries from 1982–97, we show that corruption has no significant effect on economic growth in democracies, while non-democracies suffer significant economic harm from corruption.

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A connection between disasters and political unrest has often been suggested, but only case studies/anecdotes have been offered as evidence. To test statistically for a disaster-political unrest relationship, a causal model is developed that posits a direct and positive linkage between disaster severity and ensuing levels of political unrest. The model further specifies that increased levels of development, income equality, and regime repressiveness dampen post-disaster political unrest. Using a time-series between 1966 and 1980, Poisson regression results strongly corroborate the model. The exception is income equality, which has the opposite of the originally hypothesized effect.

Though it is widely accepted that advancing women’s rights is crucial to promoting more economic prosperity, good governance, and social equality, very few studies have analyzed the gender-specific effects of foreign policy tools. In this study, we focus on the impact that a frequently used coercive tool — international economic sanctions — has on women’s well-being. Sanctions can have a devastating impact on both the target country’s economic and political stability, and women often suffer significantly from the effects of such external shocks due to their vulnerable socioeconomic and political status. We thus argue that foreign economic pressures will reduce the level of respect for women’s rights in the targeted countries. We use four different measures of women’s economic, political, and social status to analyze the gender-specific consequences of economic coercion. Results from the analysis for the period 1971–2005 indicate that sanctions are likely to exacerbate women’s rights. The data analysis also shows that the suggested negative impact of economic coercion on women’s well-being is conditioned by the wealth of a targeted country; women in poor countries are hit the hardest by economic sanctions.