In response to Russia's actions in Ukraine in 2014, the EU introduced sanctions on Moscow. Despite increasing polarisation among member states after imposition, the sanctions package was consistently renewed. How can sanctions persistence be explained? While scholarly accounts highlight German leadership, commitment to norms, and policymakers' engagement, the EU's ability to uphold the sanctions in the face of uneven support among member states remains puzzling. With the help of a two-level game framework, according to which actors make decisions based on the interplay between the domestic and international levels, we argue that the interaction between the Council and domestic politics helped sustaining the consensus. To illustrate this dynamic, in an exploration of domestic factions in Spain and Poland, two member states displaying opposite attitudes towards Russia, we identify the presence of at least one actor whose preference deviates from the core, thereby facilitating consensus.
We present first results from an experimental evaluation of a high dosage math tutoring program implemented in a secondary school for pre-vocational education located in a low-income neighborhood in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. From a pool of 98 students in their first year of secondary school (aged 12-13) 49 were randomly assigned to receive 2-on-1 tutoring. Treated students received one class period of personalized tutoring daily in the first 16 weeks of the school year. Outcome test scores were observed at the end of the first semester and at the end of the school year. We find treatment effects of 0.44 (p<0.01) and 0.72 (p<0.01) control group standard deviations after one semester on a verbal math test (with math word problems) and a nonverbal math test (math without textual context) respectively. The results indicate substantial learning gains. On the nonverbal math test, treated students gained statistically significantly more in one semester than control students gained in the entire school year.
This study examines when and why threats of economic sanctions lead to the successful extraction of policy concessions. Scholars identified three (not mutually exclusive) hypotheses that explain the success of sanction threats: (a) the coercive, (b) the informational and (c) the public commitment hypothesis. The underpinning mechanisms for the hypotheses are, respectively, the economic cost of sanctions, uncertainty about the resolve of the sender and domestic audience cost for issuing empty threats. In this study, we offer an empirical test of the three hypotheses on threats effectiveness. In addition, we assess how variation in the three mechanisms affects the effectiveness of threats relative to imposed sanctions. For the expected economic cost, we use the TIES data. To measure uncertainty, we generate a network of diplomatic relations, based on Formal Alliance data, utilizing methods from complex network theory. To assess public commitment, we use the democracy score based on the POLITY IV data. Our results show that the effectiveness of threats strongly increases in an economic cost to the target; however, threats become increasingly effective relative to imposed sanctions for lower uncertainty and higher domestic audience cost.Cette étude examine les moments auxquels et les raisons pour lesquelles les menaces de sanctions économiques permettent de réussir à soutirer des concessions politiques. Des chercheurs ont identifié trois hypothèses (qui ne sont pas mutuellement exclusives) qui expliquent la réussite des menaces de sanctions: les hypothèses liées (a) à la coercition, (b) à l'information et (c) à l'engagement public. Les mécanismes sous-jacents à ces hypothèses sont respectivement: le coût économique des sanctions, l'incertitude concernant la détermination de l'auteur des menaces, et le coût pour le public national de l'émission de vaines menaces. Dans cette étude, nous proposons une mise à l'épreuve empirique des trois hypothèses sur l'efficacité des menaces. De plus, nous avons évalué la manière dont la KEYWORDS
A new wave of protectionism is threatening the open and cooperative international order. This paper applies evolutionary game theory to analyze the stability of international trade cooperation. Global trade liberalization is modeled as an iterated prisoner’s dilemma between all possible pairs of WTO member states. Empirical data are used to model the sizes and competitiveness of the respective markets, which then determine the resulting gains and costs of trade cooperation. Because of the large number of WTO member states and repeated rounds of their interactions, we use computer simulations to calculate the strategies that lead to the maximum ‘fitness’ of the respective member states and consequently diffuse through the population of countries. The results of our simulations show that international trade cooperation is not a stable equilibrium and that extreme levels of trade liberalization can be exploited successfully by protectionist trade policies.
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