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The purpose of this article is to review major theoretical arguments with regard to the causes of civil war and identify problems associated with the conceptual juxtaposition of opportunity versus grievance that predominates in the field. While they are critical aspects of conflict processes, perception of opportunity and grievance as two mutually competing explanations or separate categories ultimately can limit, rather than facilitate, our understanding of civil conflicts. For example, we show that not all motives can be designated easily as deriving from one or the other. In addition, the existing dichotomous framework masks other important questions about the way that collective action is achieved in some circumstances and not others or the way that some factors seem to generate grievances at one stage, perhaps, but then an opportunity at another orvice versa. Thus the priority should be to develop an integrated, comprehensive approach that can account for fundamental aspects of complex conflict processes. We conclude by providing suggestions for future research on civil conflict.

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In the late 1990s, Japan and South Korea concluded their first bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) in completely opposite sequences despite similar domestic pressures. Japan concluded an “easier” FTA with Singapore first and then concluded a more “difficult” FTA with Mexico. South Korea concluded a more difficult FTA first with Chile and then moved on to negotiate with Singapore. In this article, I analyze these cases and review the literature on bargaining and two‐level games to develop a model of how these differences in sequence account in part for the relative differences in each country's bargaining strength in their more difficult negotiations. The preexistence of the Singapore FTA eased domestic pressures to reap the benefits of entry into the bilateral FTA game. Thus, Japan could approach the more difficult FTA negotiation knowing that a “no‐agreement” outcome would not fundamentally increase domestic pressure to get into the free trade “game.” This alternative to no agreement put the Japanese in a stronger international bargaining position. South Korea negotiated its harder case knowing that the relative domestic pressure to get in the FTA game would increase without an agreement. This relatively worse bargaining position created a context in which South Korea conceded more internationally at the expense of higher side payments domestically.

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Why are natural disasters so deadly in some places but not in others? Disaster scholars have grappled with this question for decades, but a relatively new line of comparative research looks at the effects of different disaster-relevant institutions. This paper explores the effects of one institution-the contract. Specifically, it connects existing theories of contracts to theories of disaster and generates competing hypotheses about the relationship between contracts disaster related fatalities. Data on the contract intensity of economies (CIE) is used to explore this relationship using country-level data on natural disaster deaths between 1960 and 2007. The paper provides evidence that a country's economy becomes more contract intensive, fatalities from natural disasters are likely to decrease. KEY WORDS: contracts, disasters, institutions, social capital 合约能挽救生命吗？合约密集型经济体和自然灾害死亡之间的关系 为何自然灾害在一些地区十分严重，而在另一些地区却不是这样？几十年来，研究灾害的学 者一直在设法解决这一问题，但一项相对较新的比较研究却关注的是不同灾害机构产生的效 果。本文探索了其中一种机构的效果 -合约机构。具体而言，本文将现有的合约理论与灾害 理论相联系，然后产生不同的竞争假设，这些假设则有关于合约与灾害死亡之间的关系。通 过使用1960-2007年间不同国家的自然灾害死亡数据，本文用经济体的合约密集度(contract intensity of economies ，CIE)对此关系进行了探索。本文证明，一个国家的经济越 朝着合约密集的方向发展，则自然灾害造成的死亡人数便越有可能减少。 关键词: 合约, 灾害, 机构, 社会资本 ¿Los contratos salvan vidas? La relaci on entre las economías que utilizan los contratos y las muertes en desastres naturales ¿Por qu e son tan mortales los desastres naturales en algunos lugares y no en otros? Los expertos en desastres se han preguntado esto por d ecadas, pero una relativamente nueva línea de investigaci on comparativa examina los efectos de diferentes instituciones que son relevantes para los desastres.Este documento explora los efectos de una instituci on-el contrato. Específicamente, conecta diferentes teorías existentes de contratos a teorías de desastre y genera hip otesis contrapuestas acerca de la relaci on entre las muertes relacionadas con los contratos de desastres. Se utiliza informaci on acerca de la intensidad de las economías (CIE) para explorar esta relaci on utilizando informaci on de muertes en desastres naturales a nivel nacional entre 1960 y 2007. Este documento proporciona evidencia que sugiere que si la economía de un país comienza a utilizar m as contratos, las fatalidades de desastres naturales tienen una probabilidad m as alta de disminuir.

How do we assess the health of international regimes? Many analysts have insisted recently that the nuclear nonproliferation regime is in urgent need of repair or that it should even be discarded because of its supposed ineffectiveness. However, it is essential that statements about the regime being in crisis be scrutinized for veracity and utility. While the spread of nuclear weapons poses an undeniable and serious threat to international security, a mistaken crisis mentality with respect to the regime could lead to rash attempts to alter it in unnecessary or ineffective ways or, at worst, to discard it completely. This paper returns to a theoretical framework that differentiates regimes, across both issue areas and time, to provide a more specified evaluation of regime health. By disaggregating the nuclear nonproliferation regime and assessing the individual and interactive health of multiple dimensions, a number of dimension-specific, regime-strengthening policy recommendations emerge.