PCC, 202A

Saturday, September 7, 8:00 – 9:30 a.m.

Chair: Jeffrey Carroll, Chestnut Hill College

Discussant: Quinn Bornstein, Georgetown University

Access Then Denial: Welfare, Social Control and Access to American Citizenry

Naomi Nashell Nubin-Sellers, University of Houston

How Do College Students Decide Where to Vote?

Caroline High Pippert, Northwestern University

Modified Mental Models to Identify the Public’s Concerns on New Technical Topics

Ioana Iacob and M. Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University

As the United States invests in hydrogen as a key energy carrier, understanding public perception and regional dynamics becomes crucial, especially in the context of developing hydrogen hubs. Using this as motivation, a case study was developed which focused on the tri-state region of Southwestern Pennsylvania, exploring the potential challenges and opportunities associated with the establishment of a hydrogen hub. The study employed a modified mental models approach, conducting eight participatory seminars over five months in the greater Pittsburgh region. Through these sessions, the research investigates public reactions, identifies advantages, disadvantages, and uncertainties associated with hydrogen and a hypothetical hydrogen hub. This paper aligns with the 2024 APSA Annual Conference theme, “Democracy: Retrenchment, Renovation, & Reimagination.” It delves into the intersection of science, technology, and environmental politics by exploring how democratic decision-making and accountability unfold in the context of emerging energy technologies. The case study provides insights into reimagining and strengthening democracy within the governance of innovative technical projects, contributing to the broader discourse on the conference theme. This research offers an examination of public perceptions and regional dynamics in the development of hydrogen hubs, contributing to the broader conversation on the intersection of democratic decision-making and emerging technologies. The findings present actionable insights for policymakers and industry leaders seeking to navigate the democratic challenges associated with advancing innovative energy solutions. In my proposed presentation, I will discuss the method used and the results produced through this case study. I will provide insight into how the mental models method was adapted to cover a technical topic that the public knew little about prior to participating, and I will share the strategies employed as a result of feedback from pilot seminars and interviews. I will also present the overview of results, which highlight the need for cohesive public communication strategies on technical topics, while emphasizing the role of regional differences in shaping these communication strategies.

Public Support of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Supreme Court Nominees

Maya Fitch, University of Houston

Voter Perceptions of Motherhood as Candidate Trait

Anna Hirschi, George Washington University

The Effect of Partisan Social Networks on COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Beliefs

Cory Anastasia, University at Buffalo

The Non-ideological Origins of American Revolutionary Political Thought

Rebecca Laura Palmer, University College London

I hope to present the research I have completed thus far for my doctoral dissertation. My dissertation conducts a conceptual analysis of political thought in the print culture of the American Revolution. It focuses on three critical moments during the imperial crisis: the Stamp Act Crisis, 1765-6; The Townshend Duties, 1766-7; and the Coercive Acts, 1773-4. I examine three colonies with strong printing cities: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and bring together Early American History, Intellectual History, and the Digital Humanities.

I challenge scholarly narratives of the American Revolution’s ‘Ideological Origins’, which have viewed the period as developing a comprehensive blend of coherent political ideas. Instead, I question whether the Revolution advanced a single, coherent ideological tradition, and whether this was developed into a comprehensive vision of political life which can be deemed ‘ideological’ at all. My dissertation highlights the nuances of the Revolutionary period, questioning how individuals explored abstract political traditions, such as liberalism and republicanism, on the ground. To do so, I conduct a conceptual analysis, investigating how actors deployed political concepts, including liberty, property, and authority, and whether they defined these in similar ways. Hence, I part from the Cambridge School’s discourse approach, instead examining political concepts as organizing tools for ideas, as actors used the abstract concepts available to them from a myriad of traditions, and infused them with different meanings as they engaged with their own contexts. This bridges the gap between the history of political thought and political history, examining the complex interplay between political ideologies and their reception on the ground.

I am situated within the Digital Humanities, as I use NVivo to conduct a mixed-methods content analysis. This offers a unique way of examining the intersection between the abstract and the local. Firstly, the quantitative analysis counts the number of times a concept appears across the period studied, and whether certain ideas spiked in specific times, places, or groups. My thematic analysis then questions such consistencies in political language, investigating whether definitions of political concepts were agreed-upon, or were instead interpreted and applied in different ways, as actors responded to local and imperial contexts. This facilitates greater understanding of the nuances of Revolutionary discourses, rather than assuming that political ideology was unified and constant. Furthermore, I move beyond traditional reliance on pamphlets to include newspapers, broadsides, and sermons. This expands scholarly understandings of the term ‘political’, with a particular focus on newspapers as sites of political engagement. Such an approach reveals that these texts were key media through which political ideas were circulated and debated.

After discussing the background and methodology of my dissertation, I will present my initial results, and exemplify how the mixed-methods approach yields interesting data. I will begin with a slide on my quantitative results, presented through graphs. These will allow me to compare the use of concepts across different colonies, types of source, groups, and years during the Revolution, and whether some ideas were used more in certain spaces and places, or if political thought was largely consistent. My second slide will present a case study of my qualitative analysis. I will include some quotations from a newspaper article from Virginia, which combined the concepts of liberty, property, and patriotism, used across the colonies against the Stamp Act, to also critique a local breakdown of order in 1766. This exemplifies my working argument that, whilst in Boston, political concepts were used directly to respond to events of the Revolution, in Pennsylvania and Virginia, actors often worked the language of the imperial crisis to their own more immediate concerns on a colonial, or even township, level.

Finally, I will conclude by summarizing my overarching argument that Revolutionary political thought was far more disunited and disjointed than has been recognized. Through a mixed-methods approach, we can trace the way that abstract political concepts were used continuously throughout the period, but not solely as a reflection of a comprehensive ideology that was subscribed to; instead, at times, language was used to create a community discourse though which actors could articulate their own individual grievances in language recognizable to a much broader audience. This created the appearance of unity, despite the breadth of different local, national, and imperial crises developing in this period. Thus, I suggest the notion of ‘non-ideological origins’: colonial actors were ‘political’, but did not hold a firm commitment to a specific strand of thought that would make them ‘ideological’.

PCC, 202A

Saturday, September 7, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m.

An Aggregate Analysis of Rurality and Race on Voting Behavior, 2000-2020

Matthew Duthaler, Bowdoin College

Within the study of identity politics there has been a renewed increase in studying white identities, in particular the link between rural consciousness, race (Whiteness) and political behavior. A large amount of work has occurred since Cramer’s (2016) seminal work on rural consciousness was published. Much of this work has focused on the micro-level correlates and effects of rural identity, specifically through the lens of racial resentment and White consciousness, which are often correlated (Nelsen and Petsko 2021; Lin and Lunz Trujillo 2023; Lyons and Utych 2023). However, this work has overlooked the macro-level impacts of rural consciousness. In this study I seek to understand the relationship between rurality, Whiteness, and the vote from an aggregate perspective – by determining if the relationship between geographic rurality and support for Republican candidates has increased over the past several election cycles. To examine this question, I analyze aggregate level presidential election data, as well as the white and rural population of all counties in the 48 mainland US states between 2000 and 2020, I look both to understand whether or not rurality and whiteness both have an effect on voter support for Republican presidential candidates, and to understand which of the two has a greater impact on voter support for those candidates. I also seek to understand whether or not the effect of rural consciousness and race have increased over time.

My analysis utilizes county-level Census Bureau data and vote returns from each presidential election from 2000 to 2020. I measure rurality using the percent of each county defined as rural by the US Census Bureau. This serves as a stand-in for the measurement of rural consciousness, given the findings of Scala, Johnson and Rogers (2015) that observe an increase in Republican support as areas become further removed from urban centers. To measure the impact of racial context, I rely on the Census Bureau’s measurement of each county’s non-Hispanic White population as a percent of its total population. By regressing these two variables with each county’s support for GOP presidential candidates over the past six election cycles, I find that Whiteness has a larger effect on GOP candidate support than rurality does. I also find that the correlation of both Whiteness and rurality to support for GOP presidential candidates increased significantly over the study interval. Finally, my analysis also reveals a jump in the correlation between rurality and GOP candidate support in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections compared to previous elections where Donald Trump was not on the ballot. The jump occurred between the 2012 and 2016 elections, corresponding with Trump’s presence on the ballot. I argue that this effect is due to Trump’s populist and anti-elitism campaign messaging and style, which are closely linked with many of the ideas and feelings associated with rural consciousness. In further elections where Trump, or his anti-elitism and populist rhetoric, are not on the ballot, it is possible that rural consciousness may no longer have as significant an effect on rural voters’ support for GOP candidates as it did during the Trump era.

Beyond Aid: Exploring the Implications of Chinese Engagement in African Countries

Sherlean Roberts, Marquette University

Conditional Windfalls: CCT Benefits and Local Taxation in Colombia

Alexander Armand Del Greco, Swarthmore College

Escaping Liberation: Reexamine “Natural Foot” & “Natural Breast” Movements

Yihao Lu, East China Normal University

This study will analyze “Natural Foot” and “Natural Breast” movements that occurred successively in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China by adopting the paradigm of historical institutionalism. The “Natural Foot” movement began from the late Qing Dynasty and was aimed to eliminate the women’s practice foot-binding. The “Natural Breast” movement began in late 1910s and was aimed to eradicate the skin-tight plastron worn around women’s chests to create a flatter appearance. The two events are symbols of a radical change that took place in the gendered social institution (hereinafter referred to as “GSI”) practiced in Chinese society. Men and women, the two major genders, are the actors in the GSI. This study views the launching of “Natural Foot” movement as a “critical juncture” that marked the beginning of the institutional change of GSI. Plastron-wearing, a practice revitalized by female actors, could be seen as the derivation of the previous GSI. The responsive “Natural Breast” movement represented the successful practicing of the new GSI.

In the original GSI, men, as the dominant sex, were beneficiaries of the institution. In contrast, women’s victimhood was clear, but they somehow found an acceptable way to adapt to the institution. Most women, whether forced or voluntary, competed to bind their feet into smaller sizes as a means to demonstrate feminine virtue and social status so as to secure better marriage prospects. Women engaged in self-mutilation and constant self-discipline in exchange for survival within the GSI and some slight chances of profiting from it. Meanwhile, male beneficiaries utilized this GSI to confine women within their households, engaging them in reproductive and manual labor, and diminishing any perceived threat they posed. In late Qing Dynasty, influenced by dramatic changes in domestic and international politics, a group of Chinese male elite intellectuals first began to question the past GSI. They recognized that such institution was so inefficient that it would hinder national progress, which was against their newly altered interests. Consequently, these men, who were dominant actors of the previous GSI, initiated spontaneous reforms against it. The revised GSI correlated women’s physical practice with nation-building. It not only matched with the new reason of state of China, but, more importantly, justified and institutionalized the measures of taxing, fining, monitoring and correcting female victims because of the specific forms of their bodies and their private conduct. The new GSI relocated women’s bodies into new social spaces, destroying the old institutional path women had depended on. It gave play to women’s function of participating in socially productive labor, while further exploiting their reproductive ability. Women, however, feeling reluctant to give up on the old path, turned to the ruins of the previous GSI and revived the self-torturing fashion of “chest-binding” which was like the “reprint” of foot-binding. The trend of chest-binding and plastron-wearing first arose in urban girls’ schools, where the idea and practice of abolishing foot-binding should have been most widespread. The trend toward chest-binding was a silent resistance to institutional changes by female actors who had not recognized their victimhood in the old GSI. They weren’t ready to bear the costs of entering a new institution that wouldn’t offer women a clear path to social advancement as the original one had done.

The novelty of this study is shown in the following two aspects. Firstly, it takes the “natural foot” and “natural feet” movements as a continuum of related events, rather than separate parallel aspects of women’s liberation in late Qing and early Republic of China, which helps infer the unspoken attitudes of women towards GSI reforms. Secondly, this study adopts historical institutionalism as an analytical framework and aims to reveal the underlying nature behind two socially significant movements whose chronological order tells neglected details. It provides insight into the question why non-dominant actors engage in actions that uphold the existing institution. In contrast to other studies on the women’s liberation movements in China, this study clearly opposes the traditional progressive tone while also avoiding a revisionist stance that blindly interprets seemingly proactive choices made by women as a rise of their subjectivity. The significance of this research lies in uncovering the fact that even when an existing institution has begun to change, the manner in which it changes remains heavily constrained by itself, limiting all actors, whether dominant or non-dominant.

The Effect of Election Misinformation on Twitter (X)

Rolland T. Grady, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Younger Options, More Voters? Candidate Age and Youth Turnout in U.S. Elections

Emily Rusting, University of California, Los Angeles

The Role of Economics in Political Unrest in Africa: Wealth versus Inequality

Kylie Michelle Hammack, Oklahoma State University

PCC, 202A

Saturday, September 7, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.

Chair: Tobias Hofmann, Free University of Berlin

Discussant: Samuel Houskeeper, Columbia University

Addressing Linguistic Diversity in Political Science Research with LLMs

Tom Bellens, KU Leuven

AI for Political Analysis: Disinformation and the “Great Replacement” Theory

Erik Marino, University of Évora, Suso B. Baleato, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, and Ana Sofia Ribeiro, University of Évora

The release of Renaud Camus’s “Le Grand Remplacement” (The Great Replacement) in 2011 in France is recognized as the initial catalyst for the proliferation of this conspiracy theory within Western alt-right movements, notably in the US and Europe. This theory has been identified as a significant motivating factor behind instances of extreme violence, posing a threat to democracy and exacerbating political polarization. The proven disruptive potential of this conspiracy theory underscores its importance as a phenomenon that deserves thorough examination.

The proliferation of disinformation in social media supporting that idea of national populations being replaced by immigrants provides an useful data source to enable evidence-based analysis of this phenomenon. However, the amount of information, the co-existence of different social media platforms, and the multilingual environment of European politics introduces severe limitations to perform systematic and generalizable inference. Our research aims to tackle those limitations, introducing a hybrid Artificial Intelligence research design, where computational techniques are added to the toolbox of Political Science to enable political discourse across multiple languages. Recognizing AI’s dual role in both spreading and potentially preventing disinformation, we utilize state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms and advanced natural language processing techniques to train a machine learning model able to trace the theory’s evolution in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian media discourses.

With this purpose, we start defining the semantic field addressing the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ across the four languages. With this purpose, we explore linguistic and contextual variances in multilingual expressions using computational linguistics techniques to derive terms consistent with the political science literature on this topic. Second, we apply conventional political discourse analysis techniques to produce an annotated corpus where we identify the polarity of relevant sentences regarding those topics more closely connected to the ‘Great Replacement’ theory. Third, we perform the same polarity analysis, this time using several transformer-based Artificial Intelligence algorithms, using the semantic set as an ontology consistently with computer science standards. Finally, using the annotated corpus as a gold standard, we evaluate the performance of the tested AI approaches, gaining insights about their potentials and limitations.

Our research sheds light on the mechanics of narrative spread and evolution in the case of the “Great Replacement” theory, contributing to tackle the impact of disinformation in democratic societies. In addition to that, we contribute with a research design that can be applied to other research topics, particularly in the field of political communication, discourse analysis or disinformation studies. In order to ensure that our approach is reusable, we make our code and data available through the Harvard Dataverse repository, so researchers can independently evaluate our analysis, and use the code for their own research in a way that ensures a strong commitment to ethical research practices, particularly concerning data access.

Deconstructing Populist Evolution: A Temporal Word Embedding Approach

Evelyn Simoni, University of California, Los Angeles

Drivers of Global Great Power Assertiveness: Russia and the Global South

Toms Ratfelders, University of Delaware, and Elina Vroblevska, Rīga Stradiņš University

Leathernecks and Lexicon: Exploring Partisanship in the Marine Corps Gazette

Julianna Thomson, George Mason University, and Ryan Pallas, George Mason University

An Analysis of Brazilian YouTubers’ Sentiment regarding Immigration to Portugal

João Felipe Marques Barros da Silva, University of Brasilia, and Samuel Brandão Rodrigues

PCC, 202A

Saturday, September 7, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Chair: David Alexander Romney, Brigham Young University

Discussant: Elizabeth A. Stein, U.S. Coast Guard Academy

Automation as a Cross-Pressure: Inequality Concern and Economic Nationalism

Jaewook Lee, University of Milan

This research paper explores the intricate relationship between inequality concern, economic nationalism, and the effects of automation on society. As the rapid advancement of automation technology reshapes the labor market and economic landscape, understanding how individuals navigate the complex dynamics of this transformation becomes crucial. While policymakers engage in ongoing discussions about the government’s role in managing automation’s impact, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of how people perceive and respond to this ambivalent change, which can both exacerbate inequality and offer new economic opportunities.

This study aims to address this gap by examining how individuals confront cross-pressure stemming from their desire for technological prowess on the global stage and their concerns about growing economic inequality. We argue that by framing automation as a means to enhance national competitiveness in the global economic arena, governments can garner increased support for accelerating the automation process. This support is particularly pronounced when governments simultaneously pledge to expand social safety nets to mitigate potential job displacement caused by automation.

To test these hypotheses, we conduct an original survey experiment drawing on a representative sample of the United States population. Our study leverages the dual anxieties of technology-driven job loss and nationalist sentiment, emphasizing the pursuit of ‘American hegemony’ through the adoption of new technologies. Through a comprehensive analysis of survey responses, we aim to shed light on how the transformative effects of technology intersect with global economic competition. By situating our findings within the broader context of global political economy, our research contributes to the literature on the political economy of automation, providing valuable insights into the ways in which individuals and societies grapple with the multifaceted challenges and opportunities presented by automation in an interconnected world.

Ultimately, this research seeks to enhance our understanding of the intricate interplay between technology-driven transformation, economic nationalism, and concerns about inequality, offering valuable insights for policymakers, scholars, and stakeholders seeking to navigate the evolving landscape of automation in the 21st century.

Digital Imaginaries and Public Opinion in Media Coverage of Global AI Governance

Hayden Goldberg, Oxford University, and Will Shao

Man-Made Natural Disaster: Evidence from National Flood Detention Area in China

Renhao Ye, Peking University, Xinyang Gao, Peking University, and Xinyao Wang, Peking University

Variations of Canadian External Support for Pro-democracy Movements in Hong Kong

Kelvin Chun-Man Chan, University of Texas, Dallas

What factor affects democracies to support foreign pro-democracy movements? The answer is critical for protestors in autocracies as they know that increasing domestic pressure is less likely to force the government to concede due to weaker institutional constraints. Therefore, attracting external support is an alternative strategy. Inviting foreign countries to exert pressure enables protestors to increase their voice, and arousing foreign countries’ sympathy to relax the immigration policies lowers the exit cost by ensuring protestors’ safety.

To understand what factors are more likely to facilitate external democratic support for pro-democracy movements, this paper uses Canadian Members of Parliament (MP)’s support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movements in 2019 as a case study as a positive case. Huge protests were staged in Hong Kong after the local government introduced a bill that allows the extradition of Hong Kong citizens and foreigners who reside in Hong Kong to China. As crackdowns by the authorities became increasingly frequent, it made Canadian politicians concerned about the rights of Hong Kong citizens, particularly 300,000 Hong Kong Canadians residing in the city. Ultimately, after the Chinese government introduced a draconian national security law to prosecute pro-democracy activists and effectively outlaw all organizations and expressions of political dissent in June 2020, the Canadian government introduced a special immigration program for Hong Kong students, who formed the bulk of the protestors, in November 2020 to allow them to move to Canada and ultimately acquire Canadian citizenship legally. While support for the pro-democracy movement and immigration program is universal among all parties along the left-right Canadian political spectrum, there are variations among the individual MPs’ vocal support on these issues. This paper aims to find these patterns of variations and provide plausible explanations.

By analyzing extracted speeches by dictionary-based text analysis from Hansard and Committee Evidence of the House of Commons from 2015 to 2023, the temporal trend shows apart from the discussion of the special immigration program, human rights violations due to the introduction of national security law led to an increasing number of speeches, while protests were ineffective. Moreover, negative binomial regression results show that the effect of the percentage of Cantonese speakers, the first language of Hong Kong immigrants, at the federal constituency level, is only statistically significant in the legislative term between 2019 to 2021, when the topic of Hong Kong pro-democracy movement was most heatedly debated, suggesting that the frequency of foreign politicians’ vocal support of movement depends on the geographical variations of the immigrant community.

The research findings indicate there is a potential link between formal law change to erode human rights and attracting external foreign support. Similarly, protestors should target foreign politicians who represent areas that have sizable immigrant communities, as they face stronger pressure from their electorate to voice out.

War, Emotions, and Moral Duty: A Study of Russian Citizens’ (Non)protest Behavior

Alina Khamatdinova, Washington State University

What Is the Consensus on Incumbency Advantage in the Northwest Territories?

Christopher Yurris, McGill University

What is the strength of incumbency advantage in a non-partisan electoral system? More specifically, does incumbency advantage in non-partisan electoral systems align with or contradict what we expect in a partisan electoral system? Little to no work has examined whether the conclusions of the standard incumbency advantage literature travel to non-partisan systems. This thesis uses Canada’s three Northern territories as a case study to compare incumbency advantage partisan versus non-partisan political systems. The thesis uses a regression discontinuity design and logistic regression models to measure incumbency advantage in the territories.

The thesis finds mixed results on incumbency advantage. On one hand, the results suggest that there is a weak scare-off effect experienced by incumbents in territorial elections. Moreover, contrary to expectations, incumbency is weaker in rural districts compared to urban districts. Lastly, the findings of this thesis suggest that incumbency advantage in Nunavut is weaker than in the Northwest Territories. With that being said, no difference in incumbency was found between in consensus government and the Yukon’s partisan system.

This thesis contributes to three subfields of political science research. First, this thesis demonstrated the methodological challenges of working with small sample sizes, which have the tendency to limit the ability to use causal inference methods. Likewise, this thesis contributed to the incumbency advantage literature, using a non-partisan case study, which showed that partisanship should not be over-emphasized when studying incumbency. Lastly, this paper contributed to the Northern Canadian politics literature, by presenting a new dataset on territorial elections, and using quantitative methods on a case study that has previously relied on qualitative research.

Yes to Coca: Framing Illicit Economies in Coca-Dominated Regions of the Andes

Charlotte Fitzgibbons Mines, McGill University

PCC, 202A

Saturday, September 7, 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

Chair: Lina Svedin, Air University

Discussant: Max Zeldes Margulies, United States Military Academy

“Civilianizing” the South China Sea and Regional Maritime Security Cooperation

Dianne Co Despi, University of Delaware

Disasters, Asymmetric Cost, and War: Why Evidence on Climate Conflict Is Mixed

Guanwei Hu, University of California, San Diego, Ren Charles Mueller, Princeton University, and Hiroto Sawada, Princeton University

Non-Alignment Despite Strategic Incentives: The Enigma of Korea-Japan Relations

Daniel Yoon, George Washington University

Regional Military Expenditures: A Cointegration Analysis

Myla Burton, Southern Illinois University

Temporality and Rising Powers: How Momentum Affect Status Recognition

Pengqiao Lu, McGill University

When Tech, Money, and Politics Collide: Understanding the Evolution of Money

Ghita Chraibi, University of Virginia

Democracy Promotion or Authoritarian Protection? Membership and Regime Survival

Sieun Sim, Yonsei University

Why do some autocratic regimes lose their power, whereas many others do not? To answer this question, I argue that membership in Regional Organizations (ROs) with predominant autocratic states facilitate the survival of authoritarian regimes by curtailing democratic influence, consolidating authoritarian rules, and protecting incumbents against democratic challenges. Existing research has concentrated on how membership in more democratic ROs can bolster democratic prospects. Recent studies reveal a record number of 42 countries experiencing autocratization, signaling a potential third wave of such transitions and suggesting varying international preferences in terms of cooperation. While previous research has significantly contributed to comprehending the connection between the regional aspects of authoritarian resilience, they did not focus on how the membership in ROs itself can actually affect the likelihood of autocratic regime survival. Also, even though a few studies are conducted, they largely rely on qualitative case-based research.

This article explores how regional organizations can affect their regime stability. I consider how parallel mechanisms might play a role in solidifying authoritarian control, thereby diminishing the likelihood of autocratic regime failures. Thus, I concentrate on how membership in Regional Organizations can help to strengthen authoritarian survival politics. This is because RO membership can stabilize regimes during crises by acting as a transformative force through the theory of rational institutionalism, influencing member-state’s behavior, identities, and interests, potentially affecting the durability of authoritarian regimes. Rational institutionalism starts with the presumption, for simplicity, that states, as the primary actors in world politics, employ international organizations to establish social structures conducive to their joint objectives, such as generating collective goods, navigating prisoner’s dilemma scenarios, and resolving coordination challenges. Rational institutionalists emphasize four notable features: 1) a set of behavior, 2) an image of politics, 3) strategic interactions, 4) a distinctive approach to the formulation of institutions. In this study, I begin with the presumption that authoritarian regimes possess a strong inclination to consolidate their power and curb potential democratic challengers. In regional organizations dominated by authoritarian members, cooperation takes various forms. It is important to note that I do not assert RO membership as a sole factor responsible for survival but argue that it contributes significantly to successful crisis resolution and stability. This paper contends that RO membership provides assurance to authoritarian leaders facing potential power loss during a transition to democracy and domestic challenges. Autocracies face intent threats from domestic forces, including the potential for popular upheavals, oppositional actors, or intra-elite coalitions seeking to challenge the existing power distribution. Consequently, autocratic regimes strategically devise domestic survival strategies to navigate and mitigate these multifaceted threats. In regional organizations where autocratic members are dominant, these organizations can function as protective cartels, offering external support to further these consolidation objectives.

To investigate how membership in ROs affects the survival of authoritarian regimes, I conducted survival analysis and test the model implication with data from 280 authoritarian regimes in 4,587 countries from 1946 to 2010. I used an updated version of Geddes’s (2003) dataset on authoritarian regimes, as compiled by Wright (2008). The survival of an autocratic regime can be measured through the possible outcomes of the regime’s fall, which encompass autocratic regime breakdown due to autocratic replacements, and autocratic system breakdown arising from democratization. The main findings suggest that membership in ROs with predominant autocratic member states substantially reduces the risk of regime failure. Specifically, belonging to a RO with a predominant presence of an autocratic member-state increases the likelihood of maintaining regime survival. This paper considers several directions for future research. First, regional organizations have a variety of rules and institutions that have many effects on autocracies’ domestic politics. Also, there exists a rich field for further research, particularly at the country level. While my research has successfully established a statistical correlation between membership in authoritarian ROs and regime survival in autocracies, revealing expected patterns of cooperation, there remains a need for more in-depth investigations into the nuanced interactions between external support from these organizations and domestic political dynamics.

The Role of Democratic Communities in Shaping Democracy and Foreign Policy

Andres Schelp, Northwestern University