Ongoing Research
Holding Their Feet to the Fire: Negotiated Accountability in the Shadow of the International Community
Dissertation (job market paper)
What explains the variation in who is held accountable for the commission of atrocities during conflict? How, if at all, does the threat of International Criminal Court intervention influence the justice mechanisms parties to a conflict agree to implement? This dissertation project unpacks the dilemma parties to a conflict face in the era of a court of last resort: how to minimize the accountability they face when ignoring the international community may provoke intervention. While much of the literature remains divided about the effects of international law and the mechanisms by which it shapes domestic political behavior, I argue that under certain conditions, international criminal tribunals in particular can have important effects. Using insights from a formal model, I argue that the domestic processes established under the shadow of tribunals like the ICC are reflective of international and domestic power politics that can hurt or, under some conditions, actually help those most responsible for atrocity. I evaluate the theory using novel empirical data on the implementation of justice mechanisms agreed upon in all peace negotiations since 2002. In a case study that draws on interview and archival evidence gathered during more than six months of fieldwork, I trace the international and domestic dynamics of peace negotiations in Colombia.
Identifying the Causal Effect of Truth Commissions on the Quality of Democratic Representation with Milena Ang and Monika Nalepa (pdf)
Does transitional justice hinder or help democracy? This simple question poses a challenge because countries choosing to embark on transitional justice may be exactly the ones that would have had a successful pathway to democratization in the first place. We resolve it by measuring transitional justice as a series of events rather than one-shot instances of dealing with the past. Among transitional justice mechanisms, we focus on truth commissions, one of the most popular mechanisms of dealing with authoritarian pasts in the last fifty years. We propose one possible mechanism through which truth commissions can enhance democratic quality, arguing that transparency regimes, such as truth commissions, reveal “skeletons in politicians’ closets” that could be used as kompromat to extract policy concessions from compromised politicians in exchange for silence. According to this logic, transparency regimes result in less corrupt politics and better quality of democratic representation. To corroborate this claim, we disaggregate the truth commission process into a series events that ad- vance or hinder the process of disclosing human rights abuses that took place in the past. This method of coding not only allows us to measure their impact on democratic representation, but is also more faithful to the operation of truth commissions on the ground. We then use a difference-in-difference set-up to identify the causal link be- tween truth commissions and political corruption on a panel dataset of 81 countries that transitioned to democracy since 1946.
Transitional Justice Against Agents of Repression and the Threat of Regime Change with Monika Nalepa, Ben Konstan, and Jordi Vasquez (pdf)
We investigate the phenomenon of authoritarian backlash following the prosecution of agents of the former authoritarian regime after its democratic transition. Our model separates criminal transitional justice targeting low-ranking agents of repression from the prosecutions of leaders, who issue orders to repress. We show that targeting low-ranking agents of repression increases their incentives for supporting coup leaders planning authoritarian take-overs. We test our model’s predictions using the Global Transitional Justice Dataset, which reports prosecutions over time and includes information on the rank of defendants. This information allows us to construct an original independent variable: the proportion of leaders that stood trial as a percentage of all criminal trials against former perpetrators, what we call the “skewness of justice.” We demonstrate that although coup attempts are not affected by the skewness of justice, successful coups are. More detailed case studies of Argentina and Egypt illustrate our argument and the mechanism at play.
Negotiating Sovereignty: The International Criminal Court and Global Governance with Shauna Gillooly
Do global governance institutions (GGIs) have the potential to change the way we think about the concept of sovereignty? Do they have an impact on the way nation-states view the limitations of sovereignty? We argue that unlike the ways in which it is often characterized in International Relations theory, sovereignty is not stable. Rather, it is being constantly negotiated and redefined, particularly in the case of countries that are not powerful enough to be able to “ignore the rules”. Drawing from literature on sovereignty, global governance institutions and issues, as well as previous research on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and compliance, we utilize Colombia’s interactions with the ICC regarding their compliance, virtue signaling, and veritable “bargaining” on human rights issues such as sexual violence, forced displacement, and the “false positives” scandal from the early 2000s to the present day in order to present one example of how GGIs are in part, responsible for the constant renegotiation and redefinition of sovereignty. This conceptualization of sovereignty as a negotiation has serious implications for the future of international relations as we move towards an increasingly multi-polar global system.
What is the Effect of Personnel Transitional Justice on Crime? with Ipek Cinar, Monika Nalepa, and Evgenia Olimpieva (pdf)
What is the effect of transitional justice on crime in post-authoritarian states? An implicit assumption in the transitional justice literature is that by dealing with the human rights abuses committed by the previous regime, new democracies can improve the quality of human rights practices in the future. Personnel transitional justice, like most forms of transitional justice, should advance respect for human rights and lower crime levels. This should in particular apply to post-authoritarian purges, which re- move staff of former authoritarian agencies, including agents of repression, from institutions of the state. But what happens when entire organizations of the old regime apparatus are purged? Using novel data on transitional justice, we argue that this particular transitional justice process—what we call a thorough purge—can actually hurt human rights practices in the countries that have implemented it. We suggest that by removing entire networks of former authoritarian state officials from office, thorough purges can help lay foundations for the establishment of clandestine criminal organizations, which can, paradoxically, increase crime levels, contrary to the intentions of policymakers in new democracies.
Guerrillas to Government? Rebel-Party Transitions and Electoral Success in Colombia with Andres Uribe
When do rebel groups successfully participate in electoral politics? A growing research agenda suggests that rebel-party transitions are key to sustaining peace settlements after civil conflict. Inclusion in formal democratic politics, it argues, enables armed groups to pursue their political goals nonviolently. Yet this logic implicitly hinges on a crucial neglected variable: electoral success. If rebel-affiliated parties cannot win the elected positions necessary to enact elements of their political agenda, the benefits of democratic inclusion remain effectively unattainable. What, then, determines the electoral success of rebel-affiliated political parties? We address this question in the context of the Colombian civil war, which has featured several peace processes with different armed groups. We examine the predictors of electoral success for two such groups, the Unión Patriótica (UP) and Alianza Democrática M-19 (AD/M-19). We assess two hypotheses. First, that conflict dynamics—patterns of victimization and coercive influence by armed actors—determine electoral outcomes. Or second, that even in the context of war, “normal” democratic politics—party platforms, voter targeting, and campaigning—prevail. We find partial support for each hypothesis, suggesting that organizational and ideological differences between rebel parties may determine electoral success or failure.
Training Future Leaders: The Effect of US Military Training on Human Rights in Recipient Countries with Alexandra Chinchilla, and Andres Uribe
The United States spends billions of dollars training foreign militaries. According to theUS State Department, training programs have two purposes: first, to strengthen future alliances between the US and recipient countries, and second, to expose participants toUS values of democracy and human rights. What is the effect of US military training on human rights in recipient countries? Existing research offers conflicting answers to this question. We seek to adjudicate the competing claims by using an instrumental variable design to address the problem of endogeneity. This problem could arise from omitted variables or when the US selects countries for training on their human rights records, either selecting countries with bad human rights records in an attempt to forge new alliances, or privileging relationships with countries with human rights records more similar to the United States. Using data on human rights and US training from 1950 to 2018 in Latin America, we find that US training generally has a slight positive effect on human rights scores in recipient countries, with two upward inflection points, in the 1970s after the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program was created and in the 1990s after Congressional overhaul of the IMET program to include additional focus on human rights.
Dissertation (job market paper)
What explains the variation in who is held accountable for the commission of atrocities during conflict? How, if at all, does the threat of International Criminal Court intervention influence the justice mechanisms parties to a conflict agree to implement? This dissertation project unpacks the dilemma parties to a conflict face in the era of a court of last resort: how to minimize the accountability they face when ignoring the international community may provoke intervention. While much of the literature remains divided about the effects of international law and the mechanisms by which it shapes domestic political behavior, I argue that under certain conditions, international criminal tribunals in particular can have important effects. Using insights from a formal model, I argue that the domestic processes established under the shadow of tribunals like the ICC are reflective of international and domestic power politics that can hurt or, under some conditions, actually help those most responsible for atrocity. I evaluate the theory using novel empirical data on the implementation of justice mechanisms agreed upon in all peace negotiations since 2002. In a case study that draws on interview and archival evidence gathered during more than six months of fieldwork, I trace the international and domestic dynamics of peace negotiations in Colombia.
Identifying the Causal Effect of Truth Commissions on the Quality of Democratic Representation with Milena Ang and Monika Nalepa (pdf)
Does transitional justice hinder or help democracy? This simple question poses a challenge because countries choosing to embark on transitional justice may be exactly the ones that would have had a successful pathway to democratization in the first place. We resolve it by measuring transitional justice as a series of events rather than one-shot instances of dealing with the past. Among transitional justice mechanisms, we focus on truth commissions, one of the most popular mechanisms of dealing with authoritarian pasts in the last fifty years. We propose one possible mechanism through which truth commissions can enhance democratic quality, arguing that transparency regimes, such as truth commissions, reveal “skeletons in politicians’ closets” that could be used as kompromat to extract policy concessions from compromised politicians in exchange for silence. According to this logic, transparency regimes result in less corrupt politics and better quality of democratic representation. To corroborate this claim, we disaggregate the truth commission process into a series events that ad- vance or hinder the process of disclosing human rights abuses that took place in the past. This method of coding not only allows us to measure their impact on democratic representation, but is also more faithful to the operation of truth commissions on the ground. We then use a difference-in-difference set-up to identify the causal link be- tween truth commissions and political corruption on a panel dataset of 81 countries that transitioned to democracy since 1946.
Transitional Justice Against Agents of Repression and the Threat of Regime Change with Monika Nalepa, Ben Konstan, and Jordi Vasquez (pdf)
We investigate the phenomenon of authoritarian backlash following the prosecution of agents of the former authoritarian regime after its democratic transition. Our model separates criminal transitional justice targeting low-ranking agents of repression from the prosecutions of leaders, who issue orders to repress. We show that targeting low-ranking agents of repression increases their incentives for supporting coup leaders planning authoritarian take-overs. We test our model’s predictions using the Global Transitional Justice Dataset, which reports prosecutions over time and includes information on the rank of defendants. This information allows us to construct an original independent variable: the proportion of leaders that stood trial as a percentage of all criminal trials against former perpetrators, what we call the “skewness of justice.” We demonstrate that although coup attempts are not affected by the skewness of justice, successful coups are. More detailed case studies of Argentina and Egypt illustrate our argument and the mechanism at play.
Negotiating Sovereignty: The International Criminal Court and Global Governance with Shauna Gillooly
Do global governance institutions (GGIs) have the potential to change the way we think about the concept of sovereignty? Do they have an impact on the way nation-states view the limitations of sovereignty? We argue that unlike the ways in which it is often characterized in International Relations theory, sovereignty is not stable. Rather, it is being constantly negotiated and redefined, particularly in the case of countries that are not powerful enough to be able to “ignore the rules”. Drawing from literature on sovereignty, global governance institutions and issues, as well as previous research on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and compliance, we utilize Colombia’s interactions with the ICC regarding their compliance, virtue signaling, and veritable “bargaining” on human rights issues such as sexual violence, forced displacement, and the “false positives” scandal from the early 2000s to the present day in order to present one example of how GGIs are in part, responsible for the constant renegotiation and redefinition of sovereignty. This conceptualization of sovereignty as a negotiation has serious implications for the future of international relations as we move towards an increasingly multi-polar global system.
What is the Effect of Personnel Transitional Justice on Crime? with Ipek Cinar, Monika Nalepa, and Evgenia Olimpieva (pdf)
What is the effect of transitional justice on crime in post-authoritarian states? An implicit assumption in the transitional justice literature is that by dealing with the human rights abuses committed by the previous regime, new democracies can improve the quality of human rights practices in the future. Personnel transitional justice, like most forms of transitional justice, should advance respect for human rights and lower crime levels. This should in particular apply to post-authoritarian purges, which re- move staff of former authoritarian agencies, including agents of repression, from institutions of the state. But what happens when entire organizations of the old regime apparatus are purged? Using novel data on transitional justice, we argue that this particular transitional justice process—what we call a thorough purge—can actually hurt human rights practices in the countries that have implemented it. We suggest that by removing entire networks of former authoritarian state officials from office, thorough purges can help lay foundations for the establishment of clandestine criminal organizations, which can, paradoxically, increase crime levels, contrary to the intentions of policymakers in new democracies.
Guerrillas to Government? Rebel-Party Transitions and Electoral Success in Colombia with Andres Uribe
When do rebel groups successfully participate in electoral politics? A growing research agenda suggests that rebel-party transitions are key to sustaining peace settlements after civil conflict. Inclusion in formal democratic politics, it argues, enables armed groups to pursue their political goals nonviolently. Yet this logic implicitly hinges on a crucial neglected variable: electoral success. If rebel-affiliated parties cannot win the elected positions necessary to enact elements of their political agenda, the benefits of democratic inclusion remain effectively unattainable. What, then, determines the electoral success of rebel-affiliated political parties? We address this question in the context of the Colombian civil war, which has featured several peace processes with different armed groups. We examine the predictors of electoral success for two such groups, the Unión Patriótica (UP) and Alianza Democrática M-19 (AD/M-19). We assess two hypotheses. First, that conflict dynamics—patterns of victimization and coercive influence by armed actors—determine electoral outcomes. Or second, that even in the context of war, “normal” democratic politics—party platforms, voter targeting, and campaigning—prevail. We find partial support for each hypothesis, suggesting that organizational and ideological differences between rebel parties may determine electoral success or failure.
Training Future Leaders: The Effect of US Military Training on Human Rights in Recipient Countries with Alexandra Chinchilla, and Andres Uribe
The United States spends billions of dollars training foreign militaries. According to theUS State Department, training programs have two purposes: first, to strengthen future alliances between the US and recipient countries, and second, to expose participants toUS values of democracy and human rights. What is the effect of US military training on human rights in recipient countries? Existing research offers conflicting answers to this question. We seek to adjudicate the competing claims by using an instrumental variable design to address the problem of endogeneity. This problem could arise from omitted variables or when the US selects countries for training on their human rights records, either selecting countries with bad human rights records in an attempt to forge new alliances, or privileging relationships with countries with human rights records more similar to the United States. Using data on human rights and US training from 1950 to 2018 in Latin America, we find that US training generally has a slight positive effect on human rights scores in recipient countries, with two upward inflection points, in the 1970s after the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program was created and in the 1990s after Congressional overhaul of the IMET program to include additional focus on human rights.
