Security Studies

@SecStudies_Jrnl

Publishing innovative scholarly work that makes a significant contribution – theoretical, empirical, or both – to our understanding of international security.

University of Minnesota securitystudiesjournal.org Joined April 2016

167 Following 5.9K Followers 376 Posts

Latest posts 5

Security Studies @SecStudies_Jrnl Apr 25, 2024

New article: "Revolutionary Governments, Recklessness, and War: The Case of the Second Karabakh War," by @Arm__Grig.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Revolutionary politics is an environment characterized by pressures for adverse selection. It elevates the most radical, conflict-prone, risk happy types, who in addition are poorly educated and inexperienced in government. They are vulgar anti-materialists who think reality can be bent to their will with sufficient effort and perseverance. Revolutionaries are possessed with grandiose ideas and salvation projects, which typically do not tolerate compromise and bargaining. Nor any cost seems too high to them for the realization of such ideas. When revolutionaries take over in a country that has a conflict with another state, these propensities are likely to affect their management of the conflict as well with potentially catastrophic consequences. The argument is illustrated with the diplomacy of Armenia’s revolutionary government, which led to the Second Karabakh War of 2020 and the Armenian side’s catastrophic defeat.

Security Studies @SecStudies_Jrnl Mar 1, 2024

A new issue is out! tandfonline.com/toc/fsst20/cur…

A thread below with each of the articles.

www.tandfonline.com Security Studies Religion and War. Volume 35, Issue 3 of Security Studies

Security Studies @SecStudies_Jrnl Feb 22, 2024

New article: "Threat Construction and Coercive Credibility," by @ProfLupton.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

How do actors issue credible threats during international crises? While scholarship has traditionally focused on how the context of threats influences credibility, this paper considers how the construction of the threat itself affects credibility. More specifically, this paper introduces the concept of threat justification and theorize how the choice of explanation a leader uses in communicating her threats can influence her coercive credibility. This study employs a conjoint design survey experiment to identify the influence of threat specificity and severity, public versus private threats, and threat justification on perceptions of credibility. This paper finds that more precise threats are perceived as more credible, while threats employing reputational justifications are less credible. There is a minimal amount of evidence that the public versus private delivery of a threat influences credibility...

Security Studies @SecStudies_Jrnl Dec 20, 2023

New article: "The Market for Foreign Bases," by @RenanahJoyce and @BrianDBlank.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Power projection is a central means by which states exert influence. Conventional wisdom holds that states pay more for foreign bases in the presence of third-party competitors, yet the mechanisms by which competition shapes the costs of bases are both theoretically underspecified and empirically understudied. This article tests three mechanisms by which competition can shape the price of access: denial, crowding out, and information. We study the behavior of the United States in Africa, using new data on US compensation and bases and qualitative evidence from the US presence in Djibouti. Our findings suggest that China’s economic incentives have crowded out the effectiveness of US economic incentives in securing access. We further show that Djiboutian leaders escalated their demands for US compensation as other base-seekers entered the market due to a combination of US efforts to limit its rivals’ access and Djibouti’s learning about the value of its real estate.

Security Studies @SecStudies_Jrnl Dec 20, 2023

New article: "Buying Survival: Why Do Leaders Hire Mercenaries?" by Leonardo Gentil-Fernandes, Kelly Morrison, and Jacob Otto. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Mercenaries play an increasingly important role in international and domestic security. Why do leaders hire mercenaries? We argue that leaders employ private military organizations to guard against the risk of coups, but only when these leaders have weak ties to the international community. While mercenaries can diffuse domestic military capacity, an essential coup-proofing function, they also put some leaders at risk of international opprobrium given strong norms against their use. We find support for our theory across countries and over time: Leaders with high coup risk and low international accountability are especially likely to hire mercenaries. Our theory and findings provide unique insight into the importance of private military organizations for domestic security.