Abstract: Much has been written about the consequences of sanctions on target countries; however, less attention has been given to the effect of sanction on corruption. Several studies on corruption have found that when citizens receive benefits through wealth redistribution from a corrupt government and the economy is growing, then this situation will cause citizens to overlook or support this corrupt behavior. On the other hand, when there is no economic benefits and the economy is in a recession than citizens will not tolerate a corrupt government and become more in favor of anti-corruption policies or even regime change. Now, given that sanctions have a negative effect on economic growth of target state, this situation will reduce a government’s ability to redistribute the wealth through social programs and services; therefore it could be argued that sanctions have an indirect effect on corruption. This study seeks to explain under what economic conditions citizens will continue to support or not support a corrupt government.

Paper / Communication

Abstract: People around the world overwhelmingly support democracy and also in quite large numbers equate this political regime with the right to elect politicians in free elections, suggests the data from the most recent wave of World Values Survey (WVS). Beyond this universally shared procedural definition of democracy, do people around the world interpret democracy in the same way? Is political culture, nationally or regionally, providing additional signifiers that pluralize democracy to the point of appreciating different political regimes under the same semantic umbrella? This study gives affirmative answer to this pluralistic understanding of democracy. It makes secondary analysis of WVS on all countries that provide data from the most recent wave of survey (2010-2014). Its results suggest that national exceptions and regional clusters of states may relate democracy to regimes that favor strong authoritarian leaders and army rulers. In some cases democracy may imply the strong presence of religious authorities in interpreting the laws. Peoples that cherish democracy may also differ as far as the question of obedience to the rulers is concerned as well as the need to protect civil rights.

Paper / Communication

Abstract: In this paper we study how democratic transitions influence the likelihood of armed conflict. Specifically, we explore how the introduction of a multi-party system in the 1990s influenced the onset of the Nepalese Civil War led by Maoist insurgents. We use an original election dataset to systematically examine local (village-level) election outcomes and their relationship with the onset of locals conflicts preceding the war. We also study the different forms of violence observed throughout the civil war. Our empirical strategy uses a regression discontinuity design taking villages with close margins of victory for the Maoist party, and identifies the effect of the party’s control in the local-level elections preceding the onset of hostilities. Preliminary findings suggest a robust effect of Maoist defeat on the likelihood of Maoist attacks and on patterns of recruitment, especially during the early stages of the conflict. Our case analysis at the local level contributes to the democracy and conflict literature that has mainly based its findings from cross-country analyses.

Abstract: This paper studies the paradox of separatist parties that engage with the political system they wish to leave. It focuses on policy scrutiny within the central legislature, arguing that separatists participate in such legislative activities in order to preserve the autonomy of a future secessionist government. These parties are most concerned with policy proposals which are either path dependent - where decisions taken today will limit the range of policy choice for a future government, even after separation – or which create externalities - where policy made for one part of the country has spill-over effects on another. Separatists will therefore prioritise debates on policy proposals with potential path-dependent effects or externalities, in order to preserve as much freedom of choice as possible for future secessionist governments.