Abstract Autonomous weapons exemplify the tension between technology and ethics in modern warfare. While observational studies suggest that the public holds negative attitudes toward the use of these weapons, experimental evidence from the United States shows that their acceptance is context dependent. This suggests that Americans may hold only a weak preference for “mind over metal,” and the aversion observed in polls may not reflect deeply held moral convictions. Yet, prior experimental research has focused exclusively on the American public, often relying on hypothetical scenarios featuring “terrorist” targets, which may inflate support. Consequently, it is unclear whether contextual factors such as the risk of target misidentification or enemy identity influence attitudes similarly in other countries. To address this gap, we conducted a preregistered survey experiment in the United States, Brazil, Germany, and China. Our results indicate that the public responds similarly to risk-based primes across countries, while enemy identity—terrorist group or aggressive state—has no significant effect. Notably, Chinese respondents expressed higher overall support than Americans, Brazilians, or Germans. These findings contribute to the literature on public attitudes toward emerging technologies and the cross-national generalizability of survey experiments.

Abstract Guidelines, manuals, and toolkits are a ubiquitous yet overlooked prop in contemporary global governance. Produced by regional and global organizations and NGOs to guide national policymakers and practitioners, they proliferate in every field of international regulation from democratization and education to accounting and health. Yet they are rarely analyzed or theorized as a phenomenon of global governance. This article approaches manuals and toolkits as a technology of international standardization, investigating the transitional justice (TJ) toolkit as an expression of the empirical phenomenon of global governance standardization. Through an in-depth content analysis of 30 instructional booklets, it demonstrates how the field of TJ is being standardized: The manuals “generify” TJ by constructing a generic, technical model; build the model’s authority and evidence base through exemplars and causal claims; and legitimize the model by stressing contextualization and portraying the national realm as fundamentally deficient and an object of capacity building. Thereby the manuals emphasize yet undermine the field’s central trope of rejecting one-size-fits-all solutions. This paradox of explicitly dismissing but implicitly imposing a universalizing model reflects a tension inherent in global order: between particularism and self-determination, on the one hand, and global goals and intervention on the other.

Abstract Arguments about the stability or decline of the current international order have overlooked two significant developments of the last 30 years that increasingly undergird that order. These phenomena are the increasing pace and complexity of multinational military exercises involving the USA and its security partners and the global organization of these activities by the US combatant commands. Together, they represent a significant change since the Second World War in how conventional violence is organized on a global scale. To grasp their implications, I apply an understanding of ordering that emphasizes process, practice, and the concept of assemblage. This approach foregrounds the materially-mediated ties and practices that form an under-appreciated resource for ordering international politics. In doing so, it complicates linear narratives of persistence or decline, highlights historical contingencies in the development of order, and draws attention to how it is deeply interwoven but characterized by persistent tensions and fragilities.

Abstracts Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have mobilized for decades in response to violence against women and femicide, and in the process have evolved into hybrid forms, continuing traditional advocacy while also providing wide-ranging services. In this article, we explore the ways in which NGOs have changed over the years to dissect the complex relationship that NGOs have with the state. We draw on evolutionary theory and the literatures on organizational ecology, management, and governance, and develop an ecological approach to NGO change. Our ecological approach brings to light the various adaptive responses that NGOs have used over time and, in doing so, clearly identifies different types of symbiotic interactions between NGOs and state actors. Through interviews and secondary data from Latin American countries, we demonstrate how NGOs have engaged in different morphological (structural) and behavioral responses, as NGOs have had to learn to work closely with, within, against, and beyond the state to continue their mission of ending violence against women.

Abstracts This research note reconsiders the question of whether central bank independence (CBI) and fixed exchange rates (FIX) function as substitutes or complements. We argue that these monetary institutions have neither served as substitutes nor performed as complements for either inflation control or exchange rate stability. In terms of their substitutability, our statistical evidence shows that while CBI has been used for inflation control, FIX has been more directed toward exchange rate stability using updated datasets with these monetary institutions measured both on a de jure and de facto basis with nearly global country/year coverage from 1970 to 2020. In terms of their complementarity, our results also demonstrate that CBI was not more effective at reducing inflation when paired with greater FIX, and FIX was not more effective at promoting exchange rate stability when paired with greater CBI. If anything, both are less effective when paired with the other monetary institution.

Abstract This article investigates how the concept of the international community was rhetorically constructed in public diplomatic discourse and endowed with both agential status and moral authority. It argues that this conceptual innovation emerged during a critical juncture in the 1920s–1930s, amid debates on collective security within the League of Nations. In response to acts of aggression that undermined the newly established international order, diplomats employed contested notions of “crime” and “punishment” to characterize state behavior. In the League's debates over the first international sanctions, references to extra-legal moral principles were used to bolster both the legitimacy and efficacy of the legal regime. Since the principle of sovereign equality precluded any single state from claiming moral authority, diplomats instead innovatively portrayed the international community as a fictive agent endowed with superior moral standing. This rhetorical move helped legitimize calls for punishing aggressors. Adopting a historically informed constructivist approach, the article illuminates how conceptual transformations within the normative order unfold through diplomatic practice. It shows how diplomatic forums can serve as platforms for conceptual innovation with lasting impact on public discourse on world politics.

Abstract Many immigrants to the United States are victims of crimes that occurred in their home countries. US courts usually will not rule on legal violations that occur outside of US territory. However, starting in 1980, US federal courts sometimes allow foreign nationals to use the Alien Tort Statute to seek civil remedies for international law violations on foreign territory. We argue that these civil remedies are justice remittances from the United States to the foreign countries where the violations occurred. We additionally argue that immigrants are a key driving force in generating the demand for these justice remittances. We identify the filing districts for legal complaints that yield Alien Tort Statute judicial opinions. We then use individual-level immigration data from the US Census that we aggregate to match federal judicial districts. We find compelling evidence that immigrants are agents of justice who demand justice remittances from US courts.

Abstract Do economic sanctions impact subnational state capacity within developing target states? Building on prior research, I begin with the notion that after sanctions are imposed, a target regime is compelled to alter capacity-related government spending to preserve its hold on power. However, drawing on the territorial politics literature, I contend that the reallocation of dwindling revenues is a distinct spatial phenomenon, a form of redistribution that strengthens local-level administrative and coercive capacity in the geographic center of power but at the expense of targets’ reach into more peripheral regions of the state. To evaluate my theory, I employ a disaggregated analysis that combines new sanctions data with geolocated data on capital distance and subnational state capacity. Directly in line with my theory, I find that upon the imposition of economic sanctions, state capacity becomes more robust in the capital; this effect becomes less intense as capital distance increases, leading to a significant decrease in state capacity in the periphery. These findings are robust to various methodological, model, and variable specifications.

Abstract Migration creates opportunities for transferring not just wealth but also norms, attitudes, and behaviors from migrant-receiving to migrant-sending countries. While prior research suggests that these “social remittances” reflect the societal characteristics of the host society, I argue that the attitudes migrants adopt and subsequently remit reflect their unique experiences as migrants. I draw on an original survey of 1,680 Indonesians, which includes prospective, returned, and non-migrants to analyse the effects of migration on attitudes. Focusing on attitudes about religion, gender, and society, I find that Indonesians who are more socially conservative and patriarchal self-select into wanting to emigrate. Upon their return, migrants’ attitudes have moderated to the point that they are not significantly different from non-migrants on these issues. Importantly, these results hold regardless of whether the host country was more or less liberal than Indonesia, suggesting that they are influenced by a common experience as migrants rather than by host country characteristics.

Abstract In recent years, political analysts and media observers claim that taking a harder line against China has become one of the few remaining bipartisan issues left in a highly partisan US Congress. However, a closer look at China-related bills and resolutions reveals significant variation in the level of bipartisan support they receive. While some China-related legislation receives support from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, others are supported by members of only one party. Under what conditions can Democrats and Republicans collaborate to deal with threats posed by China? In this research note, we examine two conditions under which the two parties jointly support a China-related measure. First, the proposed legislation is not related to US domestic affairs. Second, if the legislation is related to US domestic affairs, neither party claims the ownership of the issue addressed by the legislation. We created and analyzed a novel dataset that encompasses China-related legislation in the US House of Representatives between 2009 and 2022. Our empirical results show that bipartisan collaboration on China’s threats depends on the nature of the issue.