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Why do states choose multilateralism? We develop three theories to explain this choice: a principal-agent model in which states trade some control over the policy for greater burden sharing; a normative logic of appropriateness; and hegemonic self-binding in which powerful states seek to reassure other countries. Each theory leads to distinct observable hypotheses regarding both the reasons for and the patterns of the public's support and opposition to multilateralism. To focus our study, we choose to analyze support for bilateral and multilateral foreign aid giving by the United States. By analyzing survey data, we provide evidence about the correlates of public support for multilateral engagement, showing that two competing rationales--burden sharing and control--dictate some of the politics around the choice between multilateral and bilateral aid channels. We conclude with a discussion of how a principal-agent model can help us understand the choice for multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do states choose multilateralism? We develop three theories that could explain this choice: a principal-agent model in which states trade some control over the policy for greater burden sharing; a normative logic of appropriateness; and hegemonic self-binding in which powerful states seek to reassure other countries. Each theory leads to distinct observable hypotheses regarding both the reasons for and the patterns of the public's support and opposition to multilateralism. To focus our study, we choose to analyze bilateral and multilateral foreign aid giving by the United States. The U.S. position as hegemon makes it a good test, and aid is an important avenue of foreign policy with clear bilateral and multilateral choices. By analyzing survey data, we provide evidence about the correlates of public support for multilateral engagement, showing that two competing rationales-burden sharing and control-dictate some of the politics around the choice between multilateral and bilateral aid channels. We conclude with a discussion of how a principal-agent model can help us understand the choice for multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experimentation is a powerful methodology that enables scientists to empirically establish causal claims. Even in social sciences where traditionally observational studies were dominant, experiments are becoming increasingly common. However, one general criticism of experimental methodology is that experiments merely provide a black-box view of causality -although experiments can identify an average causal effect, they cannot explain how such an effect comes about. If true, this represents a serious limitation of experimentation, especially for social science research whose main goal is to identify causal mechanisms. In this paper, we first establish that two existing approaches commonly employed by social scientists to address this critique suffer from serious methodological problems. To overcome this limitation, we consider alternative experimental designs that can be used to help identify causal mechanisms. Finally, we discuss the situations in which these experimental designs are applicable and illustrate their use by applying them to a behavioral neuroscience experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the economic and political influences on U.S. immigration policy is presented. It reviews existing scholarship on the determinants of support amongst the public and in the U.S. legislature for the liberalization of immigration. It explores theoretical perspectives that might explain votes on bills which help or hinder immigrants' attempts to enter and live in the U.S. It examines the roll call voting.

The international relations literature remains divided on whether, when, and how reputation matters in both inter-state and intra-state conflict. We examine reputation building through a series of incentivized laboratory experiments. Using comparative statics from a repeated entry-deterrence game we isolate how incentives for reputation building change as the number of entrants changes. We find that subjects in our experiments build reputations in many ways consistent with the theory, but we also identify interesting deviations. While laboratory experiments of course face significant validity limitations, our research helps illustrate the importance of reputation building, how the design of empirical tests should follow from the model being tested, and how rational-choice scholars of international relations and those using more psychologically based explanations have more common ground than previously articulated. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1945, American foreign economic policy has been oriented toward engagement with the international system. Given the changes in world politics and economics as well as American domestic politics over the past twenty years, many scholars have wondered whether American foreign economic policy might change. What groups have supported this internationalist policy since the late 1970s, and has this coalition changed over this period? We examine legislative voting in the US House of Representatives from the 96th to the 108th Congress (1979-2004) on trade and aid issues. Beyond describing this coalition, we use theory to develop testable hypotheses about sources of support and opposition for aid and trade. We then test these hypotheses rigorously. We show that a bipartisan coalition has persisted supporting trade and aid; Stolper-Samuelson models best explain this. But these two coalitions differ in important ways. Most interestingly, labor and liberal Democrats remain part of the coalition supporting aid, while they no longer do on trade. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does the coalition that supports international engagement in the US look like, and how has it changed in the past twenty years? We address this by exploring legislation and political debates surrounding foreign aid within the House of Representatives from 1981 to 2003. To understand who supports and opposes international engagement, we analyze roll call votes on amendments that sought to increase or decrease aid funding by considering the characteristics of congress people and the districts they represent. Our findings indicate that representatives respond to the economic characteristics of their districts when considering aid policy. In addition, organized interest groups and their contributions are important. Surprisingly, both labor and capital groups support foreign aid, implying that the coalition supporting aid is broader than the one supporting international trade. This research provides a better understanding of the domestic politics surrounding foreign aid in donor countries. These political factors may affect whether foreign aid promotes development abroad. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When people make decisions, what do they believe about what did not happen and how are these beliefs important in determining what did happen? These off the equilibrium track beliefs serve a crucial role in game theoretic analyses. As an alternative to the prevailing family of Nash equilibrium concepts, a self-confirming equilibrium (SCE) allows interacting people to have different beliefs about things that did not happen as long as everyone has identical beliefs about what does happen. While suggesting interesting hypotheses in economics and politics, the SCE concept is yet to receive a sustained analysis using important findings from psychology and cognitive science. This paper reviews the experimental psychology literature on counterfactual belief generation and the conceptual integration approach used in cognitive science to help explain the formation of beliefs and meaning. These literatures provide a strong case for using the SCE concept. I then argue that explanatory status of the self-confirming equilibrium concept is potentially weak compared to Nash based approaches because of the ad hoc manner that beliefs can be assigned to players. This can be resolved if a SCE analysis explicitly incorporates the role of affect (emotion) in decision-making. I conclude by suggesting a sketch of experiments that may help clarify when a SCE concept is appropriate. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political science has been particularly reluctant to incorporate theories, hypotheses, and research methodologies developed in fields studying human behavior from an evolutionary standpoint. While other social science disciplines like economics and psychology are showing increased interest, political science seems to regard evolutionary based research as irrelevant to the empirical puzzles being studied or incompatible with the theories commonly employed. I argue that both these positions are incorrect and unfortunate. I demonstrate that an evolutionary understanding of human behavior can accommodate both the rational choice school of analysis and those that emphasize the role of symbolism and interpretation, producing a more powerful theory of ‘culture’. I then suggest how interesting phenomena relevant to political science are clarified once we consider how natural selection has contributed to how humans interact. These include the political and economic effects of emotions, status, physical attractiveness, information processing/decision making under uncertainty, and the use of focal points in games with multiple equilibrium. Beyond provoking pragmatic criticism about the conceptual isolation political science has fallen into, I provide readers with an insightful overview of relevant research and debates taking place in fields where evolutionary forces are explicitly recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part and parcel of the liberal project is the identification of preferences and institutions that systematically discriminate in ways that are deemed morally unjustifiable. Most of the literature has taken elements of ethnic, racial, sexual, gender, and cultural discrimination as their point of departure. Departing from this tradition I consider the case of the so called 'ugly duckling.' Research in experimental psychology, sociology, and economics demonstrates that persons considered unattractive are systematically discriminated against in both the social and economic spheres. Interestingly, there is little variation, even across dissimilar cultures, of how attractive an individual's face is judged to be. Researchers in evolutionary psychology have found that cross-culturally, highly symmetrical faces are considered more attractive. Evolutionary biologists have also discovered evidence for the role of symmetrical physical attributes in sexual selection involving other animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a highly influential paper, Baron and Kenny (1986) proposed a statistical procedure to conduct a causal mediation analysis and identify possible causal mechanisms. This procedure has been widely used across many branches of the social and medical sciences and especially in psychology and epidemiology. However, one major limitation of this approach is that it is based on a set of linear regressions and cannot be easily extended to more complex situations that are frequently encountered in applied research. In this paper, we propose an approach that generalizes the Baron-Kenny procedure. Our method can accommodate linear and nonlinear relationships, parametric and nonparametric models, continuous and discrete mediators, and various types of outcome variables. We also provide a formal statistical justification for the proposed generalization of the Baron-Kenny procedure by placing causal mediation analysis within the widely-accepted counterfactual framework of causal inference. Finally, we develop a set of sensitivity analyses that allow applied researchers to quantify the robustness of their empirical conclusions. Such sensitivity analysis is important because as we show the Baron-Kenny procedure and our generalization of it rest on a strong and untestable assumption even in randomized experiments. We illustrate the proposed methods by applying them to a randomized field experiment, the Job Search Intervention Study (JOBS II). We also offer easy-to-use software that implements all of our proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]