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Extending the Empirical Domain of International Relations Paradigms to the Regional Level, 1955-2000.

Authors :
Kim, Jeeyong
Source :
Conference Papers -- International Studies Association. 2009 Annual Meeting, p1-75. 76p. 6 Charts, 1 Graph.
Publication Year :
2009

Abstract

The world has witnessed vibrant political movements toward regional institutionalization. However, not every effort achieves the same level of regional institutionalization. What can explain this uneven pattern? In order to answer this question, I present the unified multivariate statistical model, which includes the realism's explanatory variables such as intraregional power concentration and alliance commitment, the liberalism's explanatory variables such as intraregional trade and democracy, and the constructivism's explanatory variables such as decolonization, cultural similarity, institutional similarity, and intraregional conflict. In order to ensure that any finding linking the explanatory variables to regional institutionalization is not a result of omitted variable bias, several control variables are added: the international political factors such as the Cold War and American hegemony, the regional factors such as contiguity, capital-to-capital distance, the number of members, and path dependence, the domestic political factors such as domestic political constraint, regime durability, and civil war, and the economic factors such as population size, economic size, and economic growth. Empirical findings show that intraregional power concentration, intraregional alliance commitment, intraregional trade, cultural and institutional similarities, path dependence, civil war, and economic growth's signs correspond to my hypotheses across alternative model specifications. In addition, almost all of them are statistically significant. However, other variables are incredible in that their signs and statistical significance are very whimsical. As a result, this paper concludes that translating IR theories into the regional setting can contribute to extending their empirical domain. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
Database :
Academic Search Index
Journal :
Conference Papers -- International Studies Association
Publication Type :
Conference
Accession number :
45101360