Beyond Trade

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 743-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Milewicz ◽  
James Hollway ◽  
Claire Peacock ◽  
Duncan Snidal

Increased complexity and density of transnational problems create unprecedented challenges and opportunities for contemporary international governance. “Issue linkage” is one institutional arrangement through which states address these changing circumstances. In this article, we examine the widening scope of the nontrade agenda in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Nontrade issues (NTIs) such as human rights, democracy, environment, corruption, and labor standards are increasingly linked to PTAs. This issue linkage has important implications for understanding changing patterns of international trade, including the shift to PTAs and the rise of NTIs. We show that (1) states’ choices to commit to bilateral or plurilateral versions of traditional PTAs and to PTAs with NTIs are highly interdependent, (2) states increasingly incorporate NTIs into PTAs, as the associated costs of policy change are lowered through earlier agreements, and (3) network pressures favor the increasing adoption of bilateral and especially plurilateral NTIs over time. Using an original data set on NTIs covering 522 PTAs and spanning the period 1951 to 2009, we evaluate states’ motives behind the widening nontrade agenda of trade agreements using longitudinal network modeling. We employ multiplex coevolution stochastic actor-oriented network models in a novel design to account for interdependencies within and across states’ decisions. Following a descriptive mapping of major NTIs, we evaluate our theoretical arguments. Testing against the alternative explanations of power and commitment, we find that endogenous cost considerations are the most significant factor explaining the inclusion of NTIs into PTAs.

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Frédéric Morin ◽  
Andreas Dür ◽  
Lisa Lechner

Environment and trade are increasingly linked through preferential trade agreements. Despite the encompassing nature of environmental provisions in trade agreements, studies on causes and consequences of the trade and environment linkage are scarce. A main cause hindering research in this area is the lack of data. In this research note, we introduce an original data set (TREND) on environmental provisions found in 630 trade agreements signed between 1947 and 2016—the most comprehensive data set in terms of both variables coded and agreements covered. We illustrate the data set’s usefulness by assessing the question of why countries include environmental provisions in trade agreements. Are trade negotiations opportunities to promote stringent environmental standards? Or are environmental provisions window dressing covering protectionist interests? We find evidence that democracies, countries that face import competition, and countries that care about the environment are more likely to include environmental provisions in trade agreements. The database is of particular relevance for research on international institutional design, policy innovation, regime complexity, policy diffusion, and regime effectiveness.


1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 139-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rybák ◽  
V. Rušin ◽  
M. Rybanský

AbstractFe XIV 530.3 nm coronal emission line observations have been used for the estimation of the green solar corona rotation. A homogeneous data set, created from measurements of the world-wide coronagraphic network, has been examined with a help of correlation analysis to reveal the averaged synodic rotation period as a function of latitude and time over the epoch from 1947 to 1991.The values of the synodic rotation period obtained for this epoch for the whole range of latitudes and a latitude band ±30° are 27.52±0.12 days and 26.95±0.21 days, resp. A differential rotation of green solar corona, with local period maxima around ±60° and minimum of the rotation period at the equator, was confirmed. No clear cyclic variation of the rotation has been found for examinated epoch but some monotonic trends for some time intervals are presented.A detailed investigation of the original data and their correlation functions has shown that an existence of sufficiently reliable tracers is not evident for the whole set of examinated data. This should be taken into account in future more precise estimations of the green corona rotation period.


Author(s):  
Wendy J. Schiller ◽  
Charles Stewart III

From 1789 to 1913, U.S. senators were not directly elected by the people—instead the Constitution mandated that they be chosen by state legislators. This radically changed in 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving the public a direct vote. This book investigates the electoral connections among constituents, state legislators, political parties, and U.S. senators during the age of indirect elections. The book finds that even though parties controlled the partisan affiliation of the winning candidate for Senate, they had much less control over the universe of candidates who competed for votes in Senate elections and the parties did not always succeed in resolving internal conflict among their rank and file. Party politics, money, and personal ambition dominated the election process, in a system originally designed to insulate the Senate from public pressure. The book uses an original data set of all the roll call votes cast by state legislators for U.S. senators from 1871 to 1913 and all state legislators who served during this time. Newspaper and biographical accounts uncover vivid stories of the political maneuvering, corruption, and partisanship—played out by elite political actors, from elected officials, to party machine bosses, to wealthy business owners—that dominated the indirect Senate elections process. The book raises important questions about the effectiveness of Constitutional reforms, such as the Seventeenth Amendment, that promised to produce a more responsive and accountable government.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen ◽  
Stefano Camatarri

Abstract The role orientation of political representatives and candidates is a longstanding concern in studies of democratic representation. The growing trend in countries to allow citizens abroad to candidate in homeland elections from afar provides an interesting opportunity for understanding how international mobility and context influences ideas of representation among these emigrant candidates. In public debates, emigrant candidates are often portrayed as delegates of the emigrant constituencies. However, drawing on the paradigmatic case of Italy and an original data set comprising emigrant candidates, we show that the perceptions of styles of representation abroad are more complex. Systemic differences between electoral districts at home and abroad are relevant for explaining why and how candidates develop a trustee or delegate orientation.


2021 ◽  
pp. 245513332110316
Author(s):  
Tiken Das ◽  
Pradyut Guha ◽  
Diganta Das

This study made an attempt to answer the question: Do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently? The study is based on data collected from 240 households from three districts in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam through a carefully designed primary survey. Besides, the study uses the double hurdle approach and the instrumental variable probit model to reduce possible selection bias. It observes better repayment performance among formal borrowers, followed by semiformal borrowers, while occupation wise it is prominent among organised employees. It has been found that in general, the household characteristics, loan characteristics and location-specific characteristics significantly affect repayment performance of borrowers. However, the nature of impact of the factors influencing repayment performance is remarkably different across credit sources. It ignores the role of traditional community-based organisations in rural Assam while analysing the determinants of repayment performance. The study also recommends for ensuring productive opportunities and efficient market linkages in rural areas of Assam. The study is based on an original data set that has specially been collected to examine question that—do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam—which has not been studied before.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 2166
Author(s):  
Van Bui ◽  
Tung Lam Pham ◽  
Huy Nguyen ◽  
Yeong Min Jang

In the last decade, predictive maintenance has attracted a lot of attention in industrial factories because of its wide use of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence algorithms for data management. However, in the early phases where the abnormal and faulty machines rarely appeared in factories, there were limited sets of machine fault samples. With limited fault samples, it is difficult to perform a training process for fault classification due to the imbalance of input data. Therefore, data augmentation was required to increase the accuracy of the learning model. However, there were limited methods to generate and evaluate the data applied for data analysis. In this paper, we introduce a method of using the generative adversarial network as the fault signal augmentation method to enrich the dataset. The enhanced data set could increase the accuracy of the machine fault detection model in the training process. We also performed fault detection using a variety of preprocessing approaches and classified the models to evaluate the similarities between the generated data and authentic data. The generated fault data has high similarity with the original data and it significantly improves the accuracy of the model. The accuracy of fault machine detection reaches 99.41% with 20% original fault machine data set and 93.1% with 0% original fault machine data set (only use generate data only). Based on this, we concluded that the generated data could be used to mix with original data and improve the model performance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Schiller ◽  
Christine Lang ◽  
Karen Schönwälder ◽  
Michalis Moutselos

AbstractIn both Germany and France, perceptions of immigration, diversity and their societal consequences have undergone important transformations in the past two decades. However, existing research has only partially captured such processes. The “grand narratives” of national approaches, while still influential, no longer explain contemporary realities. Further, analyses of national politics and discourses may not sufficiently reflect the realities across localities and society more broadly. While emerging in different national contexts, little is known about how diversity is actually perceived by political stakeholders at the urban level. Given the key role of immigration and diversity in current conflicts over Europe’s future, it is imperative to assess present-day conceptualisations of migration-related diversity among important societal actors.This article investigates perceptions and evaluations of socio-cultural heterogeneity by important societal actors in large cities. We contribute to existing literature by capturing an unusually broad set of actors from state and civil society. We also present data drawn from an unusually large number of cities. How influential is the perception of current society as heterogeneous, and what forms of heterogeneity are salient? And is socio-cultural and migration-related heterogeneity evaluated as threatening or rather as beneficial? Based on an original data set, this study explores the shared and contested ideas, the cognitive roadmaps of state and non-state actors involved in local politics.We argue that, in both German and French cities, socio-cultural heterogeneity is nowadays widely recognized as marking cities and often positively connoted. At the same time, perceptions of the main features of diversity and of the benefits and challenges attached to it vary. We find commonalities between French and German local actors, but also clear differences. In concluding, we suggest how and why national contexts importantly shape evaluations of diversity.


2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Poast

AbstractThough scholars widely claim that issue linkage—the simultaneous negotiation of multiple issues for joint settlement—can help states conclude international agreements, there exist some notable skeptics. Resolving this debate requires empirical evidence. However, beyond a few case studies, there exists no direct and systematic evidence that issue linkages actually increase the probability of agreement. I address this lack of direct and systematic evidence by combing original data on failed alliance negotiations with data from the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (ATOP) database. Using matching techniques, I find that, for alliance negotiations between 1860 to 1945, offers of trade linkage did substantially increase the probability of agreement. Besides confirming issue linkage's ability to help clinch an agreement, this article's research design and evidence have far-reaching implications for the study of negotiations and alliances. The research design illustrates the value of considering the “dogs that didn't bark” as it identifies both successful and failed negotiations. The article's evidence explains the high rate of alliance compliance identified by previous scholars and highlights a need to rethink the alliance formation process.


Circulation ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 140 (Suppl_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa Vermeulen ◽  
Marina Del Rios ◽  
Teri L Campbell ◽  
Hai Nguyen ◽  
Hoang H Nguyen

Introduction: The interactions of various variables on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in the young (1-35 years old) outcomes are complex. Network models have emerged as a way to abstract complex systems and gain insights into relational patterns among observed variables. Hypothesis: Network analysis helps provide qualitative and quantitative insights into how various variables interact with each other and affect outcomes in OHCA in the young. Methods: A mixed graphical network analysis was performed using variables collected by CARES. The network allows the visualization and quantification of each unique interaction between two variables that cannot be explained away by other variables in the data set. The strength of the underlying interaction is proportional to the thickness of the connections (edges) between the variables (nodes). We used the mgm package in R. Results: Figure 1 shows the network of the OHCA in the young cases in Chicago from 2013 to 2017. There are apparent clusters. Sustained return of spontaneous circulation and hypothermia are strongly correlated with survival and neurological outcomes. This cluster is in turn connected to the rest of the network by survival to emergency room. The interaction between any two variables can also be quantified. For example, American Indians cases occur more often in disadvantaged locations when compared to Whites (OR 4.5). The network also predicts how much one node can be explained by adjacent nodes. Only 20% of survival to emergency room is explained by its adjacent nodes. The remaining 80% is attributed to variables not represented in this network. This suggests that interventions to improve this node is difficult unless further data is available. Conclusion: Network analysis provides both a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the complex system governing OHCA in the young. The networks predictive capability could help in identifying the most effective interventions to improve outcomes.


Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 464-479
Author(s):  
Gert-Jan Put ◽  
Jef Smulders ◽  
Bart Maddens

This article investigates the effect of candidates exhibiting local personal vote-earning attributes (PVEA) on the aggregate party vote share at the district level. Previous research has often assumed that packing ballot lists with localized candidates increases the aggregate party vote and seat shares. We present a strict empirical test of this argument by analysing the relative electoral swing of ballot lists at the district level, a measure of change in party vote shares which controls for the national party trend and previous party results in the district. The analysis is based on data of 7527 candidacies during six Belgian regional and federal election cycles between 2003 and 2014, which is aggregated to an original data set of 223 ballot lists. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models do not show a significant effect of candidates exhibiting local PVEA on relative electoral swing of ballot lists. However, the results suggest that ballot lists do benefit electorally if candidates with local PVEA are geographically distributed over different municipalities in the district.


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