US foreign aid restrictions and maternal and children’s health: evidence from the “Mexico City Policy”

Although family planning services are crucial for global health and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, their funding remains controversial. We document the health consequences of the “Mexico City Policy” (MCP), which restricts US funding for abortion-related activities worldwide. Since its enactment in 1985, the MCP has been enforced only under Republican administrations and quickly rescinded when a Democrat wins the presidency. Our analysis shows that the MCP makes it harder for women to get information on and support for reproductive health and is associated with higher maternal and child mortality rates and HIV rates worldwide. We estimate that reinstating the MCP between 2017 and 2021 resulted in approximately 108,000 maternal and child deaths and 360,000 new HIV infections

Domestic politics and the motives of emerging donors: evidence from Turkish foreign aid

Why do developing countries give foreign aid? Although emerging donors are gaining importance in development finance, lack of systematic data on their aid allocation limits our understanding of their motives. We address this gap using detailed data on a major new donor, Turkey, since 1992. We show that domestic politics has had a large impact on Turkey's priorities in giving aid. Turkish aid used to be determined by international alignments and coethnicity, but after the Islamic AKP (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi) took power, political ties lost importance. Turkey began to give more economic aid to trade partners and more humanitarian aid to Muslim nations. While this new focus on trade ties makes Turkey more similar to traditional donors, the growing role of cultural ties sets Turkey apart. The broader lesson of this study on Turkey is that government change can significantly influence the way emerging donors give aid and these changes can vary in predictable ways across different types of aid

Women’s murders and the interaction between gender (in)equality and economic development: a subnational analysis in Turkey

Why are women’s murders (femicide) more common in some localities than in others? This paper addresses this question in the context of Turkey, a country with a high and rising number of women’s murders. It uses province-level data between 2010-2017 and the Negative-Binomial estimator to explore the importance of several socio-economic, cultural, and political factors. It finds that a province’s ethnic composition, divorce rate, gender equality in education, and level of economic development are significant predictors of women’s murders. The main result is that whether economic development reduces femicide depends on other factors: in poorer provinces, there is a strong positive correlation between women’s murders and equality in education and divorce rates, but in richer provinces, these associations are significantly weaker. These results are consistent with the idea that economic development may not reduce women’s murders by itself, but it can mitigate the effects of male backlash against women who challenge the status quo. The main policy implication of this study is that pro-development policies may save more lives if they target those poorer provinces that also carry these additional risk factors

Replication Data for: Domestic Politics and the Motives of Emerging Donors: Evidence from Turkish Foreign Aid

This package includes (1) Stata data and code to replicate Tables 1 and 2 in the main text as well as most of the robustness checks reported in the appendix, and (2) the online appendix

US foreign aid restrictions and maternal and children’s health: Evidence from the “Mexico City Policy”

This folder includes the replication codes for the paper: "US foreign aid restrictions and maternal and children’s health: Evidence from the “Mexico City Policy" published in PNAS (2022

From economic competition to military combat: export similarity and international conflict

The vast majority of the extant literature on trade and conflict focuses on bilateral trade to determine whether commerce has a pacifying effect upon pairs of states. We argue that this focus neglects a critical role of international trade: creating tension between states that sell similar goods to the global market. We consider this role explicitly and operationalize its effects empirically. Using commodity-level trade data from 1962 to 2000, we show that countries that produce and sell similar goods are generally more likely to fight, even after we take into account their bilateral trade ties and institutional membership in the global economic system. Our findings are robust to numerous alternative specifications and suggest a strong relationship between economic competition in the global market and military conflict between states

Dangerous Contenders: Election Monitors, Islamic Opposition Parties and Terrorism

How do international observers decide whether to criticize or condone electoral fraud in a country? We argue that this decision depends on the identity of the victims of electoral fraud. A monitoring organization is more likely to overlook fraud commit- ted against groups that are deemed dangerous by its sponsor. Based on this insight, we hypothesize that in the post-Cold War era election monitors are more tolerant of fraud against Islamic challengers, especially when Islamic movements are perceived as a threat to political stability. In support of our hypothesis, we nd that outside moni- tors are more likely to endorse an election in countries with an Islamic opposition party and an ongoing Islamist terrorist campaign. Furthermore, we nd that the eect is driven by Western monitoring organizations and becomes stronger after the September 11 attacks. Our ndings provide a simple yet powerful insight: the calculus of outside observers depends not only on who they wish to see in power, but also who they want to keep from power

From Economic Competition to Military Combat: Export Similarity and International Conflict

The vast majority of the extant literature on trade and conflict focuses on bilateral trade to determine whether commerce has a pacifying effect upon pairs of states. We argue that this focus neglects a critical role of international trade: creating tension between states that sell similar goods to the global market. We consider this role explicitly and operationalize its effects empirically. Using commodity-level trade data from 1962 to 2000, we show that countries that produce and sell similar goods are generally more likely to fight, even after we take into account their bilateral trade ties and institutional membership in the global economic system. Our findings are robust to numerous alternative specifications and suggest a strong relationship between economic competition in the global market and military conflict between states

Three essays on the links between domestic and international politics.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Department of Political Science, 2013.This dissertation consists of three essays on how leaders' pursuit of office shape their countries' military and economic relations with other states. The first essay shows that leaders often return to office after some time out of power. Leader comebacks are most common and most strongly related to past performance in parliamentary democracies. The essay provides novel explanations for why parliamentary democracies are more often victorious in war and less prone to democratic breakdown. It also implies that research on leader reputations should consider whether a leader has previously held office. The second essay analyzes how leaders with a military background may use foreign policy to prolong their tenure. Citizens value former soldiers' expertise in military affairs only if their nation faces military threats. Consequently, under certain conditions, leaders with a military background have an incentive to pursue a hawkish policy and raise the electoral value of their foreign policy expertise. Empirical tests confirm that in political regimes with few militarily competent candidates, former soldiers are more likely to initiate disputes during economic troubles. I discuss how this theory can be applied to other forms of political violence. The third essay studies Turkey's foreign aid program. I find that the determinants of Turkish aid have varied over time and between different types of aid. Interestingly, Turkey began to give more humanitarian aid to Muslim nations after the moderate Islamist AKP government came to power. Research on foreign aid should incorporate donor government preferences and transnational cultural ties