When international organizations bargain: evidence from the global environment facility

Who gets what in bargaining between states and international organizations (IOs)? Although distributional conflict is unavoidable in international cooperation, previous research provides few empirical insights into the determinants of bargaining outcomes. We test a simple bargaining model of cooperation between states and IOs. We expect that nonegalitarian international organizations, such as the World Bank, secure more gains from bargaining with economically weak than with economically powerful states. For egalitarian international organizations, such as most United Nations (UN) agencies, the state’s economic power should be less important. We test these hypotheses against a novel data set on funding shares for 2,255 projects implemented under the auspices of the Global Environment Facility, from1991 to 2011. The data allow us to directly measure bargaining outcomes. The results highlight the importance of accounting for the interactive effects of international organization and state characteristics

Leveraging private capital for climate mitigation: evidence from the clean development mechanism

To mitigate climate change, states must make significant investments into energy and other sectors. To solve this problem, scholars emphasize the importance of leveraging private capital. If states create institutional mechanisms that promote private investment, they can reduce the fiscal cost of carbon abatement. We examine the ability of different international institutional designs to leverage private capital in the context of the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Empirically, we analyze private capital investment in 3749 climate mitigation projects under the CDM, 2003–2011. Since the CDM allows both bilateral and unilateral implementation, we can compare the two modes of contracting within one context. Our model analyzes equilibrium private investment in climate mitigation. When the cost of mitigation is high, unilateral project implementation in one host country, without foreign collaboration, draws more investment than bilateral contracting, whereby foreign investors participate in the project

Choosing international organizations: when do states and the World Bank collaborate on environmental projects?

While international cooperation research emphasizes institutional design, states mostly interact with existing organizations. How do states choose organizations for cooperation? We develop a theory of agency choice for development projects, emphasizing the importance of domestic institutions, the scope of cooperation, and the resources of the implementing agency. If states are to cooperate with funding agencies that have abundant resources, such as the World Bank, they must accept more stringent conditions on project implementation. We argue states accept the stringent conditions that resourceful organizations demand if the public goods from project implementation are highly valuable. Empirically, this is the case for democratic states, large projects, and projects that produce national instead of global public goods. We test this theory using data on 2,882 Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects, 1991–2011. The GEF offers an ideal case because various implementing agencies are responsible for the actual projects. States implement projects in collaboration with the World Bank, which has the most expertise and resources among the GEF’s implementing agencies, if their regime type is democracy, the project size is large, and the benefits are primarily national. Qualitative evidence sheds light on causal mechanisms

Prevalence and characteristics of progressive fibrosing interstitial lung disease in a prospective registry

Rationale Progressive fibrosing interstitial lung disease (PF-ILD) is characterized by progressive physiologic, symptomatic, and/or radiographic worsening. The real-world prevalence and characteristics of PF-ILD remain uncertain. Methods Patients were enrolled from the Canadian Registry for Pulmonary Fibrosis between 2015-2020. PF-ILD was defined as a relative forced vital capacity (FVC) decline ≥10%, death, lung transplantation, or any 2 of: relative FVC decline ≥5 and <10%, worsening respiratory symptoms, or worsening fibrosis on computed tomography of the chest, all within 24 months of diagnosis. Time-to-event analysis compared progression between key diagnostic subgroups. Characteristics associated with progression were determined by multivariable regression. Results Of 2,746 patients with fibrotic ILD (mean age 65±12 years, 51% female), 1,376 (50%) met PFILD criteria in the first 24 months of follow-up. PF-ILD occurred in 427 (59%) patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), 125 (58%) with fibrotic hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), 281 (51%) with unclassifiable ILD (U-ILD), and 402 (45%) with connective tissue diseaseassociated ILD (CTD-ILD). Compared to IPF, time to progression was similar in patients with HP (hazard ratio [HR] 0.96, 95% confidence interval, CI 0.79-1.17), but was delayed in patients with U-ILD (HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.71-0.96) and CTD-ILD (HR 0.65, 95% CI 0.56-0.74). Background treatment varied across diagnostic subtypes with 66% of IPF patients receiving antifibrotic therapy, while immunomodulatory therapy was utilized in 49%, 61%, and 37% of patients with CHP, CTD-ILD, and U-ILD respectively. Increasing age, male sex, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and lower baseline pulmonary function were independently associated with progression. Interpretation Progression is common in patients with fibrotic ILD, and is similarly prevalent in HP and IPF. Routinely collected variables help identify patients at risk for progression and may guide therapeutic strategie

Siege of British Forces in Newport County by Colonial and French in August 1778

Funded by a grant from the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program, this study delves into the technical, often forgotten, aspects of the Siege of Newport - a Revolutionary War engagement that took place in Middletown, RI in August 1778. It pairs the historical record with scientific analysis of the artillery, fortifications, geography and unforeseen circumstances that impacted the Siege. While much of the original earthen defense-works are now gone, there are a small number of sites that still exist. This study also covers what sites remain, their condition and thoughts on how to preserve and commemorate them.https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/fac_staff_ebooks/1003/thumbnail.jp

Designing multilateral environmental agreements

Multilateral environmental agreements have exploded in number in the thirty-five years since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm. Over the same period, there has been a considerable resurgence in the popularity of institutional approaches to the study of international relations (IR). This dissertation evaluates the different explanations for institutional design that are provided by three leading theoretical approaches to IR: realism, rational institutionalism, and constructivism.^ This dissertation argues that there are three critical elements of institutional form that any theory of institutional design must explain: membership, delegation, and flexibility. Membership encompasses two related concerns: first, who may participate in a given agreement, and, second, who must participate for an agreement to succeed. Delegation is understood in terms of its structure and substance: what resources and authority are delegated to third parties, and to what specific ends? Institutional flexibility can take three forms. Adaptive flexibility allows members temporarily to suspend participation in specific circumstances, transformative flexibility allows members to alter the terms of cooperation over time, and interpretive flexibility provides discretion to members in implementing agreement-related obligations.^ After reviewing recent literature on institutional design, the dissertation derives hypotheses from realist, rational institutionalist, and constructivist theory concerning each of these three elements of institutional form. These hypotheses point to the importance of five explanatory variables, distribution problems, enforcement problems, hegemony, the number of relevant states, and scientific uncertainty/knowledge.^ These hypotheses are tested against a database of international environmental agreements compiled by the author and based in part on the recently published International Regimes Database (IRD). Membership rules are found generally to reflect a norm of non-exclusion. Delegation is highly circumscribed among surveyed agreements, and is predicted primarily by the distribution of power among negotiating states. Finally, modest exceptions to reduce transaction costs notwithstanding, institutional flexibility is dramatically undersupplied compared to the expectation of rational institutionalist theory. The dissertation concludes by suggesting how these findings are relevant to ongoing theoretical debates, as well as policy debates concerning the reform of specific international environmental agreements and institutions.

Our Day Will Come: The Politico-Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement, 1916-2002

For several decades, the Irish republican movement, composed of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its front group Sinn Fein (SF), adhered to a strategy of armed struggle in its objective of eradicating the British presence in Northern Ireland and unifying the North with the Irish Republic. The 1994 ceasefire and subsequent participation in the peace process has marked the culmination of a new stage in republican strategy. This study analyzes the evolution of republican politico-military strategy in order to understand the relationship between force and politics. The research findings suggest that though the political strategy has been successful in recent years, the military strategy will ultimately remain the core of the republican movement. In this sense, the peace strategy can be seen as the continuation of the struggle by other means