The microfoundations of territorial disputes: Evidence from a survey experiment in Japan

Although territorial disputes are one of the most fraught issues among states, how public opinion on territorial disputes varies within states and what explains the variation are often overlooked. This paper argues that citizens who prioritize economic considerations are more likely to support compromises over such disputes, while those who prioritize a country’s reputation tend to reject any compromise. Further, the paper hypothesizes that such variation in individual preferences can be explained by proximity to disputed territories. Counterintuitively, residents closer to disputes are more likely to support a compromise than those who live further away, because they are more affected by economic considerations. Those far from the disputed territory can afford to focus on its political aspects, which leads to a more hawkish stance. By using an experimental approach within Japan, this paper examines the validity of the spatial argument, and tests the relative salience of economic and political aspects of territorial disputes. The findings, based on original survey data, show that distance from disputed territories shapes individual preferences, and under some conditions, people living further away from disputed territories are more hawkish

Primordialists and Constructionists: a typology of theories of religion

This article adopts categories from nationalism theory to classify theories of religion. Primordialist explanations are grounded in evolutionary psychology and emphasize the innate human demand for religion. Primordialists predict that religion does not decline in the modern era but will endure in perpetuity. Constructionist theories argue that religious demand is a human construct. Modernity initially energizes religion, but subsequently undermines it. Unpacking these ideal types is necessary in order to describe actual theorists of religion. Three distinctions within primordialism and constructionism are relevant. Namely those distinguishing: a) materialist from symbolist forms of constructionism; b) theories of origins from those pertaining to the reproduction of religion; and c) within reproduction, between theories of religious persistence and secularization. This typology helps to make sense of theories of religion by classifying them on the basis of their causal mechanisms, chronology and effects. In so doing, it opens up new sightlines for theory and research

Driving Forces Behind Informal Sanctions

This paper investigates the driving forces behind informal sanctions in cooperation games and the extent to which theories of fairness and reciprocity capture these forces. We find that cooperators' punishment is almost exclusively targeted toward the defectors, but the latter also impose a considerable amount of spiteful punishment on the cooperators. However, spiteful punishment vanishes if the punishers can no longer affect the payoff differences between themselves and the punished individual, whereas the cooperators even increase the resources devoted to punishment in this case. Our data also discriminate between different fairness principles. Fairness theories that are based on the assumption that players compare their own payoff to the group's average or the group's total payoff cannot explain the fact that cooperators target their punishment at the defectors. Fairness theories that assume that players aim to minimize payoff inequalities cannot explain the fact that cooperators punish defectors even if payoff inequalities cannot be reduced. Therefore, retaliation, i.e., the desire to harm those who committed unfair acts, seems to be the most important motive behind fairness-driven informal sanctions. Copyright The Econometric Society 2005.

Congruence Between Regional and National Elections

The number of regional elections and what is at stake at these elections have increased considerably over the past decades. Yet the interpretation of regional election results lags behind, in particular explanations for when and how regional election results deviate from national election results. This article conceptualizes congruence of the vote in three different ways that make it possible to assess the contribution of three competing theoretical approaches in explaining variation in dissimilarity between vote shares across space and time. These approaches are second-order election theory, regional authority and territorial cleavages. The hypotheses are tested against a data set containing the results of more than 4,000 regional and national elections held in 360 regions in 18 countries. It appears that the depth of territorial cleavages explains variation across space, but to understand change over time one needs to consider institutional authority and second-order election effects