In This Issue

In “Religious Social Identity, Religious Belief, and Anti-Immigration Sentiment,” Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom, Gizem Arikan, and Marie Courtemanche examine the effect that religion has on attitudes toward immigrants. On the one hand there are those who argue that religion induces negative attitudes toward immigrants, while others find that it fuels some sense of compassion vis-à-vis immigrants. In this paper the authors examine this debate by conducting experimental research among American Catholics, Turkish Muslims, and Israeli Jews, and seek to disentangle the role of religious social identity and religious belief. They find that religious social identity increases opposition to immigrants who are dissimilar to in-group members in religion or ethnicity, while religious belief promotes welcoming attitudes toward immigrants of the same religion and ethnicity. The results of their study suggest that different elements of the religious experience exert different effects on attitudes toward immigrants.

In “Islamists and Nationalists: Rebel Motivation and Counterinsurgency in Russia's North Caucasus,” Monica Duffy Toft and Yuri M. Zhukov ask whether Islamist and nationalist insurgencies pose different challenges to state governments. They situate their original empirical investigation in Russia's North Caucasus region, where both types of groups have operated during the same time period and fought against the same authorities. Toft and Zhukov find that there are important distinctions between the two types of rebel groups. Most importantly, targeted counterinsurgency tactics tend to be more successful than indiscriminate force against nationalist violence, but have very little impact on Islamist violence. Their findings have implications for our understanding of the role of religion in shaping the conduct of war.

Some have argued that rich nations should use immigration policy to alleviate global poverty. Kieran Oberman contests this position in “Poverty and Immigration Policy.” Broadly exploring the ethical dimension of immigration policy, Oberman argues that there is a human right to emigrate, but that policies facilitating immigration to wealthier countries may produce a “brain drain” in poorer countries—the very countries that can least afford such a drain. Moreover, Oberman argues, there is also a right to stay in one's home country, and to have a decent life there. The bottom line, according to Oberman, is that citizens must have a right to stay or to leave, but it is wrong to use immigration policy as a tool for poverty alleviation. Other means of remedying global poverty must be used.

Using volunteers to directly contact potential voters is a popular strategy among electoral candidates. In “Party Activists as Campaign Advertisers: The Ground Campaign as a Principal-Agent Problem,” Ryan D. Enos and Eitan D. Hersh portray this campaign strategy as a principal-agent problem, arguing that the volunteers recruited to represent the candidate may be “ill-suited” to effectively represent the candidate, particularly in general-election campaigns. The armies of volunteer canvassers were especially prominent during the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Using data obtained in a survey of Obama's 2012 campaign workers, Enos and Hersh test their theory and show that Obama's grassroots volunteers were significantly different—demographically, ideologically, and in their policy priorities—from the voters they were engaging with on the candidate's behalf. Moreover they find evidence suggesting that the strategies used by campaign elites to overcome the principal-agent problem were largely unsuccessful.

Nicholas Sambanis, Stergios Skaperdas, and William C. Wohlforth revisit the connection between nation-building and war in “National-Building through War.” They present a formal model that draws on insights from social psychology and behavioral economics to demonstrate that the outcomes of international wars affect not only state power but also citizens’ identification with the nation. The result is that victory in war not only enhances the state's status in its relations with other states, but also encourages citizens to deepen their identification with the state—and this in turn strengthens nation-building. In this way, war helps to reduce domestic conflict and enhance state capacity. They illustrate the model's dynamics with a case study of German unification after the Franco-Prussian war.

In “The Guardianship Dilemma: Regime Security through and from the Armed Forces,” R. Blake McMahon and Branislav L. Slantchev revisit the notion that a military that is sufficiently strong to protect the state may also become a threat to that state. They demonstrate through formal argument that this need not invariably be the case and that external threats may actually induce loyalty in the military. Instead, they argue, it is uncertainty about the external threat environment, as well as information asymmetries between the military and the ruler regarding the nature of the external threat, that are more likely to prompt disloyalty of the former to the latter. McMahon and Slantchev also suggest that such differences in interpretation are more likely to emerge the longer the state has experienced peace.

Rousseau is recognized as an important figure in the development of thought about international relations and war, but the precise bearing of his teaching is notoriously hard to make out. Blaise Bachofen tackles this aspect of Rousseau's legacy in “The Paradox of ‘Just War’ in Rousseau's Theory of Interstate Relations.” Making use of a newly reconstructed text that probably represents the first part of Rousseau's projected work on “The Principles of the Right of War,” Bachofen argues that Rousseau's position is thoroughly realist yet finds a place for a moral “right of war.” In order for a state to achieve its aims in war, Rousseau argues, the enemy state must be dissolved, and a new social pact must rise in its place, thus serving right in the end. Wars typically end, however, with a treaty that does not dissolve any state. According to Rousseau this means that the peace is chimerical, and further war inevitable. In this way, realist considerations vindicate the concern for right.

In “Philosophy and Poetry: A New Look at an Old Quarrel,” Timothy W. Burns reopens questions that many had thought settled: What exactly is the quarrel between philosophy and poetry that Plato features so prominently in the Republic? Is the gulf between the two as great as Socrates seems to make it in that dialogue, with poetry unambiguously inferior? Burns undertakes a close reading of passages in Book Ten, where these questions are reopened, to argue that Socrates in fact believes Homer to have a real wisdom, particularly regarding death. Moreover, the poetic lamentations that Socrates criticizes in Book Three are now seen to correspond to a sadness in the souls of the virtuous themselves—a sadness, Burns suggests, from which even Socrates was not immune.

Evgeny Finkel, in “The Phoenix Effect of State Repression: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust,” makes a very important argument that addresses the question of why some groups are able to organize sustained violent resistance to state repression while others are not. The author argues that the ability to sustain armed resistance is largely a function of the skills developed prior to mass resistance. In other words, the skills developed prior to large-scale resistance affect the ability of the community to mount resistance. In particular, these skills develop as the result of the nature of earlier repression experienced by a community, which shapes these crucial skills. He argues that selective repression is more likely to create skilled resisters; indiscriminate repression is substantially less so. Finkel tests this argument by comparing the trajectories of anti-Nazi Jewish resistance groups in three ghettos during the Holocaust: Minsk, Kraków, and Białystok.

In “Territorial Autonomy in the Shadow of Conflict: Too Little, Too Late?,” Lars-Erik Cederman, Simon Hug, Andreas Schädel, and Julian Wucherpfennig evaluate the effect of territorial autonomy on the outbreak of internal conflict. They argue that the critics have overstated the case against autonomy policies for ethnic groups. They suggest that decentralization has a significant conflict-preventing effect in countries that have had no prior conflict history. Even in postconflict settings, granting autonomy can still be helpful in combination with central power sharing arrangements. Nonetheless, on its own, postconflict autonomy concessions may be too little, too late.

Yiqing Xu and Yang Yao, in “Informal Institutions, Collective Action, and Public Investment in Rural China,” examine the understudied role played by informal institutions in collective decision making. The authors examine the effect of lineage groups, one of the most important vehicles of informal institutions in rural China, on local public goods expenditure. They use a panel data set of 220 Chinese villages from 1986 to 2005 and find that village leaders from the two largest family clans in a village increased local public investment considerably. The effect is stronger when the clans appear to be more cohesive. The authors also find that clans helped local leaders overcome the collective action problem of financing public goods, but there is little evidence suggesting that clans held local leaders accountable.

In “Persistent Policy Pathways: Inferring Diffusion Networks in the American States,” Bruce A. Desmarais, Jeffrey J. Harden, and Frederick J. Boehmke take a big step forward in the systematic measurement of public policy diffusion among the American states while also providing a methodology that should be applicable to many different research areas in political science. First they establish the concept of a diffusion network in the theoretical framework of diffusion studies, noting that prior scholarship has not had the means to empirically measure ties in the diffusion network. Then they introduce a network inference methodology, a latent network inference algorithm called NetInf, to infer a policy diffusion network connecting the American states over time. From the inferred network they then show how they are better able to analyze factors that predict the formation of diffusion ties between states.

Manuscript Formatting

Manuscripts should be no longer than 12,000 words including text, all tables and figures, notes, references, and appendices intended for publication. Font size must be at least 12 point for all parts of the submission, including notes and references, and all body text (including references) should be double-spaced. Include an abstract of no more than 150 words. Explanatory footnotes may be included but should not be used for simple citations. Do not use endnotes. Observe all of the further formatting instructions given on our website. Doing so lightens the burden on reviewers, copyeditors, and compositors. Submissions that violate our guidelines on formatting or length will be rejected without review.

For submission and review purposes, you may locate tables and figures (on separate pages and only one to a page) approximately where they fall in the text, but with an in-text locator for each, in any case (e.g., [Table 3 about here]). If your submission is accepted for publication, you may also be asked to submit high resolution digital source files of graphs, charts, or other types of figures. Following acceptance, all elements within any tables submitted (text, numerals, symbols, etc.) should be accessible for editing and reformatting to meet the journal's print specifications (e.g., they should not be included as single images not subject to reformatting). If you have any doubts about how to format the required in-text citations and/or bibliographic reference sections, please consult the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010) and review recent issues of the APSR.

Specific Procedures

Please follow these specific procedures for submission:

1. 1. Before submitting any manuscript to the APSR, download a PDF of the Transfer of Copyright Agreement from the Editorial Manager login page at http://www.editorialmanager.com/apsr and be sure its terms and requirements, as well as the permissions granted to authors under its provisions, are acceptable to you. A signed agreement will be required for all work published in this journal.

2. 2. When you submit (at www.editorialmanager.com/apsr), you will be invited to provide a short list of appropriate reviewers of your manuscript. Do not include on this list anyone who has already commented on the research included in your submission. Likewise, exclude any of your current or recent collaborators, institutional colleagues, mentors, students, or close friends. You may also “oppose” potential reviewers by name, as potentially biased or otherwise inappropriate, but you will be expected to provide specific reasons. The editors will refer to these lists in selecting reviewers, though there can be no guarantee that this will influence final reviewer selections.

3. 3. You will also be required to upload a minimum of two separate files.

   1. a) An “anonymous” digital file of your submission, which should not include any information that identifies the authors. Also excluded should be the names of any other collaborators in the work (including research assistants or creators of tables or figures). Likewise do not provide in-text links to any online databases used that are stored on any personal websites or at institutions with which any of the co-authors are affiliated. Do not otherwise thank colleagues or include institution names, web addresses, or other potentially identifying information.

   2. b) A separate title page should include the full manuscript title, plus names and contact information (mailing address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address) for all credited authors, in the order their names should appear, as well as each author's academic rank and institutional affiliation. You may also include any acknowledgements or other author notes about the development of the research (e.g., previous presentations of it) as part of this separate title page. In the case of multiple authors, indicate which should receive all correspondence from the APSR. You may also choose to include a cover letter.

4. 4. Please make sure the file contains all tables, figures, appendices, and references cited in the manuscript.

5. 5. If your previous publications are cited, please do so in a way that does not make the authorship of the work being submitted to the APSR obvious. This is usually best accomplished by referring to yourself and any co-authors in the third person and including normal references to the work cited within the list of references. Your prior publications should be included in the reference section in their normal alphabetical location. Assuming that in-text references to your previous work are in the third person, you should not redact self-citations and references (possible exceptions being any work that is “forthcoming” in publication, and which may not be generally accessible to others). Manuscripts with potentially compromised anonymity may be returned, potentially delaying the review processes.

6. 6. Charges apply for all color figures that appear in the print version of the journal. At the time of submission, contributors should clearly state whether their figures should appear in color in the online version only, or whether they should appear in color online and in the print version. There is no charge for including color figures in the online version of the Journal but it must be clear that color is needed to enhance the meaning of the figure, rather than simply being for esthetic purposes. If you request color figures in the printed version, you will be contacted by CCC-Rightslink who are acting on our behalf to collect Author Charges. Please follow their instructions in order to avoid any delay in the publication of your article.

Further questions

Do not hesitate, in any cases of doubt, to consult the APSR Editorial Offices with more specific questions by telephone (940–891–6803) or by sending an e-mail to: apsr@unt.edu

Class Use

The Comprehensive Publisher Photocopy Agreement between APSA and the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) permits bookstores and copy centers to receive expedited clearance to copy articles from the APSR and PS in compliance with the Association's policies and applicable fees. The general fee for articles is 75 cents per copy. However, current Association policy levies no fee for the first 10 copies of a printed article, whether in course packs or on reserve. Smaller classes that rely heavily on articles (i.e., upper-level undergraduate and graduate classes) can take advantage of this provision, and faculty ordering 10 or fewer course packs should bring it to the attention of course pack providers. APSA policy also permits free use of the electronic library reserve, with no limit on the number of students who can access the electronic reserve. Both large and small classes that rely on these articles can take advantage of this provision. The CCC's address, telephone, and fax are 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750–8400 (voice), and (978) 750–4474 (fax). This agreement pertains only to the reproduction and distribution of APSA materials as hard copies (e.g., photocopies, microfilm, and microfiche).

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has created a standardized form for college faculty to submit to a copy center or bookstore to request copyrighted material for course packs. The form is available through the CCC, which will handle copyright permissions.

APSA also has a separate agreement pertaining to CCC's Academic E-Reserve Service. This agreement allows electronic access for students and instructors of a designated class at a designated institution for a specified article or set of articles in electronic format. Access is by password for the duration of a class.

Please contact your librarian, the CCC, or the APSA Reprints Department for further information.

APSR Authors

If you are the author of an APSR article, you may use your article in course packs or other printed materials without payment of royalty fees and you may post it at personal or institutional websites as long as the APSA copyright notice is included.

Other Uses of APSA-Copyrighted Materials

For any further copyright issues, please contact the APSA Reprints Department.