Summary: International Security Volume 36 - Issue 2 - 2011

In this issue of International Security:

• Brooks finds that Muslim "home grown" terrorism is not a serious threat in the United States.
• Lopez, McDermott, and Petersen offer a model for applying evolutionary psychology to international relations.
• Bennett and Lind examine what military missions to successfully stabilize North Korea would require if it suffered state collapse.
• Kennedy attempts to understand India's long path towards fielding nuclear weapons.
• Hymans discusses the domestic institutional barriers to Japan fielding nuclear weapons.

Summary: Comparative Political Studies Volume 44 - Issue 11 - 2011

In this issue of Comparative Political Studies:

• Doyle examines why populism has had such an enduring impact on Latin American politics, arguing that it comes down to distrust in institutions.
• Williams explains why opposition parties frequently force confidence votes in parliamentary systems, even when they are unlikely to succeed in bringing down the government.
• Carlin and Singer measure, "support for the basic rights, liberties, and practices associated with polyarchy in 12 Latin American democracies."
• Kelley disputes the common wisdom that international election monitors make election boycotts more likely.
• Herron presents a new method for garnering information about dissent in authoritarian regimes by analyzing vote returns in non-free elections.

Summary: International Organization Volume 65 - Issue 04 - 2011

In this issue of International Organization:

• Cederman, Warren, and Sornette test Clausewitz's assertion that the development of mass-nationalism after the French Revolution forever changed the nature and intensity of interstate war.
• Pelc asks why some countries get better WTO accession terms than others.
• Burton, Helfer, and Fariss examine and attempt to explain states' derogation (temporary legal suspension) of their obligations under human rights treaties during crises.
• Salehyan, Gleditsch, and Cunningham analyze when states will support rebel groups (and when rebel groups will accept that support).
• Kaczmarek and Newman find that extraterritorial actions by prosecutors in bribery cases do have a significant impact outside the country bringing charges.
• Naoi and Kume attempt to determine why there is so much mass support for agricultural protectionism in industrialized countries.

Summary: Comparative Politics - Volume 43, Issue 4 - July 2011

In this issue of Comparative Politics:

• Pop-Eleches and Tucker present a new framework for considering the effect of communist-era legacies on postcommunist political values and behavior.
• Maleski, Abrami, and Zheng compare the impact of institutions on income inequality in China and Vietnam.
• Green offers a new theory explaining patronage allocation based on the logic of institutional choice, whereby political leaders allocate patronage in accordance with the varying political threats they face.
• Day examines the structural factors that influence the outcomes experienced by failed rebel groups, with a case focus on Uganda.
• Balán examines the political dynamics that lead to corruption scandals, focusing on cases in Chile and Argentina.
• Nylen composes a review essay  on the next generation of literature on participatory institutions in Latin America.

Summary: American Journal of Political Science - Volume 55, Issue 3 - July 2011

In this issue of the American Journal of Political Science:

• Butler and Broockman attempt to determine whether race affects US politician's constituent services, by conducting a field experiment using using "black" and "white" aliases to send e-mails requesting assistance to a selection of state legislators.
• Anzia and Berry find that female members of Congress outperform their male counterparts.
• Harbridge and Malhotra explore the impact of partisan conflict on citizens' perceptions of the US Congress.
• Jeong, Miller, Schofield, and Sened examine why minorities raise wedge issues and how wedge issues result in partisan realignment in legislative politics.
• Trager and Vavreck study the political costs of crisis bargaining in the US presidential system and the ability of democratic leaders to make credible threats in a crisis situation.
• Hetherington and Suhay show the links between fear of violence and susceptibility to sanctioning authoritarian countermeasures.
• Rudolph offers a theory about how citizens ambivalence towards US president candidates changes over the course of an election cycle.
• Lenz and Lawson present further research confirming that candidates often receive support based on their appearance from less informed voters, particularly when they receive significant television exposure.
• Triesman finds that "It's the economy, stupid" is as valid in hybrid, semi-authoritarian regimes as it is in more liberal democracies when it comes to presidential approval ratings.
• Dewan and Hortala-Vallve put forth a new model for explaining how a Prime Minister chooses her or his cabinet.
• Davis and Meunier argue that normal political tensions no longer significantly impact economic relations between countries.
• Lipsmeyer and Zhu present a theoretical model that illustrates the interactive relationships between immigration, EU labor market integration, and domestic institutions.
• Robertson and Teitelbaum explore the relationship between FDI, regime type, and strikes in low- and middle-income countries.
• Linos examines the impact of domestic political pressure and public opinion on the diffusion of international norms.
• Gibler and Randazzo attempt to determine whether independent judiciaries prevent democratic backsliding.
• Seagrave negotiates a pathway between the seemingly diametrically opposed positions of self-ownership and divine ownership through a political theory piece on the thought of John Locke.
• Gaines and Kuklinski offer a new experimental method that combines random assignment of treatment or control with self-selection of condition, and argue that this is superior to classic random-assignment experimentation.

Summary: American Political Science Review - Volume 105, Issue 03 - 01 August 2011

In this issue of the American Political Science Review:

• Snyder and Borghard explore whether democratic leaders pay domestic political costs for failing to carry out public threats made during an international crisis.
• Croco examines whether leaders who are culpable for bringing their country into conflict are more or less successful in achieving favorable war outcomes than non-culpable leaders, and also whether voters punish culpable or non-culpable leaders more severely for poor outcomes.
• Cederman, Weidmann, and Gleditsch study the role of horizontal inequality in promoting ethnonationalist conflict.
• Bullock presents two experiments that test the impact of elites on the policy views of citizens in democracies.
• Mathis offers a new model for understanding how voting rules and uncertainty over preferences influence the full sharing of information during deliberations.
• Shor and McCarty share a new ideological mapping of American state legislatures.
• Folke, Hirano, and Synder consider the role that control of patronage jobs plays in increasing a political party's chance of winning US state elections.
• Fukumoto and Horiuchi detail a natural experiment that they argue can be used to detect electoral fraud .
• Hughes analyzes how gender and minority quotas actually perform in terms of increasing the political influence of minority women.
• Mansbridge responds to Rehfeld's critique of her model of representation by offering a modification, and Rehfeld responds with further critiques.

Summary: International Organization Volume 65 - Issue 03 - 28 July 2011

In this issue of International Organization:

• Alleea and Peinhardt discuss the impact of investment treaty violations on FDI. 
• Coggins analyzes how new states emerge from secessionist movements.
• Trager presents a new model of multidimensional international crisis bargaining.
• Ramsay revisits the data on the "natural resource curse".
• Biglaisera and Lektzian examine the impact on US FDI of US trade sanctions towards the targeted country.
• Staton and Moore review the literature on judicial power in domestic and international relations. 
• Gartzkea and Naoi dissent from Keohane, Macedo, and Moravcsik's argument that multilateral organizations (MLO) could actually be good for democracy, and KKM respond.