ALT Title: US Hierarchy, Chinese Development Finance, and Great Power Competition Abstract: How do great powers compete for influence? A common assumption in research on aid competition posits that rival donors provide similar goods when outbidding each other for international support. Yet, political relationships like hierarchies between dominant and subordinate partners grant the former some legitimate authority over the latter in exchange for various forms of side payment—political, economic, and security. We re-visit donor competition by examining dissimilar goods provision in the US-China context. Whereas the United States maintains hierarchies with multiple forms of patronage, China challenges those relationships with a single form of inducement: development finance. The effectiveness of this revisionist financing depends on expected recipient concessions, which are inversely related to costs of realignment.

ALT Title: The Quiet Influence: Are Germany’s High-Level Visits for Democratic Durability? Abstract: While great powers often use diplomacy to ensure incumbent survival, this article asks whether democratic middle powers instead deploy high-level visits to foster democratic durability during times of internal turbulence. Analyzing a novel dataset of German Chancellor visits (1991–2023), we find that domestic instability acts as a strategic filter for engagement. Probit estimates demonstrate that instability significantly increases the likelihood of a visit when the host is a democracy, whereas instability in autocracies deters engagement. This indicates Germany strategically deploys “symbolic capital” to validate democratic resilience during turbulence. The analysis further reveals a partisan asymmetry: this responsiveness is driven primarily by Christian Democratic Union (CDU) governments and amplified following Germany’s post-2013 shift toward assertiveness.

ALT Title: Strategic Trade Controls as Trade-Enabling Institutions Abstract: Do Strategic Trade Controls (STCs) restrict trade, or can they help countries participate in the trade of sensitive goods? Despite obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1540, more than one hundred countries have not adopted comprehensive systems for controlling dual-use exports. Concerns that these regulations may impede trade and economic growth help explain this gap. We develop a new dataset recording STC enactment and adoption across all 193 UN member states and combine it with CEPII-BACI bilateral trade data for 170 countries from 1995 to 2023. We find no evidence that adopting an STC system systematically reduces strategic trade values. Instead, the clearest positive pattern appears when both trading partners maintain STC systems. The results for countries acting without a similarly regulated trading partner are less consistent, particularly after accounting for their existing trade relationships.

ALT Title: Bridging the Gap: Intelligence Agencies in Foreign Policy. A Three-Dimensional Framework for Analyzing International Intelligence Relations Abstract: Intelligence agencies operate in complex international relations alongside official foreign policy, yet the interactions between these concealed and official layers remain underexplored in Foreign Policy Analysis. This article addresses this gap by theorizing intelligence agencies’ international relations as distinct yet embedded processes within foreign policy. It proposes a comparative framework to explain how and to what extent these relations are integrated into foreign-policy processes, what interaction effects they generate over time, and what roles they assume.

ALT Title: Taught by the West, Armed for the Future? Study Abroad and WMD Proliferation Abstract: What personal characteristics lead political leaders to pursue weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)? This study develops a theory that leaders’ Western educational experiences shape their beliefs and values toward WMD development through socialization and instrumental learning. We distinguish between nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons (CBWs), proposing that studying in Western nuclear powers increases the likelihood of nuclear pursuit while discouraging CBW development. We test these hypotheses using an original dataset of leaders’ educational backgrounds (1945–2000) and find robust evidence consistent with our theory. Western education overall discourages WMD pursuit, but studying in nuclear-armed Western states has opposing effects depending on the weapon type.

ALT Title: Driving Engagement: Issue Salience in Brazil’s Climate, Forest, and Biodiversity Diplomacy Abstract: From a democratic perspective, the size and composition of national delegations to multilateral negotiations should reflect the salience of the issues being addressed within the domestic agenda. This study examines whether variations in issue salience are reflected in participation patterns across negotiation arenas, using Brazil—a key actor in climate, biodiversity, and forest governance—as a case study. Employing a mixed-methods design, we combine Google Trends data (2004–2024), official records on delegation size and composition, and expert interviews. Findings show that Brazil consistently sends large and diverse delegations, including high-level political actors, to UNFCCC COPs despite relatively low issue salience over time.

ALT Title: Coalitions at the Brink of War: How Fragmented Decision-Making Occurs in International Crises—The July 1914 Case Abstract: Do governments operate coherently during international crises threatening war? This paper argues that this is unlikely in politically fragmented regimes, i.e., parliamentary democracies with coalition cabinets and anocracies with weak, ill-defined centers of authority. Drawing on Oppermann and Brummer (2014), it suggests two pathways by which crises intensify—not diminish—the occurrence of “coalition decision units” composed of competing factions, parties, and/or institutions.. First, because committing to war requires the approval of the full leadership (e.g., cabinet), the “foreign policy executive” (FPE) must gain the support of non-FPE actors opposed to war. Second, when war appears imminent, the FPE itself may split, with some members now advocating diplomatic restraint.

ALT Title: The Domestic and International Sources of Legislative Action on Economic Sanctions Abstract: When does the U.S. Congress move to impose sanctions on foreign countries? While prior research highlights Congress’s influence on sanctions policy, little is known about what drives legislators to act. This paper investigates factors driving the introduction and approval of sanctions legislation, arguing that the factors shaping sanctions policymaking vary across the different stages of the legislative process. Using a dataset of U.S. sanctions legislation from 1987 to 2014, we run a series of logistic regressions to analyze this two-staged process. While prior work emphasizes the role of domestic interests in driving legislative behavior on sanctions, we find that legislators are also responsive to international conditions.

ALT Title: Dovish Defeat across Issues and Time: The Pervasive Hawkish Bias in Congress Abstract: Research shows that hawkish members of Congress enjoy greater legislative success in shaping US foreign policy than their dovish counterparts, regardless of party control of the executive or legislative branches. This congressional bias, combined with the well-documented hawkishness of presidents, has raised concerns about the militarization of American foreign policy. Using mixed methods to capture less visible forms of influence, we examine whether congressional doves secure legislative gains on issues where, in theory, they should hold a relative advantage. In doing so, we assess whether they can overcome the hawkish bias of Congress and the presidency. Our findings, however, reveal a persistent pattern of dovish failure from 1973 to 2022.

ALT Title: Drivers of Public Support for Foreign Aid: Democracy Promotion or Competition for Influence? Abstract: How do citizens in traditional donor countries balance competing goals of foreign aid: promoting democracy through conditionality versus maintaining influence amid competition from non-traditional donors? This study examines American public support for aid to Africa as Chinese aid expands. It argues that feedback from aid recipients shapes support for aid and conditionality. Using a survey experiment, the study finds that Americans become less supportive of aid when they learn that African recipients oppose democratic conditions, though this information does not significantly change support for attaching such conditions. When paired with information that Africans prefer Chinese aid without conditions, however, Americans become less supportive of democratic conditions. Yet support for aid does not increase; instead, it declines slightly.

ALT Title: Important Topics: Variation in Leadership Trait Analysis Scores by Topic Abstract: Margaret Hermann’s Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) is a popular approach within Foreign Policy Analysis for assessing a leader’s public persona and their corresponding behavior. The most common approach is to create a summary profile consisting of scores for seven individual differences. Unfortunately, summary profiles often fail to explain the difference in policy behaviors on different topics, such as trade versus immigration, or toward different actors. For example, it is difficult for a summary profile of President Trump to account for both his October 2025 financial support for Argentina and his initiation of armed conflict with purported agents of Venezuela in September 2025.

ALT Title: EU Foreign Policy through Images: A Visual Narrative Analysis of the War in Ukraine Abstract: Narratives organize how foreign policy becomes intelligible and actionable by defining events, assigning responsibility, and justifying particular courses of action. This article advances the narrative turn by extending it to the visual domain of political storytelling. Despite the ubiquity of images in diplomacy, Foreign Policy Analysis lacks a systematic way to examine how visuals contribute to the narratives through which foreign policy is performed. To address this gap, the article proposes a framework for visual narrative analysis. Integrating narrative theory with visual analysis, the framework shows how recurring visual elements articulate storylines. An analysis of the European Union’s social media on the war in Ukraine demonstrates how visual choices construct the EU’s role as a moral and political actor navigating tensions between diplomacy, solidarity, and security.