Gino Pauselli

Our (open access) paper with Florencia Montal and María José Urzúa is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social. "Critical Ties" asks why IOs criticize some states and topics and not others. Our answer has lies in which NGOs IO staff have come to trust.

Beyond the TWFE models, we use an instrumental variable strategy, sentiment analysis of the press releases, interviews, and a reconstruction of the Commission's statement on the 2023 repression in Jujuy.

Our (open access) paper with Florencia Montal and María José Urzúa is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social. "Critical Ties" asks why IOs criticize some states and topics and not others. Our answer has lies in which NGOs IO staff have come to trust.

Local NGOs that keep showing up at hearings become familiar to Commission staff. When something happens, those NGOs send curated, well-documented information through informal channels, and the Commission is more willing to criticize states.

Our (open access) paper with Florencia Montal and María José Urzúa is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social. "Critical Ties" asks why IOs criticize some states and topics and not others. Our answer has lies in which NGOs IO staff have come to trust.

New article in @networkscijournal.bsky.social with @jarededgerton.bsky.social and @ccaveros.bsky.social. We ask whether the human rights regime is consolidating or fragmenting, and argue the answer depends on the issue. The paper is open access!

Palestine-Israel and country-specific resolutions are the most fragmented. Rights-based and cooperation topics draw broader coalitions. The BERT model adds Sudan/Central African region (AU bloc vs. Western accountability coalition) and religion/intolerance as polarized clusters.

New article in @networkscijournal.bsky.social with @jarededgerton.bsky.social and @ccaveros.bsky.social. We ask whether the human rights regime is consolidating or fragmenting, and argue the answer depends on the issue. The paper is open access!

Our data are sponsorship records for more than 2,000 HRC resolutions between 2006–2024. Sponsorship is a costlier signal than votes or UPR recommendations. We build yearly networks for each topic and use modularity to capture how much sponsorship concentrates in separate blocs.

New article in @networkscijournal.bsky.social with @jarededgerton.bsky.social and @ccaveros.bsky.social. We ask whether the human rights regime is consolidating or fragmenting, and argue the answer depends on the issue. The paper is open access!

Thrilled to announce the publication of "Trust or Fortify? Border Walls in International Relations" in @isq-jrnl.bsky.social, a project with Mike Kenwick and Beth Simmons. In it, we challenge the traditional issue-centric explanations for border walls, like terrorism or migration. 🧵👇

We introduce the first global, geolocated dataset of border wall segments from 1990 to 2020. We combine this spatial data with a new latent variable model of interstate trust to predict not just whether states build walls, but exactly where they build them.

Thrilled to announce the publication of "Trust or Fortify? Border Walls in International Relations" in @isq-jrnl.bsky.social, a project with Mike Kenwick and Beth Simmons. In it, we challenge the traditional issue-centric explanations for border walls, like terrorism or migration. 🧵👇

Today is the last day to nominate papers for ISA's ILAW Best Paper Award. Please consider nominating a paper presented at the ISA Annual Meeting in Columbus that engages with international law topics. Self-nominations are welcome! I'm chairing the award committee.

New paper with Beth Simmons in @iojournal.bsky.social: "From Barriers to Abuse: Border Hardening and Torture." A signaling story with big implications for human rights research. 🧵

The hopeful part: the wall effect on BIO behavior fades in ~4 years. States might invest in training, accountability, and counter-messaging to interrupt the signal. The mechanism is reversible.

New paper with Beth Simmons in @iojournal.bsky.social: "From Barriers to Abuse: Border Hardening and Torture." A signaling story with big implications for human rights research. 🧵

With novel data on allegations of torture by BIOs and border wall construction we show that starting a border wall increases BIO torture allegations. This is robust to DiD, IV, placebo tests, jackknife. The effect does *not* extend to police, military, or intelligence agents: it is specific to BIOs.

New paper with Beth Simmons in @iojournal.bsky.social: "From Barriers to Abuse: Border Hardening and Torture." A signaling story with big implications for human rights research. 🧵

The empirical puzzle: torture by state agents overall is declining. Torture by border and immigration officials (BIOs) is increasing. Same states, same period, diverging trends. Why?