Chad Rector

International cooperation and integration

I am an assistant professor at Marymount University, where I teach international relations and comparative government in the Politics program. My research is mostly on how countries bargain with each other over the design of agreements. Some recent papers are at my SSRN site.

Ongoing projects:

Negotiating International Organizations

In some conditions states design IOs primarily to protect the interests of members that would otherwise lose influence as a direct result of international collaboration.

Contrived Symmetry through the IAEA.
Why Some International Organizations Increase Transactions Costs.

Korean Reunification

With Jai Kwan Jung. South Korea could pursue reunification via absorption or confederation.

Reunification Bargains. 2010 APSA. (Older version: Absorption versus Confederation, presented at ICKS in 2009.)

China

With Scott Kastner and/or Margaret Pearson.

National Unification and Mistrust: Bargaining Power and the Prospects for a PRC/Taiwan Agreement. Sec. Studies 2008.
China in Multilateral Governance. 2011 APSA. Exit options shape China's approach to IO governance.

Student-led research
Projects co-written with undergraduates:

The Rationalization of Political Corruption. With Allen Gannett. Presented at the 2011 MPSA. Public officials who are likely to have committed corrupt acts rationalize their behavior in different ways.

Chad Rector

Politics

Marymount Univ.

2807 N. Glebe Rd

Arlington, VA 22207

crector@marymount.edu

SSRN page

Ireton Hall (map)

Room G112

Projects that are mostly done (see also my CV):

Federations
States form federations when cooperation would lead them to make unequal investments, making some vulnerable to later renegotiation. I develop the idea of contrived symmetry.
Federations: The Political Dynamics of Cooperation. Cornell U. Press, 2009. (Amazon|ebook). Reviews (CPS|PSQ).

Capital controls

Scott Kastner and I coded all capital controls policy changes for continuous OECD democracies since 1950. Data (text|excel|spss), codebook (pdf|text).

International Regimes, Domestic Veto-Players, and Capital Controls Policy Stability. ISQ 2003. Parliamentary veto players and government ideology correlate with policy changes before the mid-1980s; after that systemic constraints tighten. Replication (Stata 7|text|excel), Stata do-file.
Partisanship and the Path to Financial Openness. CPS 2005. European states were more likely to liberalize financial controls soon after changing from left to right governments. Stata 8 replication and do-file.

Misc

Because everybody needs hobbies.

Buying Treaties with Cigarettes: Internal Side-payments in Two-level Games. International Interactions 2001. Domestic divisions over foreign policy matter most when veto groups are relatively unified over other salient issues.
Getting There is Half the Battle. 2003 MPSA. Military mobilization sinks costs in war, diluting the effectiveness of signals of resolve.

Chad Rector

International cooperation and integration

Student-led researchProjects co-written with undergraduates:

FederationsStates form federations when cooperation would lead them to make unequal investments, making some vulnerable to later renegotiation. I develop the idea of contrived symmetry. Federations: The Political Dynamics of Cooperation. Cornell U. Press, 2009. (Amazon|ebook). Reviews (CPS|PSQ).

Student-led research
Projects co-written with undergraduates:

Federations
States form federations when cooperation would lead them to make unequal investments, making some vulnerable to later renegotiation. I develop the idea of contrived symmetry.
Federations: The Political Dynamics of Cooperation. Cornell U. Press, 2009. (Amazon|ebook). Reviews (CPS|PSQ).