About

Benjamin J. Appel is an Associate Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. His research examines the effectiveness of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and international law (IL) in world politics. He is particularly interested in how the United Nations Security Council affects the peaceful resolution of interstate crises. Additionally, Appel has several projects focused on the International Criminal Court and its impact on human rights and domestic conflict. His research also explores the onset, duration, and termination of large-scale and severe state repression. More recently, he has developed a research agenda on the liberal order and the factors influencing U.S. foreign policy decision-making. Prior to his current position, he worked as an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a B.A. in History and Intelligence Studies from Mercyhurst College.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Political economy
• Law
• Computer Security
• Computer Science
• Economics
• Medicine
• Criminology
• Psychology
• Positive economics

Selected publications

• Understanding the Determinants of ICC Involvement: Legal Mandate and Power Politics

  International Studies Quarterly · 2024-03-14 · 5 citations

  article

  Abstract What explains the initiation and escalation of International Criminal Court (ICC) involvement in a situation? In light of growing charges of bias against the court, understanding the determinants of ICC involvement is critically important. Building upon research on bounded discretion at international courts, we argue that two potentially competing forces influence the court. While prioritizing impartiality should lead the court to target perpetrators of the gravest violations of human rights in states with domestic impunity, prioritizing powerful states’ interests suggests that the court may avoid involvement in powerful states and those with close ties to powerful countries. We test these arguments using original data on ICC involvement and a novel estimator that accounts for the sequential nature of ICC activity. We find that the court acts more in accordance with the legal mandate when initiating preliminary examinations, but power politics play a more dominant role at the formal investigation stage. These findings have several implications for academic and policy work on both the ICC and international courts more generally.

  PublisherDOI

• Rainfall shocks and state repression: How rainfall shocks incentivize governments to commit human rights abuses

  Conflict Management and Peace Science · 2024-09-19 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We posit that rainfall shocks have an indirect effect on state repression through their impact on food production. Rainfall shocks are associated with reduced food production, which can generate grievances among the populace while also creating incentives for them to mobilize against the regime. In turn, governments employ repression to insulate themselves from these adverse climatic events. We also argue that this relationship is most pronounced in developing states. Analyses are conducted using causal mediation analysis on a global sample of states from 1992 to 2015. We find support for our argument; rainfall shocks have an indirect effect on repression by first reducing food production. We also find that rainfall shocks only have a systematic impact on state repression in developing countries.

  PublisherDOI

• Recurring Spells

  2022-09-22

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract Chapter 6 provides the first empirical investigation of what (if anything) impacts the recurrence of a repressive spell. Again, the analysis identifies the influence of the standard variables employed within the literature. Following this, the chapter moves to explore those variables that emerge from the domestic context (i.e., those used by actors within the territory in question) and those variables that emerge from the international context (i.e., those used by actors outside of the territory in question). The big findings here include pacifying influences of electoral democratization, economic development and progovernment intervention but inflammatory influences of population as well as neutral military interventions. This reveals that there are different factors influencing distinct parts of the Death/Life repression cycle and that some factors that were believed to reduce state repression (such as intervention) have mixed influences depending upon the specific type of policy enacted. The chapter investigates what drives the variable/policy that wields the biggest impact on onset: political democratization. Chapter 6 ends with what has been learned about spell recurrence.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2022-09-22

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract The Introduction provides a general overview of The Death and Life of State Repression. It identifies a new conception of repressive behavior/human rights violation: the spell. This involves the onset of large-scale and violent state activity above a particular threshold, its escalation, its termination, and its recurrence (i.e., return after having previously stopped). The chapter outlines the variety of policies/solutions that have been advanced from research, policymakers, and activists (e.g., military intervention, economic sanctions, international law, naming and shaming, democratization, and non-violent direct action). Chapter 1 then moves to outline what is limited about the predominant approach as well as what needs to be changed with regard to theory, data, and empirical analysis in order to address the topicof interest.

  PublisherDOI

• Not Too Distant: Grievance, Opportunity, and the Onset of Civil War

  Civil Wars · 2022 · 5 citations

  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Grievance and opportunity theories dominate research on the causes of civil war. However, theoretical and empirical problems limit their ability to explain variation in conflict onset. We argue that these problems partly stem from treating them as largely independent explanations. We integrate grievance and opportunity into a unified theory and argue that they are complements that jointly predict conflict. We apply insights from the interstate war literature to develop and test a theory of conflict onset that argues that the probability of civil war increases as the disparity between relative power and the status quo distribution of benefits increases.

  PublisherDOI

• Robustness Checks

  2022-09-22

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The Death and Life of State Repression

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2022 · 35 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Political Science

  Abstract The Death and Life of State Repression provides insight into a problem that dates back at least 75 years, if not before. Since World War II, individuals and institutions from around the world have been concerned with state repression/human rights violation and since about 1990 a robust empirical literature has emerged to investigate what drives this behavior up or down (i.e., exploring variation). While useful, this work has generally ignored important aspects of the “Death/Life cycle” of state repression: i.e., its onset, escalation, termination and recurrence. Such an approach is important because different explanations and policies might be relevant for different parts of the cycle. Exploring a new database of repressive spells from 1976-2006 and new theory regarding spells, The Death and Life of State Repression breaks new ground in a variety of different ways. Within the book, it is argued that repression is a sticky process that is largely slow-moving and non-adaptive. Consequently, change in this behavior is rare unless the ruling cohort is perturbed in some manner. Now, what perturbs is somewhat surprising. The Death and Life of State Repression does not find support for the predominant variables/policies advanced by the international community (i.e., naming/shaming, international law, military intervention and economic sanctions). Rather, it finds that political democratization plays a crucial role in reducing and stopping most aspects of repressive spells and democratization itself is influenced by non-violent direction action. The book has major implications for those who wish to study state repression as well as those who have an interest in trying to reduce as well as stop it from occurring across the Death/Life cycle.

  PublisherDOI

• Ending Spells

  2022-09-22

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract Chapter 5 provides one of the first empirical investigations of what (if anything) ends a repressive spell. Again, the analysis identifies the influence of the standard variables employed within the literature. Following this, the chapter moves to explore those variables that emerge from the domestic context (i.e., those used by actors within the territory in question) and those variables that emerge from the international context (i.e., those used by actors outside of the territory in question). The big findings here include pacifying influences of electoral democratization and judicial democracy, civil conflict termination, as well as International Government Organization membership but inflammatory influences of civil conflict, population, and youth bulges. This again reveals that there are different factors influencing distinct parts of the Death/Life repression cycle. Once again the chapter investigates what drives the variable/policy that wields the biggest impact on onset: political democratization. The chapter ends with what has been learned about spell termination.

  PublisherDOI

• Endogeneity Concerns

  2022-09-22

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Early Efforts

  2022-09-22

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Joe Clare

  Louisiana State University

  36 shared

• Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham

  University of Maryland, College Park

  36 shared

• Faten Ghosn

  University of Oxford

  36 shared

• Ronald Inglehart

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  36 shared

• Frederick J. Boehmke

  University of Iowa

  36 shared

• Christian Haerpfer

  36 shared

• Christian Welzel

  Leuphana University of Lüneburg

  36 shared

• Sean D. Ehrlich

  36 shared