Elena V. McLean

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University at Buffalo, State University of New York

What explains aid allocation–donor interests or recipient needs? This research debate has generated a number of studies, which generally conclude that both motivations matter. One limitation of this literature is that donor governments are conceptualized as unitary actors with coherent preferences. In this study, we relax this assumption and focus...

Earlier policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. have often treated natural gas as a clean fuel due to its higher energy output per unit of carbon dioxide emitted compared to other fuels. However, recent local decarbonization initiatives seek to restrict residential uses of natural gas. Public support for such policies could be a key...

Existing research on the relationship between economic coercion and foreign direct investment suggests that sanctions have no effect on investments in targeted countries or may even encourage investment inflows. A key limitation of this research, however, is its aggregate country-level focus, which fails to capture company-level decision-making pro...

Scholarship on development aid investigates how donors’ and recipients’ political and economic interests interact to weaken effectiveness of aid. These influences have been traced at various stages of the aid cycle – from aid commitment and disbursement to impact evaluation. Yet, development assistance programs provide not only financial resources...

Policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the US have largely treated natural gas as a clean fuel due to its lower dioxide-to-energy content than other fuels. However, recent local decarbonization initiatives seek to ban residential uses of natural gas. Public support for such policies will determine whether other localities adopt natural gas...

What effects do domestic and international policies have on household solid fuel consumption? Previous studies analyze some of the policies that national governments and international organizations have implemented to reduce solid fuel dependence, but these studies tend to examine one policy and/or one country at a time. In contrast, this article s...

Economic coercion is a threatened or actual imposition of economic costs on one state by another with the objective of extracting a policy concession. While the first wave of research on economic coercion focused primarily on its effectiveness, more recently scholars broadened the scope of inquiry to include states’ motivations for using economic c...

Natural disasters such as cyclones, droughts, earthquakes, floods, landslides, volcanoes, or pandemics routinely have cross-border implications. Transboundary risks of natural disasters tend to be the greatest for neighboring countries but often extend regionally or even globally. Even disasters with seemingly localized impacts contained within the...

This study examines the relationship between disaster risks and interstate conflict. We argue that in disaster-prone areas actors’ rational expectations about the likelihood and magnitude of potential future disasters can make conflict more likely. The relationship emerges when future disasters are viewed as shocks that are expected to shift the re...

Sanctions restrict or terminate economic relations between two or more countries, directly and negatively influencing sanctioned countries’ companies. We argue that sanctions are similar to recessions—both reduce economic activity in affected countries. Less economic activity results in a lower accident risk as companies use their productive facili...

Solid fuel combustion remains a dominant energy source for household heating and cooking in less developed countries. As a result, almost three billion people are exposed to household air pollution, causing four million premature deaths annually, primarily among poor women and children. We analyze data from Demographic and Health Surveys in 69 coun...

Economic sanctions research suggests that sanctioned countries’ overall economic costs tend to be low. This article argues that, despite this, sanction costs can force the governments of these countries to reallocate budget resources from low-priority spending categories to other categories in an effort to minimize their political costs. One such l...

Carbon sequestration through capture and storage in subsurface porous geologic formations is one of potential methods for mitigating the problem of climate change due to emission of anthropogenic CO2. In fact, in a world highly dependent on energy derived from hydrocarbons and coal, carbon capture and storage may represent the most promising approa...

Lead exposure is a legacy issue that continues to affect vulnerable population groups globally, but particularly in low and middle-income countries (LMICS). We take a multi-disciplinary approach to examine the patterns of lead exposure in these countries, discuss the underlying injustices and socio-political causes, and the economic costs that are...

Countries use economic sanctions as a way to force their opponents to make policy concessions. Such external pressure may, as the designers of sanctions often intend, affect the degree of domestic support for the target's political leaders. It may even threaten the leaders’ survival in office. We investigate how these dual pressures—preference for...

Although states rarely use economic sanctions specifically to combat transnational terrorism, potential targets of sanctions often face terrorist campaigns within their territory. States may avoid using sanctions against states with terrorists for fear of weakening target states excessively, thereby indirectly strengthening terrorist groups. Howeve...

Scholarship on informal politics in multilateral aid organizations investigates all stages of the allocation process - from project identification to aid disbursement and project evaluation. Yet, one area remains almost entirely overlooked in the literature - allocation of aid-financed contracts. This article aims to address the shortcoming of the...

Busted Sanctions: Explaining Why Economic Sanctions Fail. By Early Bryan R. . Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015. 288p. $29.95. - Volume 15 Issue 1 - Elena V. McLean

What are the determinants of public support for the government’s foreign policy? We shed light on this question using experiments investigating public support for economic sanctions. Our results suggest that humanitarian concerns are associated with individuals’ decisions to support the use of sanctions against a target country. We find that high l...

How does foreign aid affect government stability? Previous research presents mixed answers to this question. We start with the largely uncontroversial finding that donor interests are major determinants of aid allocation. Donors may use aid to support loyal government leaders; on the other hand, aid suspensions are a form of foreign economic pressu...

Although states rarely use economic sanctions specifically to combat transnational terrorism, potential targets of sanctions often face terrorist campaigns within their territory. States may avoid using sanctions against states with terrorists for fear of weakening target states excessively, thereby indirectly strengthening terrorist groups. Howeve...

What is the relationship between natural disasters and country size? Is an increasing likelihood of environmental shocks linked to political integration or secessionism? We argue that natural disasters are associated with a decline in country size. This relationship arises because costs generated by disasters are higher for citizens located farther...

Can economic sanctions combat transnational terrorism effectively? Policy makers argue that sanctions can deter state sponsorship but are counterproductive against hosts of transnational terrorists. However, recent cases indicate that governments are often uncertain if foreign states are truly sponsors versus hosts and cannot perfectly determine th...

Existing studies of foreign aid suggest that donor countries' economic groups, such as exporters, should be generally opposed to multilateral aid because multilateral flows do not allow donor countries to tie their aid implicitly or explicitly to the promotion of their domestic economic interests. However, economic groups can actually benefit from...

The politics of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol may suggest a two-level game; yet, our quantitative analysis shows that ratification constraints did not affect bargaining over the Protocol, nor did bargaining outcomes affect ratification. The politics of the Kyoto Protocol are best understood as an example of the ‘Europeanization’ of international pol...

The literature on economic sanctions has long studied sender countries’ policymaking as a simple choice between imposing sanctions to extract concessions from the targeted country and doing nothing. We depart from this simplifying assumption and analyze sanctions as a multi-faceted foreign policy instrument. We argue that senders design sanction po...

Over the past three decades multilateral financial aid has become an important institutional arrangement enabling environmental cooperation between developed and developing countries. However, previous research suggests that financial institutions are largely ineffective in achieving environmental goals. I show that financial assistance can be succ...

Legal reforms matter for economic growth and democratic consolidation. As part of the “second generation reforms,” international financial institutions have sought to build the rule of law by funding judicial and legal reform projects throughout the developing world. Yet, the general effects of international aid on legal reform and the rule of law...

This article explores when and why sanction threats succeed in extracting concessions from the targeted country. We focus on two different, albeit not mutually exclusive, mechanisms that can explain the success of sanction threats. The first mechanism relates to incomplete information regarding the sanctioner’s determination to impose sanctions and...

McLean, Elena V. (2012) Donors’ Preferences and Agent Choice: Delegation of European Development Aid. International Studies Quarterly, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00727.x © 2012 International Studies Association While delegation to international organizations has received substantial attention in the international relations literature, the issues...

The politics of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol may suggest a two-level game; yet, our quantitative analysis shows that ratification constraints did not affect bargaining over the Protocol, nor did bargaining outcomes affect ratification. The politics of the Kyoto Protocol are best understood as an example of the "Europeanization" of international pol...

What is the relationship between international cooperation and the success of economic sanctions? Although it is commonly assumed that international cooperation is an important condition for the effectiveness of sanctions, empirical results have been mixed. We focus on the role of the sanctioned country’s major trading partners and develop a theore...

Abstract will be provided by author.

International organizations that provide development assistance have long been pressured by donor nations to increase aid effectiveness. Conditionality serves as one important mechanism to increase the likelihood of success in implementing development programs financed by international organizations. However, two important aspects of aid conditiona...