Integrating Rule Takers: Transnational Integration Regimes Shaping Institutional Change in Emerging Market Democracies

by Kiel Downey | Jan 1, 2012 | Publication

How does the transnationalization of markets shape institution building, particularly in those countries that have few options other than to incorporate the rules and norms promulgated by advanced industrialized countries? Building on recent advances in international...

Testing the Effects of Independent Judiciaries on the Likelihood of Democratic Backsliding

by Kiel Downey | Jul 1, 2011 | Publication

http://people.cas.sc.edu/randazzo/gibler_randazzo_2011_ajps.pdf

Taking International Law at Its Word and Its Spirit: Re-Envisioning Responsibility to Protect as a Binding Principle of International Law

by Kiel Downey | Jan 1, 2011 | Publication

Sovereignty rests at the core of debates over the validity of humanitarian intervention in situations of grave crisis and loss of life. All too frequently, opponents of sovereignty use the concept to halt international action aimed at stopping or lessening human...

Lost in Doctrine: Particular Social Group, Child Soldiers and the Failure of US Asylum Law to Protect Exploited Children

by Kiel Downey | Jan 1, 2011 | Publication

Exploited and persecuted, child soldiers live lives dominated by violence, fear, and death. Very few will find security within their own nations or abroad. Subjected to exclusionary bars or rigid interpretations of the particular social group ground for asylum, U.S....

Procuring Meaningful Land Rights for the Women of Rwanda

by Kiel Downey | Jan 1, 2011 | Publication

Land reform and gender equality are important development issues in post-Genocide Rwanda. Beginning in 1999, the government of Rwanda passed and implemented reforms which granted women rights to own and use land on an equal status with men. However, as is expected...